Hard Drive Warranty Stories

[archedraft]

I have been reading around the forums and noticed that the question "My hard drive is still under warranty should I replace it?" has never really been answered. I also saw it stated that 1 in every 5 new hard drives has errors. Has anyone ever used their hard drive warranty and how was your experience? Did the hard drive have to have a certain amount of bad sectors for the warranty to honored?

[garycase]

Two notes:

 

(1)  When you first get a drive, you should THOROUGHLY test it.  I use Western Digital's Data Lifeguard and do (a) a Quick Test;  (b) an Extended Test; © write zeroes to the full disk; and then (d) repeat the Quick and Extended tests.    If there are ANY errors, I RMA the drive and get a new one.  Most suppliers (e.g. Newegg) will do this for 30 days  ... after that you have to use the manufacturer's warranty and deal with them.

 

For a disk you're going to use in UnRAID, you also want to run Joe L's excellent Pre-Clear script -- this very thoroughly tests the disk.    As with the above, if there are ANY errors shown in Pre-Clear, I RMA the drive.

 

I've never had an issue with Newegg on an RMA ... if you say you need to replace the drive; they replace it.  But note this is only for the first 30 days.

 

While it's true that the defect rate seems way too high for hard drives, my experience has been that these are almost always "infant mortality" issues that will be caught by this testing.    Once a drive passes these tests, it tends to be VERY reliable.

 

 

(2)  Beyond the initial period, you need to use the manufacturer's warranty.    I've had experience with several of these -- WD, Seagate, Samsung, and Hitachi -- and they all work pretty much the same.    You simply create an RMA on their website;  send the drive to the specified address; and they send you a replacement (generally this is NOT a new drive -- it will be a refurbished unit with a warranty through the end of your original drive's warranty period).    What they DO want you to do is run the manufacturer's diagnostics on it, and note the errors that it finds (I always just print a copy of the diagnostics results).    I've never had a problem with the manufacturer honoring the warranty -- they simply send you a replacement when they receive your drive.   

 

There's also an option (I've used this with both WD and Seagate) for "advance replacement", whereby they'll send you a drive before they get yours.    Essentially they charge you for the drive;  then credit it back when they receive the one you're sending in.

 

Of course the drive replacement does NOT include any data recovery -- so you'll lose all data that was on the drive if you don't have a backup.

 

[mr.sparkle]

What if unraid drops the drive but it still passes the manufacturer's diagnostic software? Then what?

[StevenD]

For me, it depends on what might have been on the drive.  Im not willing to send in a drive that had some personal data on it.

[archedraft]

Hmm that's a good point. Another hypothetical question: If you bought a new hard drive that passed all the tests but had a few Relocated Sectors, would you send it back to Newegg or just watch it for a few months and if I gets worse send it back to the manufacture?

[steini84]

I rma as soon as i see some problems.. I would not trust the drive after some failures and would always have a bad feeling at the back of my mind

[mrow]

Off topic but to the OP: can you shrink your user icon? It's 400KB.

[garycase]

What if unraid drops the drive but it still passes the manufacturer's diagnostic software? Then what?

 

I've seen UnRAID drop a drive that would work fine if the cables were re-seated, so that's the first thing I'd try.    If it still fails, then send it in -- as I noted above, I've never had a manufacturer fail to simply replace a drive that I've returned, even if I didn't have a failed diagnostic test to send along with it (although I ALMOST always do).

 

[garycase]

Hmm that's a good point. Another hypothetical question: If you bought a new hard drive that passed all the tests but had a few Relocated Sectors, would you send it back to Newegg or just watch it for a few months and if I gets worse send it back to the manufacture?

 

If a new drive has ANY relocated sectors, I RMA it and get another one.  But once it's past the 30-day period where I can do that, I simply use it ... that is, after all, why there are spare sectors on the drive 

 

Note that while I HAVE returned a drive for warranty replacement that didn't actually fail the manufacturer's tests (when it failed an UnRAID Pre-Clear), and didn't get any hassle from the manufacturer (WD in this case), the manufacturers DO all have language in their warranties that retain the right to return a drive that has no problems and charge you for the shipping costs.    I've never had it happen -- but it could.    But I do NOT return a drive "just because" it has relocated sectors -- as long as it's working well, I just use it.    I do sometimes relegate those drives to my static backups [i.e. drives I only use to backup static data from UnRAID that, once filled, are stored in DriveBoxes and not actively used -- so they're VERY unlikely to develop any more bad areas].

 

[garycase]

... Im not willing to send in a drive that had some personal data on it.

 

Obviously that's a personal choice.  If the drive's "bad", but writeable (i.e. has some bad sectors, but generally writeable), you could wipe it with the manufacturer's "write zeroes" utility and/or a utility like DBan;  but if it's simply failed, then you need to decide if a replacement is worth the (small) risk of data access by unauthorized folks at the warranty repair location.

 

But it's also true that hard drives are so inexpensive these days [my first hard drive held 26MB and cost $4500 ... so today's drives seem nearly "free"  ]  that simply physically destroying them and buying a new one is an option that doesn't cost a lot more than the price of returning them for warranty replacement.

 

[Automatic]

... Im not willing to send in a drive that had some personal data on it.

 

Obviously that's a personal choice.  If the drive's "bad", but writeable (i.e. has some bad sectors, but generally writeable), you could wipe it with the manufacturer's "write zeroes" utility and/or a utility like DBan;  but if it's simply failed, then you need to decide if a replacement is worth the (small) risk of data access by unauthorized folks at the warranty repair location.

 

But it's also true that hard drives are so inexpensive these days [my first hard drive held 26MB and cost $4500 ... so today's drives seem nearly "free"  ]  that simply physically destroying them and buying a new one is an option that doesn't cost a lot more than the price of returning them for warranty replacement.

 

Wasn't there a story in some tech-news about someone who received a refurbished drive from Western Digital that had someone's full XP set up on it? With all their personal photos & documents?

[archedraft]

Off topic but to the OP: can you shrink your user icon? It's 400KB.

 

Of course. It is now 40KB.

[Automatic]

Off topic but to the OP: can you shrink your user icon? It's 400KB.

 

That's honestly not much, also, your browser will more than likely cache it, thus you won't have to redownload it.

 

If you ever browse reddit/4chan/imgur/anyOtherImageBoard, you'll start seeing gifs that are 30+MB.

[MSattler]

I have been reading around the forums and noticed that the question "My hard drive is still under warranty should I replace it?" has never really been answered. I also saw it stated that 1 in every 5 new hard drives has errors. Has anyone ever used their hard drive warranty and how was your experience? Did the hard drive have to have a certain amount of bad sectors for the warranty to honored?

 

So, I just recently had 6 drives near their RMA Warranty period and all were Seagate drives.  While 4 of them failed the Seagate software, 2 of them passed.  Those 2 still had a growing number of Reallocated sectors, and I simply RMA'd those drives as well.  All 6 drives were replaced with refurbished drives.  Interestingly enough those drives all came with 12 month warranties, despite the fact the original drives only had about 6 weeks of warranty left.  Of the six another died within a month, and I RMA'd it, and received another refurbished drive with 12 months of warranty that has so far been running fine.

 

All in all, not bad since these drives were still  from back a few years when Seagate drives had 5 year warranties.  In all, it appears as long as the failure happens before the end of the warranty, Seagate will continue to honor the warranty.  The only thing you are out is the cost of shipping.

 

-Marcus

[PeterB]

The only thing you are out is the cost of shipping.

... which could be put towards a newer, larger, faster drive!

[archedraft]

The only thing you are out is the cost of shipping.

... which could be put towards a newer, larger, faster drive!

 

I thought getting a faster drive didn't help much in an unRAID setting?

[garycase]

True ... so I'll rephrase it:  All of which could be put towards a new, LARGER drive 

[archedraft]

True ... so I'll rephrase it:  All of which could be put towards a new, LARGER drive 

 

OK that's what I thought but I figured I better check! Thanks

[PeterB]

I thought getting a faster drive didn't help much in an unRAID setting?

 

Why not?

 

It's true that parity check/build speeds are constrained by the speed of your slowest drive, but if that five year old drive is the slowest in the array, then replacing it with a faster drive should yield some benefits.  In any case, for ordinary reads, the speed of the single drive is still the determining factor, up to the limit imposed by your network connection.

[garycase]

True that a faster drive will improve read performance FOR THAT DRIVE ... but it has very little impact on write speeds or parity check speeds.

 

I suspect that the read speeds of ANY modern drive are plenty fast for most UnRAID applications => it's clearly the write speed (limited by the need to do 2 reads and 2 writes for every "write" operation) that most folks would like to see faster (thus the popularity of using a cache drive).

 

[garycase]

... by the way, I think parity check speeds are limited much more by having mixed size drives than whether the drives are "green" (5400/5900) or higher speed 7200rpm drives.    The significant slowdown as a drive reaches the inner cylinders is much worse than a slightly slower rotational speed ... and if your system "hits" that slowdown multiple times, it can make a very significant impact on parity calculation times.

 

i.e. I think a system with 10 green drives would easily do a parity check faster than one with 10 7200 rpm drives consisting of a pair each of 500GB, 750GB, 1TB, 1.5TB, and 2TB drives.  [Not a very realistic mix, but it IS common to have perhaps 3 different sizes.]

 

 

[PeterB]

I suspect that the read speeds of ANY modern drive are plenty fast for most UnRAID applications ...

 

but I thought we were talking about warranty replacements of five year old drives - that isn't modern!  I know that my EARS drives are faster than my EADS drive - there's less than five years between those.

[garycase]

 

but I thought we were talking about warranty replacements of five year old drives - that isn't modern!  I know that my EARS drives are faster than my EADS drive - there's less than five years between those.

 

... the question was about drive warranties -- which except for a few Seagates clearly doesn't relate to 5-year old drives.    In most cases, "warranty" means the drive is no more than 2 years old (3 in some cases).

True the drives MSattler referenced were older Seagates with 5-yr warranties; but no recent drive (except Enterprise class units) has this kind of warranty.    Most drives still under warranty are < 2 years old.

 

[JonathanM]

but no recent drive (except Enterprise class units) has this kind of warranty.    Most drives still under warranty are < 2 years old.

I wouldn't call WD Black enterprise class. They still carry 5 year warranty.

[garycase]

but no recent drive (except Enterprise class units) has this kind of warranty.    Most drives still under warranty are < 2 years old.

I wouldn't call WD Black enterprise class. They still carry 5 year warranty.

 

Noted.    Same is true of the VelociRaptor units