Anyone else having issues with WD Red Pro 20TB drives?

[zombiephysicist]

WD drives always let me down. The only drives I currently trust are the EXOS line from seagate, which are the current best IMO. And on the cheaper side the Toshiba enterprise is probably the best bang for buck.

WD ALWAYS, 100%, will let me down. It's shocking how many times I've tried them, like Charlie Brown trying to kick the ball with Lucy, and every single time without fail, they turn to crap.

I know some do well with them, but they art toxic crap with a bizzarly high catastrophic fail rate for me, something I do not experience in the exact same settings with the above 2 drive types.

 

[ken830]

WD drives always let me down. The only drives I currently trust are the EXOS line from seagate, which are the current best IMO. And on the cheaper side the Toshiba enterprise is probably the best bang for buck.

WD ALWAYS, 100%, will let me down. It's shocking how many times I've tried them, like Charlie Brown trying to kick the ball with Lucy, and every single time without fail, they turn to crap.

I know some do well with them, but they art toxic crap with a bizzarly high catastrophic fail rate for me, something I do not experience in the exact same settings with the above 2 drive types.

Everyone has HDD reliability stories and why they avoid/prefer certain brands, but that's all circumstantial evidence and luck/coincidence. Detailed and large-scale drive reliability statistics like those provided by BackBlaze do provide a glimpse of reality, which shows that every manufacturer has reliable drives and a few un-reliable ones (some infamously so, like the IBM "Deathstar"). I believe statistically, HGST drives have the best reliability in the industry over the last couple of decades. Today, all WD HDDs are technically HGST as the HGST team, facilities, processes were adopted and the legacy-WD HDD teams were mostly integrated and phased-out.

 

[zombiephysicist]

Everyone has HDD reliability stories and why they avoid/prefer certain brands, but that's all circumstantial evidence and luck/coincidence. Detailed and large-scale drive reliability statistics like those provided by BackBlaze do provide a glimpse of reality, which shows that every manufacturer has reliable drives and a few un-reliable ones (some infamously so, like the IBM "Deathstar"). I believe statistically, HGST drives have the best reliability in the industry over the last couple of decades. Today, all WD HDDs are technically HGST as the HGST team, facilities, processes were adopted and the legacy-WD HDD teams were mostly integrated and phased-out.

I just got an HGST drive a few months ago. Thinking maybe they would bring reliability to WD, but it went the other way around and it catastrophically failed in just a few months. WD is hot garbage toxic crap. Never say never, but will try very hard to never get another WD drive again.

I agree with you, you cant go by one Rando anecdotal tale of woe. For me, it's beyond a statistical anomaly. That said, I applaud your statistical data driven process, and agree it is the right path to making a decision.

That said, there is something to be said about anecdotal evidence. For many recommendations in life, like picking a good mechanic, or doctor, or even a good car or computer, I like to find people who's opinion I trust as having great acumen in the area, and going with their recommendations. I have statistically done better with such high expertise recommendations. Obviously that is its own anomaly, but one I cannot ignore.

Nor can I ignore my basically near 100% history of WD being pure hot garbage. I'm very happy if I'm a statistical outlier, and dearly hope that is the case, and that others do better. But I can no longer ignore my own horrendous experience with the drives. Sometimes you should just believe what your own eye see.

WD is dead to me in more ways than their drives' performance.

Hopefully, YMMV.

 

[ken830]

I just got an HGST drive a few months ago. Thinking maybe they would bring reliability to WD, but it went the other way around and it catastrophically failed in just a few months. WD is hot garbage toxic crap. Never say never, but will try very hard to never get another WD drive again.

I agree with you, you cant go by one Rando anecdotal tale of woe. For me, it's beyond a statistical anomaly. That said, I applaud your statistical data driven process, and agree it is the right path to making a decision.

That said, there is something to be said about anecdotal evidence. For many recommendations in life, like picking a good mechanic, or doctor, or even a good car or computer, I like to find people who's opinion I trust as having great acumen in the area, and going with their recommendations. I have statistically done better with such high expertise recommendations. Obviously that is its own anomaly, but one I cannot ignore.

Nor can I ignore my basically near 100% history of WD being pure hot garbage. I'm very happy if I'm a statistical outlier, and dearly hope that is the case, and that others do better. But I can no longer ignore my own horrendous experience with the drives. Sometimes you should just believe what your own eye see.

WD is dead to me in more ways than their drives' performance.

Hopefully, YMMV.

How the heck did you buy an HGST drive a few months ago? It's either used or extremely old stock. What model/capacity?

I'm not trying to convince you. Just curious.

 

[zombiephysicist]

Amazon.com

This drive, which I believe is the remnants of HGST

 

[ken830]

Amazon.com

This drive, which I believe is the remnants of HGST

Exactly what I'm saying... That is a WD-branded drive. But all WD drives, regardless if they are labeled Red/Green/Blue/Purple/Gold/Black/Ulrastar/etc... are "remnants" of HGST, because the entire legacy-WD HDD line-up and process and teams were phased out nearly 10 years ago when they adopted the legacy-HGST products and processes.

This 22TB Ultrastar and the 22TB Red Pro are two SKUs from the same program. Sorry you had bad luck with them... Hope I have better luck.

 

[Birdy]

HGST - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Coop777]

The WD (formerly HGST) Ultrastar drives have been very stable for me. HGST was acquired by WD in 2018. I do not know what happened to the Deskstar drive line, but as far as I know, the Ultrastar drive line was kept intact with no changes, it was simply rebranded.

 

[Birdy]

Read Wiki.

 

[ken830]

The WD (formerly HGST) Ultrastar drives have been very stable for me. HGST was acquired by WD in 2018. I do not know what happened to the Deskstar drive line, but as far as I know, the Ultrastar drive line was kept intact with no changes, it was simply rebranded.

Yeah, it's in the Wiki... 2012 was the acquisition, but they kept independence for a few years, waiting for the Chinese authorities to give the okay. After integration, HGST's product lines mostly remained intact while the WD products were discontinued or replaced with HGST's... And branding eventually all switched over to WD.

 

[Telos]

Read Wiki.

...

 

[Birdy]

 

[zombiephysicist]

Well the ultra star is poop in my book. It started having spin up problems after just a few weeks.

Toshiba's cheap enterprise drives far more solid for me. And EXOS is still the gold standard IMO.

 

[Coop777]

Well the ultra star is poop in my book. It started having spin up problems after just a few weeks.

Toshiba's cheap enterprise drives far more solid for me. And EXOS is still the gold standard IMO.

I admit I'm surprised...I've been running on both desktars and Ultrastars since 2010 and they have been rock. (knock on wood...) What was the model that failed?

 

[zombiephysicist]

I have the link above, and here it is again:

Amazon.com

22tb model.

I'm very glad to hear it's working for you, and hopefully most others. Maybe I just got an odd lemon.

 

[zombiephysicist]

Backblaze Releases Q2 2024 Drive Stats Report

Backblaze has released its Q2 2024 Drive Stats report, which presents a thorough analysis…

www.storagereview.com

A recent drive stat article. Thought it might be of interest.

 

[Shoukaku]

Enduring same problem here, but with DS923+ bought in June and 3 bays of brand new WD HC560 (WUH722020BLE6L4, 20TB) forming SHR-1, I think those drives are not much different with Red Pro ones under the hood.
Same situation happens in the first week I got my hardware. These drives become 'critical' again from random slot in less than one week whenever the pool was repaired.

All drives have been tested for at least two times in extended or full test, and nothing wrong was found by the time. I was suspecting the SATA motherboard or controllers may be damaged and currently calling for an official examination from Synology, just have returned my NAS back to my local business agent.

Glad to see your problem was solved after substituting with Seagate EXOS, so this can be a certain compatibility problem. Maybe I would try these drives too once I got my NAS back.

 

[Birdy]

I think those drives are not much different with Red Pro ones under the hood.

Well it's a different HDD, it's an Ultrastar (was from HGST and one of the best HDD's.

 

[Shoukaku]

Well it's a different HDD, it's an Ultrastar (was from HGST and one of the best HDD's.

I'm not saying they are same products, I mean they are not that much different from a perspective of specs, like comparing IronWolf, SkyHawk and EXOS.
Though HC560 is designed for corps, the drives still 'fails', i mean may be not compatible with the hardware, on my NAS.

Anyway, I suppose I will give Seagate a shot, but have to wait for few weeks for RMA before that.

 

[Coop777]

Enduring same problem here, but with DS923+ bought in June and 3 bays of brand new WD HC560 (WUH722020BLE6L4, 20TB) forming SHR-1, I think those drives are not much different with Red Pro ones under the hood.
Same situation happens in the first week I got my hardware. These drives become 'critical' again from random slot in less than one week whenever the pool was repaired.

All drives have been tested for at least two times in extended or full test, and nothing wrong was found by the time. I was suspecting the SATA motherboard or controllers may be damaged and currently calling for an official examination from Synology, just have returned my NAS back to my local business agent.

Glad to see your problem was solved after substituting with Seagate EXOS, so this can be a certain compatibility problem. Maybe I would try these drives too once I got my NAS back.

They are definitely different. The Ultrastar driveline was acquired when WD bought out HGST and simply rebranded. The pro is their own manufactured product. I am curious..what supplier did you purchase the drive from? I assume it is boxed retail? Not refurbed or specially flashed firmware?