Western Digital factory in Thailand flooded

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Ultimate Geek

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#539325 30-Oct-2011 18:52

I was lucky enough to grab a 2TB WD Green before news of the factory flooding broke. Right after one of my existing drives invoked planned obsolescence a couple of months after the warranty expired.

"I regret to say that we of the F.B.I. are powerless to act in cases of oral-genital intimacy, unless it has in some way obstructed interstate commerce." — J. Edgar Hoover

"Create a society that values material things above all else. Strip it of industry. Raise taxes for the poor and reduce them for the rich and for corporations. Prop up failed financial institutions with public money. Ask for more tax, while vastly reducing public services. Put adverts everywhere, regardless of people's ability to afford the things they advertise. Allow the cost of food and housing to eclipse people's ability to pay for them. Light blue touch paper." — Andrew Maxwell

kyhwana2

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#539326 30-Oct-2011 18:59

Note that some of the components for HDDs are made in thailand..

Lykho

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#539400 31-Oct-2011 00:35

do most people generally prefer WD to Samsung/Seagate? (last time I was in the market for a drive, I was lead the other direction)

...is it just another Intel vs AMD / Mac vs PC?

Niel

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#539404 31-Oct-2011 06:04

Seagate got a bad name when they moved to single/few platter drives and squeezed too much data into it. Drives dies prematurely. Then they fixed the issue. Series 11 is an example of a bad drive.

WD makes good consistent drives, and you can choose e.g. between a performance drive and a green drive. I was a big Samsung fan, but in the last 5 to 10 years they have commercialised too much and do not make top consumer products any more.

You can never have enough Volvos!

Niel

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#539405 31-Oct-2011 06:05

(or was it series 10 that was bad?)

You can never have enough Volvos!

Kraven

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#539406 31-Oct-2011 06:48

Niel: (or was it series 10 that was bad?)

IIRC it was .11 drives running the SD15 firmware.

Regarding the price rises, retailers have little choice unless they carry a lot of stock as the price increases have been driven by the distributors here in NZ (at least all of the ones I have checked!)

timmmay

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#539439 31-Oct-2011 09:37

Seagate had one firmware that caused problems a year or two ago. I don't think it was a physical problem, just software.

I've used Seagate drives for 5+ years, I haven't had one fail yet, but I tend to replace drives after 2-4 years as my storage needs increase. I consider them reliable.

I also have a WD Black drive that's a year old that works perfectly, and I just got a WD green drive last week.

I consider both Seagate and WD good brands. I buy whichever is faster, or cheaper, depending on my priorities at the time.

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wellygary

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#539441 31-Oct-2011 09:41

Device manufacturers beginning to pass on HDD component price increases

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2011/10/28/acer_price_hike/

Lykho

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Ultimate Geek

#539604 31-Oct-2011 15:21

Niel: Seagate got a bad name when they moved to single/few platter drives and squeezed too much data into it. Drives dies prematurely. Then they fixed the issue. Series 11 is an example of a bad drive.

is there a list of which products are which series? (both my main drives are Samsung -- a G3 Station and an HD154UI).

WD makes good consistent drives, and you can choose e.g. between a performance drive and a green drive

as I recall, I could have gotten a green drive from Samsung, but was convinced to opt for their spinpoint model.

timmmay

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#539606 31-Oct-2011 15:25

All modern Seagate and WD drives are fine. This was at least a year ago, they're long gone from sales channels. Google "seagate hard drive firmware problem" (or similar) to learn more.

I got a green drive for archiving, since performance isn't really important. Data transfer speed is still more than 100MB/sec. Formatting it took many hours, copying data to it even over USB 3.0 took in the order of 6-8 hours - i'm not sure how long as I ran it overnight.

Lykho

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#539614 31-Oct-2011 15:52

timmmay: All modern Seagate and WD drives are fine. This was at least a year ago, they're long gone from sales channels.

well, I have a Maxtor 500gb from a couple years ago. (...Maxtor became Seagate, Seagate now make drives for Samsung?) I don't know if maybe this one is one of the bad ones.

timmmay: I got a green drive for archiving, since performance isn't really important.

it is when your methods are as ridiculous as mine! (oh, and I only use USB2.0)
(I've yet to find a sync/backup program that will do what I want it to, so I often end up having hours and hours of transfers, deleting old backups in order to create the new backup with all the files organized in the current manner).
...but, I was under the impression that the green drives could run at 7200RPM, and only typically ran at 5400RPM, so the speed shouldn't be all that different, should it?)
http://www.pcworld.com/article/140982/green_hard_drive_loses_little_on_performance.html

timmmay

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#539615 31-Oct-2011 15:55

Like I said, google is your friend. I doubt your drive is affected.

I use Robocopy to mirror my drives, it's very flexible. I have around 8TB of data between my active files and my archived data. I have two offsite locations, and I keep my data (raw images, edited images, wedding album layouts) in multiple formats. My backup scheme is pretty rigorous.

Lykho

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#539619 31-Oct-2011 16:06

timmmay: I use Robocopy to mirror my drives, it's very flexible. .

cool, haven't heard of that one. will give it a go!

timmmay

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#539621 31-Oct-2011 16:07

There's also a gui for it, and synctoy is another option. You just have to be careful you don't mirror your mistakes to your backup drives.

Lykho

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#539626 31-Oct-2011 16:21

timmmay: There's also a gui for it, and synctoy is another option. You just have to be careful you don't mirror your mistakes to your backup drives.

I've tried SyncToy, but it annoyed me for a number of reasons. ...maybe I'll refresh my memory on it before I complain, though. (Robocopy looks a bit too L33t for me)

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