My WD Black 1.5TB died a week ago. I got a WD Black 2TB as replacement. I have done entensive test on the drive before installing OS since I dont wanna lose data again. The 2TB checked out both quick test and extended test with WD Data Lifeguard DOS V5.19. However, after I install Windows 7 I found that my RAW Read Errors in the SMART are really high. They were 107 right after fresh install. This morning they turned in 110.
Is this something I should be worried about? I would hate to RMA another WD drive. If this one goes bad, I will switch to Seagate for sure.
After my last WD drive failed I have rechecked EVERYTHING. I went to newegg and bought brand new SATA cable. Using different SATA port and power connector.
I took my PC apart and cleaned it completely so there should be no trace of ANY dirt inside my case now.
And as I am typing, the RAW Read Error Count has increased to 111.
Good thing is I am holding off installing software on the drive. I am not going to install ANYTHING unless I am 200% sure this drive is safe.
To be honest, WD quality control is starting to ā ā ā ā me off. First one died in exactly one year and three months. Now this RMAed one has this situation going on.
well like i said its *most likely a connection problem and if not my guess is there is a problem with the drive.
but iām curious where are you getting these smart values from ?
and do you have cables that have two small bumps or similar so they click into place ?
using those may help or make things worse. i had to pry off the metal retention clip thing
on on of my sata cables before it would go in far enough, when i did that it pretty much cleared up the issue.
my motherboard has crappy connectors on the board itself and its really easy to get a bad connection with them because of how tight and short the connector hole is on the ports.
my point is here is there are different cables that are made totaly different so if there was some that
are different that you can borrow from another pc for testing i would do itā¦
bear in mind its just mass produced plastic with a few strips of metal so sometimes they arnāt perfect.
i have some cables black sata that are the same but one of them had shorter metal strips insideā¦
Iād hate to think someone RMAād their drive when they didnāt have to so iām trying to suggest being as thorough as possible for YOUR sake not WDās. I feel for ya that is REALLY frustrating so i wish you luck
But iām sure most people here would agree with cause (connection issue) but to be thorough i am curious can you look in the windows event viewer and see any messages related to your hard drive for the warning or errror categories ?
Also do you have a SATA onboard nvidia controller ?
Also you only mentioned that one smart value, are you getting any other smart values that look bad ?
Are you sure ALL the data on your drive is good ? Have you run chkdsk to scan your partitions ?
I have tried multiple sata cablesāwith clips and without; has 90 degree bent and straight.Ā I have tried SATA port from 1 to 6. My system configuration is as below:
Intel QX9650 @ 4GHz
ASUS Maximus Formula. X38 with ICH9R. In BIOS SATA set as AHCI
WD Black 2TB 2002FAEX-007BA0
Radeon 5870
GSkill DDR2-1066 8GB
Windows 7 Professional SP1 with all patches
All Intel Drivers, including the Instel Rapid Storage Technology
I have tried the following: AIDA64 2.7,Ā HDTune 5.0, WD Data Lifeguard
All three SMART statues report Raw Read Error Rate 117(yep, increased from yesterday)
Benchmark shows my WD Black 2TB is considerably slower than most online reviews. For example, My CrystalDiskMark benched at 500MB is 132MB/s Read and 127MB/s write.Ā All online review shows this drive SHOULD be around 143MB/s Read and 135MB/s write. I dont know what is wrong with it.
I am not getting any other warnings besides the RAW Read Error Rate. All other major problem indicators remained at 0.(Relocatted sector, Current Pending Sector and Uncorrectable Sector Count)
Judging from the condition of the HDD I suspect this is a refurbished drive. Only this can explain the high RAW Read Error Rate and the low performance. For comparision, my RMAed Black 1.5TB performs better than this Black 2TB using the same system.
So far I will install software on this. We will see how long it goes. If it fails again within a year, I am sure WD will get a knock on the door from BBB. And plus I will be suggest against WD every oppunity I have.
well that was a solid reply but you never did say wether there is any messages in the windows event viewerā¦
because if that value is adding up gradually i would be very surprised there was no messages about some kind of transfer error in the event viewer, which could lead you to some other things you might be able to test etc
if nothing is in there about your disk or the controller itself i would not know what to suggest at this point.
and yeah if i was in your shoes i would choked too so sorry to hear about your problemsā¦ thats really crappy !
edit:
also if your interested i can shut off anything iām running and turn on HDTune on my computer and benchmark my 1TB Black drive i got from an RMA Recently and post the picture results ?
I only have it running on a SATA II controller thoughā¦
I checked my Event view log, I cannot see any warning messages concerning I/O transfer.Ā And the RRE value just went over 122. At this rate, it will hit the threshold of 200 in a week or two.
That will be very kind of you to take a snap shot of the benchmark. I believe all WD Black drives still implement the 500GB platter tech so far. So if your drive performs better it will definitely be that my drive is not in shape.
I posted my benchmark picture in here already a few weeks ago i think it was.
but iāll post it againā¦ i tend to save the pictures. I have some from my WD Green 1TB and a Maxtor ATA drive and a USB drive most of them idle and full cpu load.
i only tested the black drive on idle though (Win 7 X64)
Its not a fair benchmark unless you kill as much **bleep** as possible, so many variables etcā¦
Iād post a pic of the Green drive but i did RMA the drive for a couple reasons so i donāt know if there is any point in thatā¦
Lastly about the event viewerā¦ did you look by category ? the view where it shows you each one and a column where it says, last hr, last 24hrs, last week, etc
Because i usually look at that view the most and then expand the category iām interested from there.
I was curious of you found any under warning or error with the title ādiskā
You say you already looked so i 'll take your word for it but iām surprised you never seen anything.
Sorry not sure what else to suggestā¦ Iām experienced and knowledgable but not an expert.
Maybe contact tech support at WD and ask them what they think ?
edit:
Also i think its obvious there is problems if your benchmark is spiking down to zero read a lot
i have pics of my green drive doing that and when it did read as slow as 0 i would also see messages at the same time in my event viewer mentioning a controller error etc
OK so I called WDās customer support. They transferred me to one of their engineers(pretty cool here, actually someone with the knowledge to answer my question). And here is his explanation:
āThe raw values of the RRER attributes represent a sector count , not an error count. This figure rolls over to 0 once the count reaches about 250 million.ā
āAll modern HDD have the same RRER problem, the larger the disk, the more RRER value you will get. Meanwhile, the more you store on your HDD, the higher the value goes.ā
To summarize it up. The disk is completely fine with the RRER value increasing. It is perfectly safe.
Another thing, I suspect my drive maybe low in benchmarks, turns out it is a simple statistical model problem. There is an average, so there will always be individuals fall on the short end. Looks like mine is on the short end but still within tolerable range.
I will take his word for now. He is the one who participates in designing HDDs anyway.
According to WDās published specifications, the WD2002FAEX has a maximum sustained data transfer rate of 138 MB/s while the WD5002AALX is rated for 126 MB/s and the WD5003AZEX is rated for 150MB/s.
The slower drive has 500GB per platter technology whereas the WD2002FAEX appears to use short stroked 600GB platters.
Comparing the transfer rates, we have ā¦
(138 / 126)^2 x 500GB = 600GB
A fully stroked drive will have a ratio of 2:1 between the max/min transfer rates, whereas a short stroked 600GB platter would have a ratio that is signficantly less than this, probably 1.7. You should see this on your HD Tune read benchmark graph.
The WD5003AZEX in the datasheet is benchmarking like a drive with a single short stroked 700GB platter:
As for the Raw Read Error Rate threshold of 200 (I suspect that it is actually 51, not 200), you appear to be confusing normalised values with raw values. Normalised values are āhealthā scores whereas raw values usually reflect an actual error count. For example, you might find that the normalised value might only drop 1 point (from 200 to 199) when the raw value rises to 1000, say.
BTW, the following statement is quoted from my article:
āThe raw values of the RRER attributes represent a sector count, not an error count. This figure rolls over to 0 once the count reaches about 250 million.ā
Unfortunately it applies to Seagateās drives, not WDās. :-)))
āThe raw values of the RRER and HER attributes represent a sector count, not an error count. This figure rolls over to 0 once the count reaches about 250 million.ā
The WD engineerās statement is identical except that he deleted the words āand HERā (he also did not correct the resulting grammatical error). This begs the following questions, why is a WD design engineer quoting from an unofficial article written by a Seagate user? Donāt WD engineers have access to WDās own internal technical documentation? Are WDās engineers not aware that Seagateās and WDās SMART attributes are completely different?
Furthermore, it is obvious that the raw value of WDās RRER attribute is not a sector count. Your first post began with a raw RRER value of 107, and now the figure is 122. During this time you ran a HD Tune read benchmark. Are we to believe that all this activity resulted in only 15 reads?
Something is not right. I think you need to ask some more questions.
ID Current Worst ThresholdData Status
(01) Raw Read Error Rate 195 195 51 22264 ok
(03) Spin Up Time 126 126 21 6658 ok
(04) Start/Stop Count 100 100 0 369 ok
(05) Reallocated Sector Count 200 200 140 0 ok
(07) Seek Error Rate 100 253 0 0 ok
(09) Power On Hours Count 83 83 0 12679 ok
(0A) Spin Retry Count 100 100 0 0 ok
(0B) Calibration Retry Count 100 100 0 0 ok
(0C) Power Cycle Count 100 100 0 316 ok
(C0) Unsafe Shutdown Count 200 200 0 233 ok
(C1) Load Cycle Count 200 200 0 518 ok
(C2) Temperature 117 101 0 30 ok
(C4) Reallocated Event Count 200 200 0 0 ok
(C5) Current Pending Sector 200 200 0 17 warning
(C6) Offline Uncorrectable 200 200 0 0 ok
(C7) Ultra DMA CRC Error Count 200 200 0 0 ok
(C8) Write Error Rate 200 200 0 0 ok
Health Status : warning
I RMA the drive because of connection issues at bios, performance issues (drive freezing) and weak/pending sector issues that would not get remapped. and data corruption issuesā¦ it was a train wreck of BS since i took it out of the package on day one ! I assumed it would run but it took hours for me to notice and then try and trouble shoot whey it was randomly not seen in the bios at all. Eventually i just got tired of screwing with it and since i rarely reboot i left the problem until it got bad enough that i came hereā¦ i brough this up because they have faulty drives and there is NO doubt about that.
And if you have exhausted all connection related ideas and that value still increases then i would contact tech support and TELL them you want a new drive because this is bull**bleep** !
I know for a fact that value increases under atleast one confirmed circumstanceā¦ bad cables etc
If it happens because of other reasons iām not so sure or how technicaly but if the device is faulty then i could see that being ANOTHER reason for the value to do that.
I think that excuse is pure bs !
And if that is the drive they mailed you from an RMA then get on the horn and tell this is unacceptable period. Itās one thing to have poor quality products but to send someone a new drive that is faulty also and then give them bs on the phone about it is unacceptable !
And this is NO one time occurence either go read the feedback at newegg for black drives lol
MANY people have bought these and had do an endless stream of rmaās. Seriously read teh feedback hereā¦
Thank you all for your reply! I also found the āengineerā is kinda sketchy. I googled the statement he gave me and guess what? Found it out right on search results.
I am more that pissed off right now. First the poor quality, then this BS with their tech support department.
I am posting up this screenshot about the current value. Should I yell at WD customer support about this?
And I am 100% sure that the drive passed both short and extened WD Data Lifeguard Diagnoistics for DOS. This value just keeps increasing. What should I do?
I have already installed software on this drive. I have spent 3 weeks on this F*UCKING issue already and lost quite some business due to the shi*tty quality of WDās drive.
If there is ONE WD employee on the forum, please let me know how do you think about this situation.
@xkm121, I fully understand your frustration. However, even though your support contact appears to have treated you rather shabbily, I would instead direct my displeasure several levels further up the food chain. Thatās where all the inane support decisions are made.
Ask yourself, why did your support contact need to resort to researching the Internet for an answer to your problem? Why did he not just access WDās internal technical documentation via WDās own Intranet? Is it because WD does not provide technical documentation to their own support staff?
Many years ago I worked in tech support for a US computer company. This company manufactured its own hardware and software (yes, it was very long ago). I had access to all the circuit diagrams and technical manuals, some of which were the size of phone books. At a senior level, I also had access to source code. Nowadays the industry is highly competitive. Margins are razor thin, and intellectual property is fiercely guarded. Therefore I wouldnāt be surprised if WDās helpdesk staff are not privy to the same technical data that was available to us in my day.
In fact WDās publicly available technical documentation is laughable. With the possible exception of Toshiba, WD is probably the worst of the HDD manufacturers in this regard. Ironically, Hitachi, now a WD subsidiary, is probably the best, at least until WD takes full control. Then Hitachiās technical database will probably vanish from the Internet. In fact thatās what happened when WD acquired SiliconSystems. Until WDās acquisition, SiliconSystemsā technical datasheets were available to the general public. Nowadays they are only available to WDās āSolid State Storage Partnersā. Perhaps if WDās helpdesk staff could be elevated to āpartnerā status, then they could avail themselves of the same information that is available to WDās special friends.
All I see are skimpy brochures, spec sheets and marketing pap, no product manuals or anything of a substantial nature. Itās no wonder that your support contact wasnāt able to help you.
As for your SMART data, it does seem that the RRER attribute is related to your recent pending sectors. However, it is evident that WD doesnāt see the raw value of the RRER to be of serious concern. I say this because, if you examine the SMART data posted by āWD10EARSā, you will note that after 22264 counts the normalised value has fallen by only 5 points, from 200 to 195. If we assume a linear relationship, then it would appear that each point represents approximately 4000 counts. Therefore, in order for the normalised value to hit the threshold of 51, the drive would need to record about 600,000 counts. In other words, a drive with 0.6 million counts (errors ?) would still be passed by Data LifeGuard.
i was getting massive errors in the event viewer when those RRERās were happening
and that was causing the machine to freeze all the time watching a video and it would stall out etc
and benchmarking the drive made it do th exact same thingā¦ and i too had my drive for the same amount of time and it rapidly got worse real fastā¦ the current pending sector count combined with data corruption started spiralling out of control and i lost a fair amount of dataā¦ although iām not sure this guy has detection issues on startup with teh motherboard like i did the whole time.
So my point is the link i posted shows that WD considers that smart value as under warranty as well as others i had problems with and now this guy does too. I also bet his drive is gonna get WAY worse REAL fast.
I didnāt even wanna RMA my drive because i seen how many people went through what this guy is going through now. which is why i waited so long to do something about itā¦ why RMA a drive if your gonna get another bad drive sent to you and does sending in your new retail drive for a refurb sound good ? lol
I be they turn em on and do a quick test (like we do at home basicly) and then go āoh i donāt see a problemā and proceed to give it the next guy who does an RMA.
Oh and i almost forgot my old drive DID get a failure code on DLGDiag for DOS too.
Having a failure rate of drives shipped to customers like what is happening here is simply insane !
That one guy had to get 11 drives to get the 5 he wanted ? Seriously ? And read that link and you will see this has happened a LOT and then read the OTHER hard drive links on newegg ā¦same **bleep**.
and THEN
when these people RMA their drive they get ANOTHER bad drive too ?
No bloody way ! That is is just mind shatteringly insane !
Imagine if Intel shipped CPUās with a failure rate that high and then a failure rate of the RMA refurb products tooā¦ They would be out of business !
If it wasnāt for the fact the WDās prices are so cheap and we have little alternatives this company would be big trouble !
I kept looking at feedback before i bought my green drive and figured i had a 50/50 chance of having problems and i was rightā¦ but had no choice.
Anyway i had a mod or admin here send me to a user called TechSupport (Sam) and that person helped me really well so i suggest you do that too and tell them your situation etc.
And personally after what you have gone though i think they should send you back 2 drives now just for trouble !
You can only blame the manufacterers is Malaysia or where ever so much before you have to take responsibility for the products you sell.
