newegg "WL" drives

Krispy Kritter

Krispy Kritter

Gawd
Joined
Feb 13, 2003
Messages
655
I gather "WL" means White Label. Lately there are numerous drives available at newegg with this brand. Has anyone used any of these drives or have any other first hand experience with them?

The few that I looked at have good reviews.

I ordered a 6TB model and I should have time to get it installed and tested this weekend. Just wondering if anyone else (here) has used them as well.
 
Wondered the same myself. Did you get the drive installed over the weekend and what are you thoughts?
 
Usually white label refers to bulk-packaged (10/50/100/1000) drives that were intended for sale to system builders/repair centers (other than mainstream OEM'S), and are priced accordingly but do not come with any type of retail packaging, instructions, cables , screws etc...

Most of them are otherwise the same as retail-boxed drives.
 
I had a "WL" drive back in the day. It lasted about 6 months before it completely died.
 
I would steer clear not because of drive quality but because of NewEgg's shipping quality pertaining to these drives. I've more or less stopped ordering HDD's from them due to an abnormally high failure rate I've had. Out of about 30 drives I've purchased over the last 3 or 4 years. 12 have failed. Of those 12, 11 were ordered from NewEgg (brands from Hitachi to Seagate to Western Digital). Might be something with the packing or shipping but I gave up trying.
 
cyclone3d said:
I had a "WL" drive back in the day. It lasted about 6 months before it completely died.
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Any drive you buy can die from the second it gets in your hands to its 5 year expected lifetime and beyond. Although that is one reason why I would stay away from WL drives since they typically don't have a 3 year warranty.
 
drescherjm said:
Any drive you buy can die from the second it gets in your hands to its 5 year expected lifetime and beyond. Although that is one reason why I would stay away from WL drives since they typically don't have a 3 year warranty.
Click to expand...

From what I have seen of other WL drives, they have the actual mfg sticker removed and some super generic label on them.

I am guessing that a lot, if not all, of them are drives that did not pass testing at the mfg plant and were supposed to be destroyed/recycled/whatever, and instead were grabbed before that could happen to by sold by 3rd party scam sellers.

ALL of the drives I have seen from OEM builders (Dell, Toshiba, Lenovo, HP, etc) have always had brand name drives in them, which also makes me think even more that these WL drives are very shady. I tried one once and got burned. Never again.

I have worked on thousands of laptops and desktops, so I am not just coming from a point of view from working on one every once in a while.
 
Yes, the drive does have a plain label.

It's not shipped by "newegg", it's from a secondary vendor. Newegg has gone the route of Amazon, where you have to watch if newegg/Amazon are actually supplying/shipping the hardware. In many cases, it's an affiliate, as was the case with this drive.

The drive only has a 1 year warranty, but assuming it passes testing, that shouldn't be an issue.
 
I have been running the 4TB drives for some time now. Most of them look like WD SE and RE drives. I have 4 with 15670 hours no issues with the drives so far, I have 8 in total now. I get them off ebay for a little savings from GOHDD/APETHOUSE whichever is cheaper. I have seen 1 fail (DOA), but it was not mine.
 
I don't think white label carries the same warranty as retail. Shorter warranty perhaps other than Newegg 30 days warranty there is none, as the manufacturer expect you to deal with Newegg, and Newegg will point to the manufacturer for warranty.
 
NeoMatriX724 said:
I would steer clear not because of drive quality but because of NewEgg's shipping quality pertaining to these drives. I've more or less stopped ordering HDD's from them due to an abnormally high failure rate I've had. Out of about 30 drives I've purchased over the last 3 or 4 years. 12 have failed. Of those 12, 11 were ordered from NewEgg (brands from Hitachi to Seagate to Western Digital). Might be something with the packing or shipping but I gave up trying.
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I agree when it comes to OEM...retail? Nah Retail is good to go from newegg but OEM/WL...hell no. Unless I see a picture of how anyone packages white label drives from factory to consumer I won;t buy them, which means i only buy retail these days.
 
They have a 1 year warranty and come wrapped in bubble wrap. I have had 1 die on me with 16000 hours on it, and the replacement was the wrong drive (sent a SATA 2 drive) so I had to wait for another replacement but it tested fine and is now a member of a Raid 6. The process of getting a new one was pretty fast. I think I still have the bubble wrap if interested in a picture of how it was packaged.

Check out this thread on these drives
 
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