Second Western Digital NAS RED 8TB drive to fail on me

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So I bought a Western Digital 8TB NAS drive back in December. Started having issues of it disappearing in Windows repeatedly. So I downloaded WD's diagnostic software and it immediately failed all the tests in seconds with error "too many bad sectors" so I RMA'd the drive.

Got the new drive in and I couldn't get it to format. Drive kept disappearing again. Put it in a different system and went a different path on formatting it and it formatted. Moved it back to my NAS PC and all was well. Two days ago I noticed the drive was missing in Explorer. So I went looking through the logs and sure enough I am getting all sorts of errors on the drive about paging.

So earlier today I ran WD's diagnostic test on it and sure enough it failed with the same error "too many bad sectors".

What are the chances that I keep getting a bad drive? I have tried swapping cables/ports on the drive in my NAS but the problem always follows the 8TB drive.

I've got 6x3TB NAS drives, 1x8TB NAS drive and a 120GB 2.5" laptop drive (os drive) in the system. Non of the other drives experience symptoms.
 
So? RMA it and move on FFS

HDDs and SSDs can and will die, it's just a matter of time. It's up to the consumer to put proper backup solutions in place to mitigate this, or be willing to risk complete data loss when the time comes.
 
It happens, just the name of the game. All my 8TB reds are fine while all of the 5TB toshibas I had developed bad sectors while other people have them and they are fine. Best you can do is try ordering from difference places to get different batches, and make sure your package delivery guys don't drop the packages on the ground. My delivery guys here are pretty good, but where I used to live I had a bin at my front door for them to put packages in so they physically had to open it and set it in.
 
As drive capacity has gone up failure rates have as well. Anything that we do that is of importance runs FreeNAS with ZFS on RaidZ2 I am having to build out a new system and think that I am going to try 12 drive sets running RaidZ3.
 
I had 4 Red 3TBs fail on me from one order, at different times, all within about 6 months of each other - I think it was one of those batches from Newegg that were wrapped in a piece of craft paper, chucked in the box, and the UPS guy must have dropped kicked. WD RMA was actually really good and responsive about the warranty, replacement drives have been ticking along for a good while now.

Also had a WD MyBook to run Time Machine backups on. That thing died 3 times. WD RMA'ed it every time, very good service and turnaround, but I took the last one they shipped out and ebay'ed it unopened out of the box before it could break on me again.
 
Got the new drive installed. So far so good. Haven't had any issues at all with it yet which is a step in the right direction from the other two drives which had issues the moment I installed them.

Currently filling the drive up with my media. Around 250GB has been stored on it so far.
 
Welp this hard drive has failed also. Fucking awesome.
 
Shitty, next time look into HGST. Those have always been good to me for my NAS needs
 
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I would try the next one in a different setup on the odd chance something about that machine/PS/controller is incompatable with the drives. If you still have the records, are the drives from the same lot? Could also be a bad batch.
 
Well i tossed the drive in another computer and I'm currently stressing the hell out of it. ~15 minutes in and no errors.

Thinking my NAS might be due for a motherboard/cpu upgrade.

Kind of weird considering I've got 7 drives in that system without any issues and I even, on a hunch, switched the cables with another drive prior to install just to be sure. Gonna let the drive get "worked" over night and see if any errors popup and/or the drive falls out of Windows.
 
So far no problems at all. Been running all night and all day so far. What in the hell could be wrong with my NAS that would cause 8Tb drives to not work correctly? After a while they just drop out of Windows. Few minutes later they'll return. It's a process that repeats itself.
 
So I updated everything I could possibly update on the NAS. From the BIOS to all the chipset, network, etc.. drivers in Windows. Everything was updated to the latest version.

Took drive out about half an hour ago and put it in the NAS. Started transferring files to it (been going on for like half an hour) and the drive just started to error out in Windows. No idea what the hell is wrong with my NAS. The other 7 drives experience no issues what-so-ever. I've switched cables and ports. Nothing helps.

Guess I need to upgrade the motherboard, cpu and RAM in the NAS to something new.
 
Is it some kind of heat issue? Maybe try the WD software in both locations and see if it reports diff temps.

Maybe also some kind of EMI from a close cable etc.

Just throwing out ideas.
 
For testing purposes this past few times I left the drive outside the case(s) because they're such a PITA to mount them inside the case only to have to remove them. Ambient temperature in my house is 61F. I can't even get the drive to show up in Windows right now and I don't care to take apart the other rig to get the drive to boot from it anymore. I'm done.

I give up on WD. Will be ordering a HGST 8TB drive this weekend to replace it. Going to send the drive back to WD and tell them to keep it.
 
Skillz said:
I give up on WD. Will be ordering a HGST 8TB drive this weekend to replace it. Going to send the drive back to WD and tell them to keep it.
Click to expand...

It sounds like it ran just fine in your other machine, I would be looking at my NAS before doing that.
 
Unless I hear screeching from the drive, or dead silence, I'm going to suspect cables and ports first on any drive not showing up in the OS. One of those having experience things.
 
I put the drive back in the system it wasn't experiencing any issues with and the system BSOD'd immediately. Once I rebooted it Windows could not find the drive. The drive did make some short clicking noises. Soon as I heard it I logged into the NAS to find the drive had disappeared from Windows.

The system (NAS) has no issues what-so-ever with the other drives including the drive I am swapping out (3TB RED drive) that I am replacing with the 8TB version because I need more storage.
 
Why is this thing in a NAS: IO Crest 2 Port SATA III ASM1061 and is the 8TB Red on it?
 
Because I needed more SATA ports for the drives. I have 8 drives in the system, but the motherboard only has 6 SATA ports.

The 8TB drive is not on it. Though I have tried to put the drive on it (well the first RMA drive) with no change.
 
Is your H67 chipset revision B2 or B3? Have you tried the red on one of the two sata III ports?

When you need more ports though, go LSI.
 
I haven't updated my signature in a while. Not using that motherboard in the NAS anymore. It's an ASUS p8z77-m Pro motherboard.

motherboard.png
 
HGST drives or nothing... lately i have been trying the Toshiba 5tb drives and they have proved just as good. Seagate are utter shit and WD seem ok but I had their enterprise drives fail so I avoid em now
 
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