warning from Western hard drives re Mavericks!

[francescoassisi]

Western sent out this rather disturbing email dated 31 Oct.

Dear WD Registered Customer,

As a valued WD customer we want to make you aware of new reports of Western Digital and other external HDD products experiencing data loss when updating to Apple's OS X Mavericks (10.9). WD is urgently investigating these reports and the possible connection to the WD Drive Manager, WD Raid Manager and WD SmartWare software applications. Until the issue is understood and the cause identified, WD strongly urges our customers to uninstall these software applications before updating to OS X Mavericks (10.9), or delay upgrading. If you have already upgraded to Mavericks, WD recommends that you remove these applications and restart your computer.

The WD Drive Manager, WD Raid Manager, and WD SmartWare software applications are not new and have been available from WD for many years, however solely as a precaution WD has removed these applications from our website as we investigate this issue. .

Sincerely,

Western Digital

[cacruden]

I have avoided WD for the last 5 years - had a 50% failure rate within the first 6 months (10 drives failed out of 20).

[Suradit69]

I have avoided WD for the last 5 years - had a 50% failure rate within the first 6 months (10 drives failed out of 20).

Yes a few months ago my fairly new WD external HD gave up the ghost and could not be resuscitated (by me anyway). Now rely on a couple of Seagate HDs that seem to be OK. If I could just get WD to stop sending me promotional emails a couple of times a week.

Edited November 1, 2013 by Suradit69

[impulse]

I have avoided WD for the last 5 years - had a 50% failure rate within the first 6 months (10 drives failed out of 20).

Glad to hear I'm not the only one.

I've lost 3 of 4 WD's in the past 2-1/2 years in Thailand. I figured I may be unwittingly buying factory seconds at Fortune Town.

[h90]

I have avoided WD for the last 5 years - had a 50% failure rate within the first 6 months (10 drives failed out of 20).

I have 20 (estimate) WD drives and every month or every 2 month I go to the shop for a warranty claim.

[cacruden]

I have avoided WD for the last 5 years - had a 50% failure rate within the first 6 months (10 drives failed out of 20).

Glad to hear I'm not the only one.

I've lost 3 of 4 WD's in the past 2-1/2 years in Thailand. I figured I may be unwittingly buying factory seconds at Fortune Town.

Mine were all bought in Canada.... so it is not localized to Fortune Town. I have bought many Seagate hard drive from that mall (Jet) and they are all still working....

[Bender]

i guess, most of you are running windows, it means explain the high rate failure.

On one laptop, i have a dual boot and with linux never get any problem.

Then used only for one week, windows7. And in a week i get more than 200 bad sectors on my hard disk.

[impulse]

i guess, most of you are running windows, it means explain the high rate failure.

On one laptop, i have a dual boot and with linux never get any problem.

Then used only for one week, windows7. And in a week i get more than 200 bad sectors on my hard disk.

Now I'm curious.

Has anyone given you an explanation for the wear and tear on your hard drive from Windows? I hate Windows (and MS Outlook- but that's a whole 'nother thread), but am stuck with it because of work. Over the years, I have probably lost a year of working hours fixing Windows problems, reloading my OS and Googling for solutions.

It's funny that they can build in software to remind me to upgrade ($$$) or to tell me to order printer supplies ($$$), but they can't seem to warn me that my laptop power settings have somehow been changed and my processor is limited at 12% of maximum clock speed and I'll be staring at a non-responsive screen until i figure it out on my own.

My other favorite is when they do a sneaky "upgrade" in the background and it all goes belly up, then a few days (or weeks) later, they do another sneaky upgrade and all is okay.

But, alas- I digress.

Edited November 1, 2013 by impulse

[francescoassisi]

It appears there isn't a single post on the OP's topic!

Has anyineebheard what Apple or Western are advising? Icertainly won't be upgrading to Mavericks any time yet.

[francescoassisi]

PS - I've had one Western fail out of 6 drives over 5 years that was 1 week before the 3 year warranty expired and it was replaced free.

I'm told the main reason for failure is due to people repeatedly removing the drive before it is ready to be disconnected. Windows often tells you it's safe to disconnect before it is really finished.

[impulse]

PS - I've had one Western fail out of 6 drives over 5 years that was 1 week before the 3 year warranty expired and it was replaced free.

I'm told the main reason for failure is due to people repeatedly removing the drive before it is ready to be disconnected. Windows often tells you it's safe to disconnect before it is really finished.

I had 3 drives fail within the warranty, and I haven't sought to get any replaced.

The time it takes to load up half of a 2TB drive makes the 3,000 baht I spent on going to another brand seem pretty cheap, especially when the data lost forever is factored in. The jury is still out on those other brands, but so far so good. (Fingers crossed so I don't jinx it)

Good info about disconnecting too quickly. I thought I was being patient just waiting for Windows to say it's okay.

[eTiMaGo]

Seems Mavericks is Apple's Vista... looks good on the outside, but boy what a mess...

[keeniau96]

I don't have a problem with the several WD drives I have in addition to my Seagate units. However, lately I have been using SSD devices as my main drive on the several computers I have. I just installed Mavericks on two of those computers on Samsung 830 SSD 128GB units. No problems, fast to bring up that super-ugly Mavericks screen (changed 2 minutes after install).

[GreenSnapper]

It appears there isn't a single post on the OP's topic!

Has anyineebheard what Apple or Western are advising? Icertainly won't be upgrading to Mavericks any time yet.

The problem is related to Software from WD which is not compatible.

As a general rule: don't install any vendor low level crapware. It is not necessary and Mac OS can handle all sorts of external disks by itself.

[cacruden]

Seems Mavericks is Apple's Vista... looks good on the outside, but boy what a mess...

I have not seen any reviews to that effect, haven't installed it yet - so have not really looked.

Other than this (which could easily be a WD issue), what is your source to this effect? I will probably upgrade soon since there is some improvements that I like..... to be a Vista there would have to be sever problems with performance etc.

Usually there are some issues up until 10.x.4.

Edited November 2, 2013 by cacruden

[Bender]

i guess, most of you are running windows, it means explain the high rate failure.

On one laptop, i have a dual boot and with linux never get any problem.

Then used only for one week, windows7. And in a week i get more than 200 bad sectors on my hard disk.

Now I'm curious.

Has anyone given you an explanation for the wear and tear on your hard drive from Windows? I hate Windows (and MS Outlook- but that's a whole 'nother thread), but am stuck with it because of work. Over the years, I have probably lost a year of working hours fixing Windows problems, reloading my OS and Googling for solutions.

It's funny that they can build in software to remind me to upgrade ($$$) or to tell me to order printer supplies ($$$), but they can't seem to warn me that my laptop power settings have somehow been changed and my processor is limited at 12% of maximum clock speed and I'll be staring at a non-responsive screen until i figure it out on my own.

My other favorite is when they do a sneaky "upgrade" in the background and it all goes belly up, then a few days (or weeks) later, they do another sneaky upgrade and all is okay.

But, alas- I digress.

yes they can build software, that can slowly month after month damage your hardware... planned obsolescence!

One laptop with windows and linux.

With windows, i run it only few hundred hours, and you hear the hard drive scratching, grating, you can hear the fan

With linux i run it few thousands hours, hard drive silent, fan silent everything goes smooth.

A simple task with windows, when i turn on, turn off or put in sleeping mode: its take age!

With linux its done very fast

Stability, maybe once a year linux will crash with windows it can happen anytime. Just to put windows on sleeping mode make him crashes!

About power and performance once against linux win!

Yes they build software like windows to remind you time to time, you should go buy a new laptop...

[eTiMaGo]

Seems Mavericks is Apple's Vista... looks good on the outside, but boy what a mess...

I have not seen any reviews to that effect, haven't installed it yet - so have not really looked.

Other than this (which could easily be a WD issue), what is your source to this effect? I will probably upgrade soon since there is some improvements that I like..... to be a Vista there would have to be sever problems with performance etc.

Usually there are some issues up until 10.x.4.

Friend of mine is a software developer working on an OSX project... and he says the hoops and workarounds that they have to go through now just to get software to run properly on Mavericks are insane...

So yes I was exaggerating a bit with the Vista comparison, but so far this seems the most underwhelming OS update...

[cacruden]

There are always issues with legacy applications and operating systems. "OS X" is actually in better shape than Windows code base because Apple is more willing to deprecate old libraries and remove them forcing the application developers to fix things. There are always compromises. To be friendly they don't force a recompile of all applications for each release, which is more typical of Linux/Unix releases.

The Western Digital issue apparently is with compatibility of drivers (which are not the responsibility of Apple but of WD in this case). WD was negligent in making sure they were compatible, that is what pre-release of operating systems to developers is for. I worked for a company that was also slow to check software until after the new version was released.

[Zumteufel]

"WD Drive Manager, WD Raid Manager, and WD SmartWare"

Who in the first place would use this software on a factory equipped Mac anyways? Even if setting up RAID, this software can be avoided, as the functionality is already in Disk Utility. Been a Mac power user for almost 20 years, never had the use for any of these tools.

[HerbalEd]

I have avoided WD for the last 5 years - had a 50% failure rate within the first 6 months (10 drives failed out of 20).

I have 20 (estimate) WD drives and every month or every 2 month I go to the shop for a warranty claim.

Loyalty to a brand has it's limits.

[Jeffrey346]

I installed Mavericks on my Macbook Pro and Air the day it was launched with no issues. I have a WD external HD but removed all the WD stuff the day I bought it [2 years ago}. I let Apple handle the WD drive and it has worked perfectly.

[PETERTHEEATER]

I just had a second Seagate HDD failure in two years so Googled the most reliable and found WD! So, bought a new WD and it isn't recognised by my PC then traced the fault to a dead Video Card integral with the MB!

[BradinAsia]

I have avoided WD for the last 5 years - had a 50% failure rate within the first 6 months (10 drives failed out of 20).

Seems the reasonable solution would be to dump the junk WD hard drive in the nearest frog pond and get a

quality hard drive. "The sound of the junk HD splashing in the moonlight" could be a real Zen moments...

[eTiMaGo]

WD's aren't that bad, if you avoid the green ones...

[Kabayo66]

I've been using Seagate HDDs since my C64 days, and have never encountered any problems. Since coming to Thailand, several of my notebooks have had WD HDDs and I've only had one (500GB) crash after 4 years. Perhaps I've been lucky. I replaced it with a Samsung 640GB HDD which crashed after 2 years. Back to Seagate for me. You get what you pay for.

[ukrules]

I have avoided WD for the last 5 years - had a 50% failure rate within the first 6 months (10 drives failed out of 20).

I have 20 (estimate) WD drives and every month or every 2 month I go to the shop for a warranty claim.

This is interesting, it's the complete opposite to wht I've found. I've been using mainly Western Digital RE 4 Enterprise drives and I very rarely have any problem with them. Between myself and the guy who handles the hardware side of things in Europe we've been using WD for probably around 10 years now.

For backup servers I recently added 2 x 9 drive RAID6 arrays using the WD Red drives and it's been ok now for a few months. I have a 'hot spare' inside the machine for when one of them inevitably goes down. With these a light starts flashing when one drops out of the array and you just insert a fresh one as it rebuilds using the hot spare.

[Genericnic]

PS - I've had one Western fail out of 6 drives over 5 years that was 1 week before the 3 year warranty expired and it was replaced free.

I'm told the main reason for failure is due to people repeatedly removing the drive before it is ready to be disconnected. Windows often tells you it's safe to disconnect before it is really finished.

 

I had 3 drives fail within the warranty, and I haven't sought to get any replaced.

 

The time it takes to load up half of a 2TB drive makes the 3,000 baht I spent on going to another brand seem pretty cheap, especially when the data lost forever is factored in.  The jury is still out on those other brands, but so far so good. (Fingers crossed so I don't jinx it)

 

Good info about disconnecting too quickly.  I thought I was being patient just waiting for Windows to say it's okay.

Run a Raid 1 array and you don't have that problem especially if you disk array allows a hot swap of the bad drive. I use a 2T Synology NAS system and never had a problem.

David

Sent from my iPad using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[Genericnic]

I installed Mavericks on my Macbook Pro and Air the day it was launched with no issues. I have a WD external HD but removed all the WD stuff the day I bought it [2 years ago}.  I let Apple handle the WD drive and it has worked perfectly. 

+1

David

Sent from my iPad using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[cacruden]

I have avoided WD for the last 5 years - had a 50% failure rate within the first 6 months (10 drives failed out of 20).

I have 20 (estimate) WD drives and every month or every 2 month I go to the shop for a warranty claim.

This is interesting, it's the complete opposite to wht I've found. I've been using mainly Western Digital RE 4 Enterprise drives and I very rarely have any problem with them. Between myself and the guy who handles the hardware side of things in Europe we've been using WD for probably around 10 years now.

For backup servers I recently added 2 x 9 drive RAID6 arrays using the WD Red drives and it's been ok now for a few months. I have a 'hot spare' inside the machine for when one of them inevitably goes down. With these a light starts flashing when one drops out of the array and you just insert a fresh one as it rebuilds using the hot spare.

I have been using the Seagate drives, and the only failures I have had are ones that are at least 4+ years old.... which is better than WD (I have not been buying enterprise drives). I am also very careful to keep all my drives between 35 to 43 degrees (Celcius). Too cold and failure rate goes up, to hot same. Right now I have 11 3TB Seagates. 2 1TB Samsungs (getting old - but they were very quiet ones I bought for another project and they outlived that project), and a 2TB Seagate (also getting on in age).

[wilcopops]

I think the point of the OP is that if - for one reason or another - you have WD software on your Mac and then install Mavericks you are likely to lose all data off your hard drive.

I can't see that debating how reliable the hardware is or worthwhile the soft ware has any bearing on the OP.