 Wily_OnePremium
join:2002-11-24
San Jose, CA | [Praise] WDC Enterprise drives I bought 2 Western Digital 500GB drives back in 2007, and have been using them in a RAID setup in my main rig. Since I was using RAID, I made sure to get the YS version (WD5000ABYS) which are rated for RAID (RE2) and are Enterprise-class drives that have a 5-year warranty, which expires in June of this year.
Started having problems last month with my RAID array, and ultimately determined at least one of the drives was giving out. Contacted WDC tech support online, filed an RMA for both drives and sent them off. I shipped the old drives out on 1/26.
I wasn't sure whether I would get refurbished drives or not, but received two brand new WD5003ABYX's on 2/2.  These are the latest version (RE4), and manufactured one month ago. Same capacity and spindle speed, but 4x more buffer (64MB) and faster transfer speed. And these store all 500GB on just a single platter, whereas the old drives used 3 or 4 platters. That means less heat, noise, and power draw.
So kudos to WDC for excellent warranty support, and kudos to me for getting Enterprise-class drives in the first place. |
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| i agree. i have 2x 1tb RE3's. one has been DLing torrents non stop 24/7/365 for almost 2 years. Still very quiet and no probs at all |
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 AVDRespice, Adspice, ProspicePremium
join:2003-02-06
Onion, NJ | reply to Wily_One
and to think they probably cost 2-4x as much as you paid for them. |
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 BigBlarg
join:2008-02-10
Longueuil, QC
kudos:1 | reply to Wily_One
Your drives were about-to-fail and still under warranty.
To be honest, I wouldn't have expected less than this.
Nothing impressive here. |
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 thegeekPremium
join:2008-02-21
united state
kudos:1
 ·Suddenlink
·NPG Cable
| said by BigBlarg:Your drives were about-to-fail and still under warranty.
To be honest, I wouldn't have expected less than this.
Nothing impressive here.
I agree but I think the praise is deserved though for the speedy turn around and no hassle experience Wily_One  had. |
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Wily_OnePremium
join:2002-11-24
San Jose, CA | Precisely. I received brand new replacement drives exactly 1 week after I sent the old ones. Fast turn-around, no hassle. That's a thumbs-up in my book.
As an aside, the things I'm hearing is that the HDD industry is on a trend toward short warranties - like only 1 year. This is apparently part of the fallout from the Thailand disaster. Either way the consumer is getting shafted. |
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thegeekPremium
join:2008-02-21
united state
kudos:1 Reviews:
·Suddenlink
·NPG Cable
| generally the idea of a warranty is to have it expire before the majority of the problems start. warranties may have started as a way for a great consumer product to stand out. but as we have shifted more and more to a planned obsolescence world a warranty nothing but a marketing ploy that has no true benefit for the consumer. somewhere there is a guy with a calculator who has spent hours calculating that only .01% of failures occur before 1 year and at 1 year and 1 day the rate of failure increases exponentially. therefore warranty expires at 1 year.
tl;dr - yes, the consumer is just getting shafted |
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Wily_OnePremium
join:2002-11-24
San Jose, CA | I'll be interested to see if they try reducing warranties in the business/enterprise space. Those customers have the buying power to demand more ROI. |
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| reply to Wily_One
said by Wily_One:As an aside, the things I'm hearing is that the HDD industry is on a trend toward short warranties - like only 1 year. This is apparently part of the fallout from the Thailand disaster. Either way the consumer is getting shafted.
which is a shame, one of the majore factors i use in purchasing decision is "how longs the warranty?" if i have two items that are basically the same spec, the one with the longest warranty wins.
sure, it may just be a "perceived value" thing, but for me it counts.
edit: forgot to mention, the last WDC drive i purchased, i had a choice between OEM or retail, exact same drive, exact same model, except OEM had a 3 year, retail had a 1 year. the OEM won. |
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 RWildThem Or UsPremium
join:2003-09-15
Cary, NC | reply to Wily_One
Same situation here.
A few years ago I had a WD portable drive that failed near the end of its warranty period. Logged on the website, entered S/N and was told still in warranty, got RMA, and received a brand new drive of the latest model within a couple of days.
WD will continue to get my business. |
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