western digital out of favour?

[glennd]

We went to town today on an all day shopping trip. I decided to pick up some western digital external drives for our media center. i went to Harvey Norman, a large furniture/electrical chain with a decent size consumer computer compartment but they don't stock western digital, plenty of seagate though. next i went to Dick Smith, a large consumer electronics chain, they don't stock western digital. when i asked why, she said (with a look as if to say "haven't your heard?") " we haven't stocked western digital in 18 months." next i went to BigW, the Woolworths department store, they don't stock western digital but plenty of seagate. finally i went to a smallish dedicated computer shop, again they don't stock western digital but plenty of seagate.

i've read hundreds of reviews on various models of seagate and western digital external drives and i see a significant number of issues with seagate drives failing within 18 months and no one reporting western digital failures. i bought a bunch of western digitals over the years with no failures so i'm convinced the reason no one stocks them is not because of quality issues.

so the question is why does no one want to stock western digital external drives?

 

[phaZed]

I see Western Digital relatively the same amount as Seagate here in the US retail stores.

I doubt you will get a clear answer here as to what drive is better/worse because everyone has their preferences and past experiences. For me, Western Digital has been the clear winner for good drives as I have had problems (Even personal drives) and returns with Seagate. I have had ZERO bad WD drives. Maybe lucky, maybe not.

 

[SAG]

Given enough time, and a large enough sample size, and I would say that you will see that just about all reputable manufacturers drives have a similar failure rate, especially when compared to other drives of the same caliber.

My preference is for the WD RE series in "most" cases (depending on the application). But cost is always a concern.

All of the local suppliers I usually buy from keep WD well in stock.

 

[Kitten Kong]

I've experienced issues with some WD Blues and the occasional Green, but have had no issues with Blacks or Reds.

WD are my main go to for drives full stop.

 

[joydivision]

I have noticed that Seagate portable drives are far more common these days, as I double back everything up I just buy what ever portable drives are the cheapest for my workshop.

For clients machines I always try and push WD Black drives.

 

[alex32165]

As someone who just left the retail environment about 8 months ago, i've noticed the more and more Seagates on the shelves within the past couple of years. But every major store that i've been to (Best Buy, Staples, Office Max, ect...) have had stock of WD's readily available.

As far as seeing more and more Seagates, my thoughts are it's some kind of price markup scheme or something along those lines. Seagates are presumably the cheaper brand, so they offer more of a profit-margin for the store.

 

[mr m]

I still see plenty of WD drives in the USA. Maybe it's an Australian thing? I install WD Black and Blue depending on the clients budget. I might start looking into Hitachi, err, HGST.

This link is a repost but worth reading again plus it was updated in Sept.

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/what-hard-drive-should-i-buy/

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-reliability-update-september-2014/

 

[Larry Sabo]

The best drive is the one for which you have a backup. Personally, I stick with WD Blacks but have heard good thins about their reds and wouldn't hesitate to try them. All these comments are personal opinions and preferences without a legitimate statistical basis.

 

[cypress]

Down here, I see alot more Western Digital around me than Seagate but then again I stick with WD.

Shame on me for using WD Blue on my personal rig. Next upgrade I will get at 1TB WD Black. lol

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

No shortages here.....we mostly stock WDs....can get them easily and use them all the time. Generally just stick to the Black models, and the RE series. Sometimes Reds...when we're doing NAS's.

 

[glennd]

As far as seeing more and more Seagates, my thoughts are it's some kind of price markup scheme or something along those lines. Seagates are presumably the cheaper brand, so they offer more of a profit-margin for the store.

i'm thinking that, no margin in the WDs. the most common complaint i saw in the reviews was, the seagate fails after 12 months but the customer won't give it back to replace under warranty because it contains all their important data so they just go and buy another and get some tech to do the transfer. which i guess means the hdd itself is ok but the enclosure has died.

as for the specific model, i have no idea what's in a WD Elements external drive.

btw while in Dick Smith i noticed the latest flat screen TVs they're flogging is called ChangHong. i'm betting there's a *huge* markup on them!

 

[pceinc]

This topic probably comes up among computer techs/geeks at least once a month. As someone stated above, if you sample a large number of all manufacturers in like conditions you will probably see a minor variance in failures. I've been using WD since I got my first PC in 1990. It was a 130mb drive. I have been selling them since 1995. If WD was short and I had to buy another brand, it was a limited few and I would/will always go back to WD unless they go to junk. Like most, I stick with black drives but have used blue and greens. Just be prepared to replace the blues and greens often.
I would say that any large retailer that states they stopped selling WD due to quality is full of bologna and probably got a better deal from Seagate or the likes to put drives on the shelf. Box stores don't care about quality. They care about number$.

 

[johnrobert]

I bet there is a much better margin in Aus for seagates

 

[johnrobert]

I bet there is a much better margin in Aus for seagates
The place I buy drives they always push the Seagates
but I prefer WD

 

[JustInspired]

The only thing that scares me about external WD drives these days is the inability to pull it from its broken/faulty enclosure and stick it on a SATA cable for recovery (or in another aftermarket enclosure) due to the encryption...

 

[Magic Miguel]

The only thing that scares me about external WD drives these days is the inability to pull it from its broken/faulty enclosure and stick it on a SATA cable for recovery (or in another aftermarket enclosure) due to the encryption...

I learned something interesting the other day. For the 3.5" externals you can use any working USB bridge from I believe the 1-3TB drives and it will see the drive and allow you to get your data off of it. For the 2.5" I don't even mess with those, I just send them off to my data recovery guy.

 

[ohio_grad_06]

Who said they are getting Hitachi's? My personal experience on Hitachi's is more of them seem to fail than the others. Again, that's my experience, which is why I don't buy them, others may have better luck than myself. Some of my favorite drives these days are Toshiba drives. I started buying them in 2012 when the hard drive shortages were more in swing, and tehy were the cheapest things I could get so I would buy them with extra warranty on them. However, I started finding that I was not having many of them if any come back, so I kept buying them and they seem good. I will say though that I've seen at least one system detect them as hitachi, so they may have hitachi(hgst) controllers in them. Not sure.

Thought that Western Digital now owns hitachi, at least their hard drive division? Or is that for samsung drives?

 

[HCHTech]

Yeah, WD purchased Hitachi in March of 2012. According to some random site on the internet rolleyes both WD Technologies and HGST are wholly-owned subsidiaries of Western Digital Corporation.

China apparently required that Hitachi operate independently for at least 2 years after the acquisition, which was up in March of this year. I have no idea if they are still using separate manufacturing facilities, but I'll bet they are. Separate facilities means separate procedures, separate equipment & separate quality.

 

[Larry Sabo]

Wikipedia reviews the history of acquisitions, and has a helpful graph of it all.