Maximum PC

So I bought, way back in May 2006, a then-new 150GB WD Raptor drive to be the OS drive for my gaming machine. Only weeks later, it was misbehaving. The drive operated correctly, but the circuitry was fried inasmuch as the computer it was in could not be powered down with the drive inside. Then it started throwing errors.

So I got it replaced.

Three years later, the replacement drive dies. No warning. I was just using my computer, left my dorm room, FTP-ed back to download something, then logged off. Tried to Remote Desktop back, and it wasn't responding. Live Mesh showed the machine as offline. Turns out I had a BSOD when I returned to my room. And my Raptor was making clicking noises.

I'm beginning to wonder if my PSU has something to do with it, but being unable to measure such things I cannot say for sure...

PSU is a PC Power and Cooling 850SSI.

Am I just unlucky? This is the third hard drive I've had die in this machine. Two Raptors and one 750GB Caviar Blue.

One thing I know about HDD's is that it is not IF they will fail, its WHEN they will fail. You probably just have gotten bad HDD's





Ted

I have one of the 150GB versions you mentioned and one 300GB Velociraptor and they are both running well. The older drive has been in use since 2004. Maybe I'm just lucky.

My RMA got approved on Saturday, so let's see what happens...

EDIT: Total cost to send back - $6.21 UPS + $11.04 for proper packing materials (12"x12"x12" box, bubble wrap, packing peanuts) = $17.25.

Update: Got a regular 150GB (some people got Velociraptors), refurb. It's louder than my last one, but it works and so long as it stays that way I don't care.

my main OS drive is a old school 74gb raptor and its quiet, and very speedy at 10K but I make it a point to keep my extra baggage on a 1tb mass storage drive

Actually, I was looking at hard drive benchmarks, because someone claimed the Samsung Spinpoint F3 was faster then the Seagate 7200.12, and I wasn't sure about it. I was wrong, but what I did find that very much surprised me is that in those benches, Seagate 7200.12 and Spinpoint F3 was faster then the original Raptor in every single benchmark I saw. The VelociRaptor was still faster then those, but not by much.

I think 10k hdds are not worth the price for the little extra performance they can give,i mean new 1tb drives are almost on pair with them these days.

I had a 160GB raptor too, but then it died a few months ago

I have had five Hard Drives fail in the last 20 years. Over that long a period of time that is not that bad for a mechanical device that is used heavily.
One of them was one of the original 35 Gb Raptors, one was a notebook drive (make unknown) and two were Hitachi DethStars, the final one was an unknown brand.
They will eventually fail. Overall drives with the longest warrenty's seem top have the better reliability but you have to assume that any of them can fail at any time.

I've got a thread about a 150 raptor in the pound back-when (2006?). Forgot the time frame from install to death, but am thinking it was a couple months. About the same too. I put marks on the drive and sent it in for the RMA. I got the same drive back but with a new circuit card.

It worked great, but sent off to a buddy soon after the Refurb came back. I think it died again this past summer. Have to ask Occifer if he ever got it back up and running. But that would be 3 drives in 3 years as well. I honestly feel it was something with that particular model, not the brand or series of 10K drives they produced.

I've had the best lives with Western Digital over any drive. I've only had a 60G IDE drive and that 150G raptor die that wore the WD branding. Nothing like this darn Seagate I'm just getting back for the 4th time in 2 years...that is already clacking again.

(Killer, that can be a true statement today, but not even remotely true prior to the beginning of the 2009 year. We've seen 1TB drives begin to compete with them and SSD's progress far beyond. They weren't "A little extra performance" gains in 2006 at all)

BTW: My replacement drive (the one I got from the failure I discussed in this thread) died in 2 months. Supposedly I'm going to get a 300GB VelociRaptor on Friday or Saturday... Free overnight shipping and a prepaid label to return the bad drive. I'm happy with that.

Keep in mind that this will be the fourth Raptor I've gotten
Raptor #1: Failed after 3 months, bad controller caused the computer to turn back on with the Raptor installed. Then it got corrupted sectors to boot.
Raptor #2: Randomly died and was replaced as per this thread (this Raptor was the reason for the thread).
Raptor #3: Died after 2 months with SMART failure on Raw Read Error Rate.
(Veloci)Raptor #4: Pending...(12/15)

Last Update: WD is out of the Dog Pound for me (so long as this VelociRaptor doesn't die). Got an overnight shipped VelociRaptor 300 which I am now running Windows from. Everything is set up and I am imaging using the Windows system imager.

About two years ago, I bought 5 Raptor 150 drives to use in my system. Four were used in a RAID 0 and the other drive was to use in case I had to RMA a drive.
Well, I've had to RMA the drives at least 8 times and possible more.

This is a capture from my Outlook showing WD RMAs. A couple were for other drives but the vast majority were for the Raptors.



Right now, I'm down to two working drives and they will be taken out of service as soon as the Corsair SSD I'm about to order arrives.

One drive was send back three times. When it arrived, it worked for 2-3 days and then would fail. I honestly don't think WD did anything to repair that drive.

I have a DVM that can record peak voltage and I tested the power supply and in several days, it never over volted. There are two 120mm fans blowing cool air on my drives so they did not overheat.

Needless to say, I won't be buying or recommending Western Digital.todrives to anyone

I think the 150s were just bad, compared to the previous generation 74s and subsequent 300s...

Quite possibly. I've built at least 50 machines in the past two years & used WDs on most of them and have not had one fail & none of the drives were Raptor 150s.