Issues with WD purple drives

tec508 · Jun 14, 2018

I figured I'd jump on here and post because I just wrapped up my 4th WD Purple 4tb for an RMA replacement. At this point I think I've spent almost the cost of a new drive in return shipping. Not to mention the lost footage every time this happens. Drive is a WD40PURZ-85TTDY0.

My BI machine at my income property is running a 1tb WD drive that came with the PC and this 4tb drive for recordings. Since the first 1 was installed it lasts about 4 weeks, then I either go there and reboot the machine for updates, or I remotely reboot the machine for updates/issue/etc and the machine just sits at the DELL logo and never posts.

Once I remove this drive it boots right up. I take the drive to my house and try it in a few other computers and they all also fail to boot up. When the replacement drives show up I tried a different port on the motherboard and also a different SATA cable. The real kicker is while these drives are out I throw a 3tb WD Red drive in there and it never has issues.

Sure enough I throw the drive in and let it record for a month and I do a reboot and it never recovers from the reboot. WD is happy to keep sending replacements but it costs me shipping and recordings. I just ordered a Seagate drive to throw in this machine because I'm sure this will keep going on.

Any ideas? Anyone see this?

mat200 · Jun 14, 2018

tec508 said:
I figured I'd jump on here and post because I just wrapped up my 4th WD Purple 4tb for an RMA replacement. At this point I think I've spent almost the cost of a new drive in return shipping. Not to mention the lost footage every time this happens. Drive is a WD40PURZ-85TTDY0.

My BI machine at my income property is running a 1tb WD drive that came with the PC and this 4tb drive for recordings. Since the first 1 was installed it lasts about 4 weeks, then I either go there and reboot the machine for updates, or I remotely reboot the machine for updates/issue/etc and the machine just sits at the DELL logo and never posts.

Once I remove this drive it boots right up. I take the drive to my house and try it in a few other computers and they all also fail to boot up. When the replacement drives show up I tried a different port on the motherboard and also a different SATA cable. The real kicker is while these drives are out I throw a 3tb WD Red drive in there and it never has issues.

Sure enough I throw the drive in and let it record for a month and I do a reboot and it never recovers from the reboot. WD is happy to keep sending replacements but it costs me shipping and recordings. I just ordered a Seagate drive to throw in this machine because I'm sure this will keep going on.

Any ideas? Anyone see this?

Hi Tec

Have you looked at the SMART data? (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology; often written as SMART)

tec508 · Jun 14, 2018

Hi mat,

Is this something I could look at while the drive is out of the PC?

rufunky · Jun 14, 2018

tec508 said:
I figured I'd jump on here and post because I just wrapped up my 4th WD Purple 4tb for an RMA replacement. At this point I think I've spent almost the cost of a new drive in return shipping. Not to mention the lost footage every time this happens. Drive is a WD40PURZ-85TTDY0.

My BI machine at my income property is running a 1tb WD drive that came with the PC and this 4tb drive for recordings. Since the first 1 was installed it lasts about 4 weeks, then I either go there and reboot the machine for updates, or I remotely reboot the machine for updates/issue/etc and the machine just sits at the DELL logo and never posts.

Once I remove this drive it boots right up. I take the drive to my house and try it in a few other computers and they all also fail to boot up. When the replacement drives show up I tried a different port on the motherboard and also a different SATA cable. The real kicker is while these drives are out I throw a 3tb WD Red drive in there and it never has issues.

Sure enough I throw the drive in and let it record for a month and I do a reboot and it never recovers from the reboot. WD is happy to keep sending replacements but it costs me shipping and recordings. I just ordered a Seagate drive to throw in this machine because I'm sure this will keep going on.

Any ideas? Anyone see this?

Have you actually tested the HDD for bad sectors with a tool like Seatools? This will also let you know if SMART has been tripped.

mat200 · Jun 14, 2018

tec508 said:
Hi mat,

Is this something I could look at while the drive is out of the PC?

Hi Tec,

SMART data should be stored on the HDD itself, normally you should also be able to have the system log this data into the system logs.

tec508 · Jun 14, 2018

No PC will boot with the drive connected so I'm not sure how I could check the drive.

rufunky · Jun 14, 2018

Seatools has both a DOS client and a windows client. If you can connect the drive internally or externally to a working PC you can use the windows client. Do not try to boot off of the drive.

tec508 · Jun 14, 2018

I guess I'm not being clear. Being connected as a secondary (or third, fourth, etc.. drive) The drive causes ANY computer its in to fail to post. Of course I'm not trying to boot from the drive all that's on it is BI recordings.

rufunky · Jun 14, 2018

Why are you plugging it in before the computer is booted into the OS?

tec508 · Jun 14, 2018

If you're suggesting hot plugging the drive, when I do that it isn't recognized and it doesn't sound like spins up.

rufunky · Jun 14, 2018

These drives are pretty silent and sometimes its hard to tell if they are spinning. Have you checked disk management to see if the drive is indeed being detected?

tec508 · Jun 14, 2018

Nothing in disk management, I can tell when they spin up I heard them when they were new.

rufunky · Jun 14, 2018

Well if they all have legit died, and it's properly ventalated. I would question if it's related to a hardware malfunction with your PC. Faulty Power supply, motherboard ect

Barboots · Jun 14, 2018

Can you test it in a USB hard drive dock?

Aengus4h · Jun 15, 2018

if you find the WD red drives work fine, then just stick with those and ditch the purples, sounds like it'd be a lot less hassle...

alastairstevenson · Jun 15, 2018

tec508 said:
Any ideas? Anyone see this?

If the replacement drive is still operating. check the SMART data for the load/unload count, attribute 193
If this is increasing rapidly due to the PC spinning down the drive, it's a rapid wear-out mechanism.
Extrapolate the value with the power-on life and see when it would get into 6 figures.

tec508 · Jun 17, 2018

rufunky said:
Well if they all have legit died, and it's properly ventalated. I would question if it's related to a hardware malfunction with your PC. Faulty Power supply, motherboard ect

Possibly, but why not the other WD drive that's always in the machine (1tb OS drive)? Also the backup WD Red drive never has the problem.

Barboots said:
Can you test it in a USB hard drive dock?

Nada, same results as when the drive is connected directly to the mobo.

Aengus4h said:
if you find the WD red drives work fine, then just stick with those and ditch the purples, sounds like it'd be a lot less hassle...

I agree, but hindsight is 20/20 and WD keeps replacing these purple drives with more purple drives. I've decided to go ahead and not install the next one they send back as I can't afford to keep loosing footage due to these faulty drives. I ordered a 6tb Seagate and it showed up today from, we'll see if that drive survives.

alastairstevenson said:
If the replacement drive is still operating. check the SMART data for the load/unload count, attribute 193
If this is increasing rapidly due to the PC spinning down the drive, it's a rapid wear-out mechanism.
Extrapolate the value with the power-on life and see when it would get into 6 figures.

Interesting. None of the replacement drives are operating, but I'm shipping the 4th dead one (since February) out tomorrow. Once they replace it i'll do the above and see what I get.

SantiagoDraco · Jun 17, 2018

So 4 drives failed, each shipped as a replacement to a previous drive, correct? Assuming this is the case that would likely mean they were also different production runs. This is very hard to believe (I don't mean to imply doubting your honesty) as this is a 100% failure rate for 4 drives with what should be WELL under the drives rated lifespan. This leads me to believe it's likely an external factor. If you were seeing this kind of failure rate with such short usage time... there's be massive amounts of failures out in the market and it would be all over the forums.

I'd suggest not plugging the replacement in directly as a SATA drive but rather using a USB 3.0/3.1 self powered external enclosure and seeing how it does for some time. That should isolate out any PC based causes... well as well as you can expect.

Definitely a weird situation. The only other thing I can think of is that those units you are receiving back are refurbs and simply do have issues. Again though I'd think there's be a lot of chatter about it around if that was the case.

CCTVCam · Jun 18, 2018

Only time I've ever had drives fail to be recognised at all when connected is because of a BIOS issue where the BIOS can't recognise the drive or it's in the wrong position.

First possibility, maybe the drive is too new to be recognised on your PC's. That would explain why it can't be seen when connected. That said, it would require a BIOS update, and flashing a BIOS is never to be taken lightly. It also has to be said, this isn't an issue I've come across in the last 10 years, so it maybe a legacy issue with modern OS's and HD's being more compatible, controller wise, out of the box. last time I saw this was probably on XP or ME.

Secondly, another less serious issue could the way it's formatted. Have you tried re-formatting it in a PC? Sometimes putting it in an external hard drive casing can help as the pc sees it via the casing's interface and not the drive directly. You can then reformat it if the casing sees it. I have had new drives the pc couldn't see but managed to re-format them on or in another device, and then been able to install them. If it's improperly formatted or the format corrupted, the pc may not recognise it / be able to use it. You may be able to find dedicated tools to reformat it outside of Windows ie in DOS. Many system restore products have the ability to reformat hard drives from DOS / windows PE, although I couldn't comment on the suitability of using them purely in this way. Needless to say it doesn't want a boot partition or to be assigned a boot drive.

Another possibility, I've never known a 2ndary drive that's properly formatted, prevent a boot unless it's designated the boot drive. Have you checked your BIOS on start up to ensure the 2ndary drive isn't designated the boot drive? You might need to adjust the order of the boot drives in the menu to ensure it isn't the 1st drive the PC goes to for boot. The order should be Your Boot Hard / SSD Drive, then a CD / DVD drive. If it's taking the place of your boot drive, and it doesn't have the boot table, the pc won't boot.

Although I've put them in a different order, I'd probably try 3 first, then 2, then 1 as a last resort.

SantiagoDraco · Jun 18, 2018

CCTVCam said:
Only time I've ever had drives fail to be recognised at all when connected is because of a BIOS issue where the BIOS can't recognise the drive or it's in the wrong position.

First possibility, maybe the drive is too new to be recognised on your PC's. That would explain why it can't be seen when connected. That said, it would require a BIOS update, and flashing a BIOS is never to be taken lightly. It also has to be said, this isn't an issue I've come across in the last 10 years, so it maybe a legacy issue with modern OS's and HD's being more compatible, controller wise, out of the box. last time I saw this was probably on XP or ME.

Secondly, another less serious issue could the way it's formatted. Have you tried re-formatting it in a PC? Sometimes putting it in an external hard drive casing can help as the pc sees it via the casing's interface and not the drive directly. You can then reformat it if the casing sees it. I have had new drives the pc couldn't see but managed to re-format them on or in another device, and then been able to install them. If it's improperly formatted or the format corrupted, the pc may not recognise it / be able to use it. You may be able to find dedicated tools to reformat it outside of Windows ie in DOS. Many system restore products have the ability to reformat hard drives from DOS / windows PE, although I couldn't comment on the suitability of using them purely in this way. Needless to say it doesn't want a boot partition or to be assigned a boot drive.

Another possibility, I've never known a 2ndary drive that's properly formatted, prevent a boot unless it's designated the boot drive. Have you checked your BIOS on start up to ensure the 2ndary drive isn't designated the boot drive? You might need to adjust the order of the boot drives in the menu to ensure it isn't the 1st drive the PC goes to for boot. The order should be Your Boot Hard / SSD Drive, then a CD / DVD drive. If it's taking the place of your boot drive, and it doesn't have the boot table, the pc won't boot.

Although I've put them in a different order, I'd probably try 3 first, then 2, then 1 as a last resort.

A few comments to your points.

1. He's stated these were replacement drives which means that at least one of them worked on that PC before so there should be no issue with them being too "new" (which I'm not sure what you implying by too new). If a drive utilized some interface protocol that wasn't supported on that system it wouldn't change in the same model from one drive to another.
2. If the drive was not formatted completely, meaning a low level format, I'd be shocked that the manufacturer would send it out that way. He also stated that he's had the issue with 4 drives so I assume the drives were installed and working for some time so it's not a formatting issue.
3. He also stated he tried the drives in an external enclosure which also eliminates the issue being a bios boot order. Additionally since it was used for some time in the system that would imply the bios is already set to boot from the correct drive.

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Issues with WD purple drives

tec508

n3wb

mat200

tec508

n3wb

rufunky

Pulling my weight

mat200

tec508

n3wb

rufunky

Pulling my weight

tec508

n3wb

rufunky

Pulling my weight

tec508

n3wb

rufunky

Pulling my weight

tec508

n3wb

rufunky

Pulling my weight

Barboots

Pulling my weight

Aengus4h

Getting the hang of it

alastairstevenson

tec508

n3wb

SantiagoDraco

Getting the hang of it

CCTVCam

Known around here

SantiagoDraco

Getting the hang of it