Are Western Digital disks the worst, or is it just me?

Depends how important your data is to you.

That is a small sample. Disks can and do fail at any time. That's a key reason why backups are important.

For any brand there will be users who recommend staying clear based on their past experience.

mdgm wrote:
Depends how important your data is to you. That is a small sample. Disks can and do fail at any time. That's a key reason why backups are important. For any brand there will be users who recommend staying clear based on their past experience.

Are you familiar with the recovery service by the NETGEAR company?

I have two experiences with 2 companies:

One was extraordinary. I sent the disks and the diagnostic was free: "We found all your data in disk A, but disk B is completely dead, with a massive hardware failure". The price was very reasonable (low 100s).

The second experience was horrible. They kidnapped the disks and demanded an $11,000 ransom.

You have needed to use data recovery services twice?

vandermerwe wrote:
You have needed to use data recovery services twice?

Yes. Once, back in Boston in 1992. The most recent in Texas, in 2008. They were Unix/Linux on Dell servers, didn't even know about NETGEAR at the time.

Twice in my long and illustrious career.

This would be the 3rd. time. The fundamental problem is that the 4 disks are identical from factory, mirrored, and therefore they decided (conspired) to fail within a week of difference.

I am beginning to suspect that it is best to order the 4 disks separate, from different distributor, etc.

TIA

Note: The 2nd event above (2008) was not even a failure. Some files were wholesale removed by an improperly implemented "remove" command. The disks were physically in perfect shape. The recovery company opened them, damaged the checksums in such a way that only they could recover the data and attempted extortion.

The question was asked with surprise that you do not seem to have realised the absolute necessity to have a backup strategy despite having gone through this twice before.
Ordering the disks from different places may reduce the chance that you get all disks from a bad batch, however you'll still end up with disks that are the same age in your device.

vandermerwe wrote:
The question was asked with surprise that you do not seem to have realised the absolute necessity to have a backup strategy despite having gone through this twice before.

I was able to recover the data from another backup. I keep them in 2 countries, 3 cities in the US. I brought a set of disks with me from South America to the US, and a year later had a relative bringing another set, just in case the proverbial airplane crashed (or a substantially less dramatic lost luggage).

Another acquaintance came from the Caribbean and I told him: "send the paperwork via Fedex and the disks with you."

I still have one spare copy.

In any event, I found what I was looking for:

http://gearhead.netgear.com/Data_recovery.html

Gearhead is not for NAS units. For NAS units you open a support case for your device and purchase an initial diagnostics data recovery service contract. Also, this diagnosis is done remotely. In some cases we may need disks to be sent into us, but we would let you know if that is necessary.

It depends on the nature of the failure what can be done. If the disks are not detected then you'd need to use 3rd party data recovery. However if the disks can be detected then there may be something our support can do to try to recover some data.

mdgm wrote:

Gearhead is not for NAS units. For NAS units you open a support case for your device and purchase an initial diagnostics data recovery service contract. Also, this diagnosis is done remotely. In some cases we may need disks to be sent into us, but we would let you know if that is necessary. It depends on the nature of the failure what can be done. If the disks are not detected then you'd need to use 3rd party data recovery. However if the disks can be detected then there may be something our support can do to try to recover some data.

Can you give me an idea about the price of the "initial diagnostics data recovery service contract"?

I have all the data elsewhere, and price is a factor.

I think it is somewhere around $200, but support would tell you the current price