Warning: WD20EADS Unreliable

Drive failures can and do happen at any time. Multiple disk failures can happen. RAID is not a backup. If you store important data primarily on the ReadyNAS you should backup that data regularly. Using the optional dual-redundancy (available on the 6-bay Ultra) would be a good idea if you have the Ultra 6/Ultra 6 Plus, but that still doesn't replace the need to backup. RAID is a great, but important data should never be stored on just one device.

I realize RAID is not a backup (it's in every other post here), but it is supposed to be more reliable in the right configuration. The reason I have RAID is because my movies take up a huge amount of space and I can't afford a second Ultra 6 just to act as a backup. Fortunately, all my critical data is backed up multiple ways, including off-site. However, short of a T1 at home, I am not going to be able to backup 2.5TB of movies off-site. All of this is beside the point, though, as I am merely warning people regarding a particular type of drive that is listed in the Hardware Compatibility list.

nixlimited wrote:
I know that the WD 2TB EADS drive is listed on the compatibility list, but after just having multiple simultaneous drive failures with 3 month old drives I would caution anyone against using these. I lost my entire array and have to start over. Edit: The EARS model is now approved for use. I have no idea if it more reliable though.

WOW!!! This is exactly what happened to me. I have 4 WD20EADS in my REadyNAS 1100. Right at 3 months old drive 1 failed. I removed and re-inserted the drive, and rebooted and started a re-sync. It successfully re-synced and seemed fine for about 5 days. I went camping for an extended weekend and came home to find that drive 3 failed on Thursday and drive 2 failed on Saturday, giving me a dead volume.

How can I trust rebuilding with these drives? I'm beginning to test each drive independently and logged in to the forum to see if anyone else had similar issues. Guess I'm right...

merc4a2, your running a very different NAS. For one thing NetGear recommends enterprise disks for rackmount devices not cheap green disks. The WD20EADS is not on the compatibility list for the 1100. The 1100 is a Sparc ReadyNAS and so runs different firmware to the Ultra.

What version of RAIDiator firmware are you running on your 1100 and if you got SMART errors before the disk failures what were they?

I installed 10. It wasn't long before 4 were reported "dead". Removed and tested. 3 failed testing, 1 passed. Wont trust the 1 that passed though. Either a bad batch or flawed design perhaps?

Question to OP: As the 20EADS are "green drives", did you set the IDLE timer and the TLER function of the discs to a more "RAID compatible" level? If not certain SMART counters will skyrocket (e.g. Load Cycle Count) and you probaly end up killing your discs involuntarily.

@akeiler: I did not, and I am not sure how I would do that. Is that something enabled by jumpers on the drive, or is it through the Frontview interface? I would be interested to know. Anyway, my RMA drives have arrived and I am getting ready to rebuild the array, however I am mixing in some seagate drives as well. I will not rely on all WD drives again, at least not in this class. Notably, none of my drives failed SMART tests even though they failed the WD diagnostic test for too many bad sectors. Also notable, all of my drives failed right at the 4 month mark, which is similar to other posters.

I trust everyone is aware that Western Digital "does not recommend" usage of their green drives in a RAID application.

PapaBear wrote:
I trust everyone is aware that Western Digital "does not recommend" usage of their green drives in a RAID application.

Actually, I did not know that. I chose my drive based on the HCL and previous positive experience with WD drives. Do you have a link for where that is advertised?

It has been posted here before and on other RAID manufacturer sites. I didn't save the references, and don't have the time to search it out now. However, I did try the WD FAQ section, although they will notify manufacturers (like Netgear) of things without making them public, and one reason is the line of WD MyBook drives which have in some instances a RAID array, but they are not intended to run 24/365. They consider the ReadyNAS line to be Enterprise class because they are designed to run 24/365 and in fact, with the exception of Ultra line and the Duo all the current desktop NAS (NV+ and Pro series) were designed for business environments with a carry over to the pro-sumer customer. With that, I did find this.