The Western Digital Blues

[UltraMega]

Since I do PC repair, I see a lot of failing hard drives that I just replace with SSDs. For a long time I've noticed a pattern...

 

A lot of these drives are western digital blue drives. If I encounter a PC with a failing drive, there is like a 70% chance it will be a western digital blue. Anyone else notice this? I know they are cheap and common drives which is definitely a factor, but I see so many of them fail that I'll just replace them whenever I see them, failing or not. 

[ENTERPRISE]

I have no data to support my claims but I would agree that in my experience WD Blue drives are consistently an issue. 

 

As it happens my brother in laws laptop was using a WD Blue HDD. I swapped it out for an SSD yesterday as it was on its way out and the laptop was dead slow. 

 

Granted WD blue is essentially their budget line, so I expect lower performance, but not more failures. 

[Sir Beregond]

I agree that the Blues are the budget drives and I saw them fail plenty back when I did desktop support as well. 

 

Anecdotally I feel like Western Digital in general is dropping in quality. I've had two different Black drives fail on me as well within 7 years. Meanwhile I have some that are 10+ years old that are doing just fine. If I ever need spinning drives again, I'll be looking elsewhere.

[bonami2]

I think they just are sold more often. With the past reliability of seagate no one want to venture. And toshiba is know to just die.