Customer Reviews

Western Digital WD5002ABYS RE3 3.5-inch Enterprise SATA Hard Drive (500 GB, 1.2 million hours MTBF, 16 MB Cache, 7200 RPM)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This higher-priced harddrive is priced right for a reason!
This is not a regular "consumer" harddrive, instead it's "RE3" which stands for 3d generation of Reliability class; and it's from a reputable mfg - WesternDigital. I used to swear by Seagate for desktops (Hitachi for laptops); but not anymore, Seagate's quality - even ES series (also Server/Enterprise class) has dropped, not to mention Seagate regular AS (consumer) class which is even worse, though I admit Seagate's strength is "bleeding edge" technology - except being at forefront, often means higher failure rate.
DO you think capacity alone is the most important spec for a storage? NO, unless you don't use computers for serious/important work.
Most important spec is RELIABILITY.

WD "RE3" are designed for Server/Enterprise & other 24/7 "always-on" severe applications, where reliability is more important than just capacity. This drive unlike regular (consumer) WD's, spindle has TWO (2) supports & controller has TWO (2) microprocessors, unlike a single support/processor on regular harddrives. Cache Memory is also larger than WD consumer version.
That is WHY it costs more than consumer harddisk of the same capacity - don't let the higher price/per Gigabyte discourage you, there's a reason. Hence, people use this model often for RAID, rather than basic [desktop] configuration. Its MTBF is also specified - 1.2Million hours, unlike consumer harddrives which often have no MTBF specified.
ABOUT DEAD DRIVES:
There was time in history (am I getting old?) when harddrives were notoriously finicky/unreliable. Then a long stretch of time arrived when harddisk became very reliable. What is happening now is due to consumers demand, the capacity & hence data density (per platter/square inch or what we call square millimeter in Europe) has risen to extreme, speeds & hence HEAT also have risen, this resulted in a sharp drop in reliability of ALL HARDDRIVE BRANDS. Data density has reached a point where Quantum mechanics effects become REAL - that is data is no longer as deterministic as used to be, instead theory of probability comes into play. In plain English, it becomes more & more difficult for manufacturer to assure that a "1" or "0" written to the disk, will be read also as "1" or "0". Too many people care just for capacity and here is the result - for the past several years we started getting unreliable drives. The 2nd reason for reliability drop is that technology started to pace so fast, that manufacturers are pretty sure you will buy a new harddrive before your current one runs out of warranty, so the overall trend is toward capacity with little regard for reliability.

WD RE3 series like this harddrive I am reviewing is trying to reduce this problem, by asking higher price for higher reliability and a bit less capacity. Remember - extreme capacity like 2TB drives (as of today - July, year 2010) is likely to undermine reliability, because datadensity is ridiculous, and a laptop drive of the same capacity MAY (not necessarily) be less reliable due to smaller platter (2.5" vs 3.5') & hence higher datadensity, though on the contrary some laptop drives are manufactured with better shock/vibration resistance.

So to conclude:
Once in a Blue Moon you may get a DOA drive these days, because capacities have risen to extreme. You people go & buy 1TB drive like candy, but for me as an Electrical Engineer, it's a miracle that we even have such capacity today, I tell you it's really high data density on that platter that spins at 7200 or 10000rpm that makes errors inevitable, check your SMART utility - data flies at enormous speed. So modern highcapacity harddrives all suffer from it due to extreme magnetic density & speeds.
You CAN get a DOA drive, including this supposedly reliable Western Digital part# WD5002ABYS
No brand is immune today - Seagate, WD, Hitachi.
But this WD5002ABYS is statistically better.
If your life depends on data, if it's important, I recommend this drive.
If you buy 100 such drives, you might get some dead units, but like I said it's not unique to WesternDigital - there's one other vendor whom I cannot mention on Amazon (Non-competitive Rules), who sells MORE harddrives than Amazon and if you look reviews people post there - EVERY brand gets a big percentage of bad/dead drives angry reviews left, and it's those people who dominate b/c they're angry enough to leave a review. People who are happy, don't spend time on writing a review - they just use a harddrive and keep quiet. I decided to write a long review, b/c people like me love to write on technology subjects - and many others here also wrote a long/positive review.

Stan Starinski, MSEE
New York, NY

Have three runnig in an RAID 5 config, (must have minimum 3 drives for RAID 5). These drives are silent, run fairly cool and are quick. Not knowledgable enough to discuss the technical aspects but suggest you visit the Western Digital site and explore the Enterprise RE2 and RE3 technical info. RE2 and RE3 enterprise drives are recommended for RAID configured server applications. The differnce between RE2 and RE3 you ask? From the DATAMATION web site, "The RE Series drives are currently offered in three flavors: The previous generation RE2 drives, the next generation RE3 drives (with a dual processor design that increases the drive's performance 20% beyond that of the 2nd generation drives), and the RE2-GP, or "GreenPower" drives which feature power conservation features including Intelliseek (calculates the optimum speed of the actuator arm to reduce wasted movement), Intellipower (balances the actual spin speed of the platter to match needs and consumes less power on start up), and Intellipark (unloads recording heads during idle). Intelliseek is also featured in the RE3 drives".

They work great in my small network storage/retrieval application. If you're looking for absolute speed, check out the Western Dig VelociRaptor 10,000 rpm series while you're at the website.

Western Digital Bulk (WD5002ABYS) Western Digital Serial ATA (SATA II)Caviar Raid , RE3 3.5" Interna

This is an exceptional hard drive. It is rock-solid, runs cool, and is a raid edition model, so it has the 5 year warranty.
The RMA process with Western Digital hard drives is second to none....
Thanks!

The RE drives from WD like the ES from Seagate are enterprise drives and have a specified MTBF which the consumer drives do not. Performance is top line and what else can I say?

Netgear-approved drive for the ReadyNAS Duo. Bought this as a second drive to my 500GB Duo. Duo recognized it immediately after installation, no problems for at least two months now.

One note: it does appear to run 5-10 degrees F warmer than the stock Seagate drive that shipped with the Duo, but nothing out of the ordinary.

I hope these hard drives will be reliable.
They called RAID-Edition. that's exactly how I'm going to use them.
So far they are quiet and fast.
Thanks.
Alex.

This hard drive is an excellent buy for individuals who demand a higher standard from thier computer or will need the hard drive to continue functioning with rock solid reliability. As a demanding IT consultant who works much of the time out of the home, this drive was part of a new desktop construction to bring Western Digital's "RAID Edition" reliability enhancements to a non-RAID installation. By doing this, I upgraded a component intended to last on average 3 years with a 1.2 million hour Mean Time Between Failures part.

No, it doesn't have the capacities of some of its consumer space counterparts and it wont hold a candle to the speed of an SSD's transfer however if what you need is reliability above all else, this is the drive to choose before you ramp up into significant cost in the enterprise space.

Drives arrived as expected. Bought 2 of these to use in a RAID 1 system. Setting up RAID was a snap and the drives are functioning perfectly.

I bought this for my youngest child and it performs well.
He does not know the difference in speed from a 10,000 RPM and this one.
It should be reliable being from Western Digital and an Enterprise Drive.
I have faith in it.

I have gotten 4 of these to use in a RAID config. One was DOA. Replacment working fine.