Shucking western digital elements reliability

[grangervoldemort]

Anyone had experience with shucked drives from wd elements? 

 

How reliable have they been for you?

 

State how long you had them, what model of internal drive and size, name and size of the entire unit, which country you bought them in, how many and how you're using them. 

 

Thinking of buying 10TB ones to shuck because I don't want to end up with ones that aren't usable should the bridge fail, although according to this, the drive will be useable without the enclosure: https://support.wdc.com/knowledgebase/answer.aspx?ID=15150&s

and because IF they're reliable I could use them in a NAS.

 

Is that information true from that website (official WD website). Can the drives REALLY be used without the enclosure? Say for example I want to use the unit as a whole, then one day the bridge fails, can I then just shuck the drive and continue using it, or will the data not be accessible anymore?

 

''I think the point the OP is trying to make is that the drives themselves may have been rejected at the final test phase, and the manufacturing process flow allows them to be repurposed to be a component in an external drive. Putting them into a NAS could be problematic if they didn’t meet the manufacturing spec to begin with.''

 

Thanks

[NelizMastr]

As far as I know, the models that only use a bridge PCB are white label WD Reds. They should be pretty reliable.

[Electronics Wizardy]

I have probably gotten about 8 of these, and they haven't had any issues yet.

 

They work fine in a nas, many people have done this.

 

Backup your drives, so you don't lose data if the bridge fails, never trust a single drive.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, CircleTech said:

Don't you have to disable the 3.3v pin on those to get them to work in a desktop or is that a different model?

You do, but all of my servers and nases that I put then in don't have 3v3 anyways, so it wasn't a problem

[kirashi]

12 minutes ago, grangervoldemort said:

Anyone had experience with shucked drives from wd elements? 

How reliable have they been for you?

State how long you had them, what model and size, how many and how you're using them. 

Thanks

I bought 2x 6TB WDBWLG0060HBK-NESN drives on Amazon Prime Day Canada 2019 for $119 CAD each to shuck & install in a Synology DS918+ NAS enclosure. Are they the best? Nope, in fact, mine were WD Blues, but for the price, I couldn't say no. My NAS currently serves as a download & file server, so doesn't get hit too heavily... yet. I will be looking for 2x 8TB or 10TB drives during the next sale, or as prices fall though.

https://www.amazon.ca/Western-Digital-Elements-Desktop-WDBWLG0060HBK-NESN/dp/B076MPMZDV/

[grangervoldemort]

No one is answering the questions as I asked. State all details as requested please. 

 

When I wrote model state model of internal drive. 

[grangervoldemort]

26 minutes ago, kirashi said:

I bought 2x 6TB WDBWLG0060HBK-NESN drives on Amazon Prime Day Canada 2019 for $119 CAD each to shuck & install in a Synology DS918+ NAS enclosure. Are they the best? Nope, in fact, mine were WD Blues, but for the price, I couldn't say no. My NAS currently serves as a download & file server, so doesn't get hit too heavily... yet. I will be looking for 2x 8TB or 10TB drives during the next sale, or as prices fall though.

https://www.amazon.ca/Western-Digital-Elements-Desktop-WDBWLG0060HBK-NESN/dp/B076MPMZDV/

You bought a elements external drive and it had a BLUE in it?! I only wanted model of internal drive. For the entire unit just call it the name it's called. 

So a xTB WD Elements Desktop USB 3.0. But including the model of the entire unit is OK too, just make sure to include full name. Saves having to google the model of the unit. 

[Daniel644]

On 8/6/2019 at 1:46 AM, CircleTech said:

Don't you have to disable the 3.3v pin on those to get them to work in a desktop or is that a different model?

depends on your PSU, they worked right out of the box with my 2017 RM750x PSU.

 

@grangervoldemort I bought 2 of the 10TB units with the bonus 32GB flash drive from Best Buy last november, shucked them and put them to work as the mass storage for my  gaming desktop, no issues with the drives, they are the white label drives like every other unit, unlike most people that use credit cards and stuff like that to shuck them I used like every last pick from my IFixIt Protech Toolkit, it's possible if you are really careful to shuck them without breaking any clips so you could restore them to stock should you need warranty service, there is no "warranty void" sticker or anything like that on the enclosure. the real trick is once you have every clip spaced out by the picks you take the last one and where the back/bottom/top half of the enclosure hits the front, those are the last points you want to pop and you so it with a twisting motion of the pick and the 2 halves separate from each other and all the picks fall out simultaneously, literally takes a couple minutes to be at a bare drive. It's the same model number as all the other ones you will see on r/datahoarders, WD isn't just slapping random different 10tb drives into them, it's the same internal drive on all of them.

[grangervoldemort]

5 hours ago, Daniel644 said:

depends on your PSU, they worked right out of the box with my 2017 RM750x PSU.

 

@grangervoldemort I bought 2 of the 10TB units with the bonus 32GB flash drive from Best Buy last november, shucked them and put them to work as the mass storage for my  gaming desktop, no issues with the drives, they are the white label drives like every other unit, unlike most people that use credit cards and stuff like that to shuck them I used like every last pick from my IFixIt Protech Toolkit, it's possible if you are really careful to shuck them without breaking any clips so you could restore them to stock should you need warranty service, there is no "warranty void" sticker or anything like that on the enclosure. the real trick is once you have every clip spaced out by the picks you take the last one and where the back/bottom/top half of the enclosure hits the front, those are the last points you want to pop and you so it with a twisting motion of the pick and the 2 halves separate from each other and all the picks fall out simultaneously, literally takes a couple minutes to be at a bare drive. It's the same model number as all the other ones you will see on r/datahoarders, WD isn't just slapping random different 10tb drives into them, it's the same internal drive on all of them.

Ok thanks, and reliability questions please. Please answer them.
BTW I live in the UK so no freebie USB memory stick here

I spoke to a PC repair store guy and he told me that external drives are designed to be used occasionally so the drives will be low performance and low quality. He said it would make no sense for WD to put in WD RED drives which are priced at £300+ into external enclosures financially for them.

A lot of people on forums are saying these white label drives in the WD Elements are WD RED's. The computer store repair guy (he runs his own business not from a franchised rubbish store) said that how are they able to prove they are WD RED's? He said you would have to take the drives apart and test every component and compare it with the WD RED. There is no way he said of knowing that they are WD RED.

 

I mentioned FCC ID and Model number and he said there is no way of knowing from that.

[Daniel644]

6 hours ago, grangervoldemort said:

I spoke to a PC repair store guy and he told me that external drives are designed to be used occasionally so the drives will be low performance and low quality.

and when I buy tires online for cheaper the guy at the tire shop tells me those tires have been sitting on a shelf for 6 months to a year and are overstock and thats why the online store can sell them cheaper (not that he just marks things up to high), you know why he says that, because he wants to make money selling you the parts. Oh and in my example I checked the date codes on the tires, never seen one more then 6 weeks old so I know the tire guy is full of it.

 

If you want reliability reports check out r/datahoarders on reddit, nearly everyone on that subreddit uses these drives so you will get a large sample size from there, much bigger then you will here.

[grangervoldemort]

1 hour ago, Daniel644 said:

and when I buy tires online for cheaper the guy at the tire shop tells me those tires have been sitting on a shelf for 6 months to a year and are overstock and thats why the online store can sell them cheaper (not that he just marks things up to high), you know why he says that, because he wants to make money selling you the parts. Oh and in my example I checked the date codes on the tires, never seen one more then 6 weeks old so I know the tire guy is full of it.

 

If you want reliability reports check out r/datahoarders on reddit, nearly everyone on that subreddit uses these drives so you will get a large sample size from there, much bigger then you will here.

He doesn't sell me anything. That computer repair store guy is a genuinely nice guy. I have NEVER bought anything from him and have only used his services twice in my life. Once it turned out the CPU clock and FSB was set incorrectly which he fixed. He had quoted me higher before I took it in as I asked him over the phone how much it would be (before he diagnosed the issue obviously as I hadn't given it to him), but when he found out the problem was simple he charged me less. I didn't ask him to charge me less he just did.

 

And this week I used his service again to test my dead GPU as if it wasn't dead then I could sell it.

I call him to ask him questions many times and he always answers. How many computer repair stores would do that? He doesn't charge me to answer the questions, and he doesn't expect anything in return.
He runs a small little store that hasn't been update in at least 15 years by the looks of it. But he provides excellent service and is a very nice guy. I go to him over the fancy stores in town because he is a honest nice guy the 2 times I have needed help. I first found out about him through a friend about 11 or so years ago.

Today I spent 45 minutes asking questions and he answered all of them and even gave me a tip to register the 10TB internal drives I buy (didn't know they needed to be registered). He also told me how to choose the correct RAM and how to adjust timings and latency etc if needed.

he charged me £5 to check if the GPU was dead. He said he ran various tests and found out a bank of RAM is dead on the GPU. He said I could fix it by buying a new board but obviously as it's an older card it wouldn't be worth it and I would find it hard to find that board/ I wasn't even considering doing that; he just always gives me lots of extra info.

 

Your example is very very different. I very much doubt WD are going to put WD RED's in their externals. As he rightfully said it would make no financial sense.

And ok thanks I will check that out.

 

Edit: I am on that reddit r hoarders thing and I have no idea how to use it. I have never used reddit before. How do I find the info I am looking for on this specifically there?

[Xplo1t]

Have 5 of the 8TB Easystores and 2 of the 10TB Easystores.  These are basically the same thing as the Element drives, but have an exclusive branding for Best Buy.

 

Over the last 8 months, only one of the 8TB models died.  Just did the RMA with WD and only sent the drive in.  Since we have right-to-repair laws, they have been better about replacing shucked ones.  They are all white labeled 5400rpm drives with 256MB cache.  They are in a SuperMicro 846 24-bay enclosure and run under a Windows 2019 Store Spaces pool.  I also have a mix of WD Reds, Iron Wolf and HGST NAS drives which have been rock solid.

 

I do agree with your contact that these are not held to the same standard as the Red drives.  There are documented difference in performance and even a lot of variability between them.  For example, the 10TB models will sustain nearly 200MB/sec writes which are close to the Reds.  The 8TB seem a lot slower, even below the equivalent Red.  They also only have a 2 year warranty I believe.  I would not use these in my primary NAS array and stick to the ones that have vibration and other protection.

[grangervoldemort]

Is it ok to use NAS drives in a DAS or a PC?

[Xplo1t]

Just a small update.  So far two of the 8TB drives have failed after being used in a NAS for about 8 months.  Both times, I just sent the shucked drive itself to WD for an RMA and they sent back a completely new enclosure w/drive in the box.  

 

If you run them in a raid 6 or raidz2/3 configuration, then you are probably safe as they will fail.  Just have a spare on hand and prepare to wait about 2 work weeks for the RMA process to complete.  I'm in the south east US and the RMA center is in California so the turn around isn't the quickest.

[grangervoldemort]

13 hours ago, Xplo1t said:

Just a small update.  So far two of the 8TB drives have failed after being used in a NAS for about 8 months.  Both times, I just sent the shucked drive itself to WD for an RMA and they sent back a completely new enclosure w/drive in the box.  

 

If you run them in a raid 6 or raidz2/3 configuration, then you are probably safe as they will fail.  Just have a spare on hand and prepare to wait about 2 work weeks for the RMA process to complete.  I'm in the south east US and the RMA center is in California so the turn around isn't the quickest.

Yeah I think I will just go for RED's and not risk the shucked drives thanks. That failure rate and time is insane. NAS drives do not fail that fast.

Thanks for the update. Was pivotal in my decision making.