WDBlue SA510 Issues

[LordPokeSmoke]

I was given an old computer that just needed a hard drive and ram to get working, so ordered some and installed it to get it up and running (this is the first computer I've ever actually put parts in or even opened so I'm an extreme noob to all of this).  I went with a Western Digital Blue SA510 1TB 2.5 SSD and it's been running fine; however I've come across a lot of reviews and stories of these drives failing at a high rate within the first 6 months or so.  I installed a firmware update but I'm still worried about it crapping out down the road.

 

Is Western Digital not a reputable brand?  Is there another brand you'd recommend switching this out with? 

 

I was thinking of getting another drive and setting up RAID 1 to ensure I don't lose anything if this fails; as long as the new SSD is at least as fast as the old one then will it degrade performance?  And would it be advisable to copy the OS to the second drive as well?

 

Thanks in advance for the answers

[Electronics Wizardy]

Reviews are a pretty bad sample for failure rates, so I'd ignore that.

 

Any drive can fail at any time, so make sure you have backups and you won't lose data. I'd do backups instead of raid here are its easier to setup and much better at keepingdatasae.

 

Generally ssds are pretty reliable so I woudln't worry too much

[LordPokeSmoke]

4 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Reviews are a pretty bad sample for failure rates, so I'd ignore that.

 

Any drive can fail at any time, so make sure you have backups and you won't lose data. I'd do backups instead of raid here are its easier to setup and much better at keepingdatasae.

 

Generally ssds are pretty reliable so I woudln't worry too much

Ok thank you!

[NewMaxx]

The SA510 does have a poor reputation, but it's not 100% sure how bad it really is. With any SSD or storage device you should be mindful of backups.

[Tetras]

On 7/25/2023 at 2:05 AM, LordPokeSmoke said:

Is Western Digital not a reputable brand?  Is there another brand you'd recommend switching this out with? 

 

WD are fine, but like most brands, they have good products and bad products.

 

NewMaxx would know better than me, but the old SATA Blue had a decent reputation and used a reliable controller, with dram. The SA510 is supposedly in the same range (WD Blue), but it is not the same drive and appears to have been downgraded and is no longer on the same level as higher-tier drives like the MX500.

 

Personally, for an old computer, I'd just keep it and as suggested already, make semi-regular backups of important files.

[NewMaxx]

16 hours ago, Tetras said:

NewMaxx would know better than me, but the old SATA Blue had a decent reputation and used a reliable controller, with dram. The SA510 is supposedly in the same range (WD Blue), but it is not the same drive and appears to have been downgraded and is no longer on the same level as higher-tier drives like the MX500.

It's somewhat similar to the WD Green (SATA) controller switch-a-roo many years back (circa 2018) where they basically put on a USB flash drive controller. The SA510 went from the stellar Marvell 88SS1074 to basically a low-end SanDisk part. These kind of controllers are perfectly serviceable but are in no way as good as the original, especially as the new model lacks DRAM (which is more important for SATA SSDs).

 

"Serviceable" meaning, yeah, older computer upgrade, large storage, etc, assuming precautions are taken. Arguably you should move to NVMe for anything more right now, anyway. It's hard to find a good SATA drive.