News Firm Seeks Class Action Suit Over WD’s SMR Hard Drives

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I found out about the SMR about 5 days after my WD Red's arrived. I decided to test some claims and found that zfs RAID filled with random data. Like other reports on reddit, rebuilds WILL result in dropped drives. This happened twice, one on the parity and once on the data drive.

I contacted WD support and they just shrugged. They said I could return them for warranty. They said they will be replaced with same drive or a used drive. (which means refurb older drive with reduced surface life) I offered to pay the difference for the Red Pro drives and again they just said that's not an option. So I was well within my 30 day window to return them, so I did.

If WD gives you the run around, you may do better to take them to small claims court. For some states the filing fee can be as low as $30 (That's the lowest I found any way). Other states will allow you to recoup the filing fee if you win. They cannot bring a lawyer, which means they have to fly out a representative to represent the company. It will likely cost them more than what the drives are worth and they will likely just escalate your case for immediate replacement with something that works.
 
My situation was similar - I found out about SMR shortly after I received a pair of WD Reds. A few days of frenzied poking about online, then I returned them (within the return period) and had to thus pay return shipping, so I'm out about $16. Not a big deal, all things considered, but irksome, nonetheless.

Got a pair of Seagate IronWolf drives instead.

I wouldn't mind if I was the one that screwed up, but hiding this information wasn't an accident - especially since the Red drives are aimed at NAS, and NAS is where there's a particular problem with CMR SMR. (fixed because I can't type, apparently)
 
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st379 said:
Seagate did not release smr drives on their nas (IronWolf) line as far as I know.
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From the article.
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/sneaky-marketing-toshiba-seagate-wd-smr-drives-without-disclosure
"After a bit of continued prodding, storage industry sage Chris Mellor secured statements from both Seagate and Toshiba that confirmed that those companies, too, are selling drives using the slow SMR technology without informing their customers. The latter two even use the tech in hard drives destined for desktop PCs. "

It doesn't matter if it wasn't in the IronWolf drive. Nor did I ever say it was. I don't know where you got that from. As even this article says the suit includes WD Blue and Black drives. Red was just the most in depth example of why this is bad for the consumer.

A class action lawsuit could be formed for any HDD which contained SMR without disclosure. I'm not arguing the merits of it. If a judge will allow it. If they could win. Just that it's likely some lawyers at some law firm will likely try a class action lawsuit against Seagate as well.
 
digitalgriffin said:
That is correct. Seagate IronWolfs do not use SMR. This is what I exchanged my WD's for. I had no issue with those in my array. But the IronWolf reputation isn't the strongest either.
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I remember that the 8tb and 10tb drives from seagate are very realiable according to Backblaze, I am not sure what model it is. It is reallly depend on the model although 3 Seagate hdd have stopped working and only 1 WD has stopped working for me.
To be honest I don't like seagate but after what WD did maybe I will consider them in the future.
 
st379 said:
I remember that the 8tb and 10tb drives from seagate are very realiable according to Backblaze, I am not sure what model it is. It is reallly depend on the model although 3 Seagate hdd have stopped working and only 1 WD has stopped working for me.
To be honest I don't like seagate but after what WD did maybe I will consider them in the future.
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I'm switching over to 2 parity drives (one WD Pro Red) for just this reason
 
I remember a class action lawsuit I was involved in a long time ago, over the mobile 8600GT GPU because of overheating issues (oh and boy did it like to overheat). I got 15 dollars for it. I mean, I was still stuck with a laptop that could barely play anything without catching on fire, so big deal.

If the class action lawsuit for the drives ends up benefiting anyone, it will be indirectly due to the financial cost paid by the companies as well as a "maybe we should think before we do something like this again" as opposed to any direct compensation awarded to the consumers involved, since it will likely be paltry at best.
 
velocityg4 said:
It doesn't matter if it wasn't in the IronWolf drive. Nor did I ever say it was. I don't know where you got that from. As even this article says the suit includes WD Blue and Black drives. Red was just the most in depth example of why this is bad for the consumer.
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It does matter, because there is no minimum guaranteed level of performance, so you can't claim a HD manufacturer misled you the customer because it has slow er random write performance than you assumed. It does matter for NAS drives, because SMR drives have problems working in certain RAID situations, so the drives literally don't work at all in common scenarios they are marketed for.
 
digitalgriffin said:
I found out about the SMR about 5 days after my WD Red's arrived. I decided to test some claims and found that zfs RAID filled with random data. Like other reports on reddit, rebuilds WILL result in dropped drives. This happened twice, one on the parity and once on the data drive.

I contacted WD support and they just shrugged. They said I could return them for warranty. They said they will be replaced with same drive or a used drive. (which means refurb older drive with reduced surface life) I offered to pay the difference for the Red Pro drives and again they just said that's not an option. So I was well within my 30 day window to return them, so I did.

If WD gives you the run around, you may do better to take them to small claims court. For some states the filing fee can be as low as $30 (That's the lowest I found any way). Other states will allow you to recoup the filing fee if you win. They cannot bring a lawyer, which means they have to fly out a representative to represent the company. It will likely cost them more than what the drives are worth and they will likely just escalate your case for immediate replacement with something that works.
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This falls under doctrine of partial performance. The most you can get out of it would be a full refund. Unless you hate them big time that you want to throw your time into it... I won't bother filing.
 
neutron_beam said:
This falls under doctrine of partial performance. The most you can get out of it would be a full refund. Unless you hate them big time that you want to throw your time into it... I won't bother filing.
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A full refund as opposed to a $20 rebate on your next WD drive purchase on a class action?

If you are outside your return period and WD gives you a run around, the small claims lawsuit is especially worth it. It's in their interest to settle with you quickly as it will cost them more than the drive is worth. Why make class action lawyers rich so you can get a $20 coupon on your next purchase? Your data and your time is worth so much more.

I spent over 30 hours total pulling out the drives, testing them (and failing), and then returning them, and then having to purchase Seagate, and then redo my array...AGAIN.
 
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