Inside Western Digital: How Tomorrow's Storage Gets Made

[neiroatopelcc]

[citation][nom]cadder[/nom]Despite the click-click-click process, the images were great.For quite awhile I've bought only WD drives. This gives me even more faith in the company.[/citation]
And I'd urge you to keep it that way! After having 9 WD drives fail between 2008 and now I tried something else and bought a hitachi drive. It's not broken but it's very very very noisy and despite the 7200rpm no faster than my wd green (both 2tb). But from what I can tell pmr based drives seem to fail more often than older ones.

 

[williamvw]

[citation][nom]neiroatopelcc[/nom]I find it marvelous to see all this expensive hightech and amongst those things find old crt monitors and I think in one picture about #20 I even spotted an old hp dx2000 in the right side of an image (in front of an older 13" or so crt. Really nice to see expensive mashinery associated with expensive downtime being operated using windows antique and old hardware.[/citation]
Assuming these antiques continue to do their jobs as needed (which they obviously are), I applaud WD for continuing to use them, keeping all that hardware out of our landfills and not incurring unnecessary replacement costs that would only get passed on to consumers.

 

[williamvw]

[citation][nom]liquid0h[/nom]Cool walk thru Will. I love tours of facilities, especially something high tech like this. Keep it up![/citation]
Thanks! It was a blast, and I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity. We've included as much here as we thought people's patience would allow, but there's obviously a lot more we couldn't use. Believe me, Chris and I wish you could see the full-res versions of these images right on the main pages. Please bear with the three-click process to see the full-res versions of the shots that look interesting. We put a lot of work into making them available for you.

 

[Guest]

I'd give these guys a little credit. I mean, look at their process, then take a look at the shipping guys' process, and you can clearly see who's at fault.

 

[Guest]

Awesome documentary, thank you very much for such in depth reporting - indeed this was a very rare opportunity. Also thanks to WD for managing to keep the cost of a mind-boggling complex HD to a mere $100-$200 a pop.

 

[Ephebus]

[citation][nom]neiroatopelcc[/nom]And I'd urge you to keep it that way! After having 9 WD drives fail between 2008 and now I tried something else and bought a hitachi drive. It's not broken but it's very very very noisy and despite the 7200rpm no faster than my wd green (both 2tb). But from what I can tell pmr based drives seem to fail more often than older ones.[/citation]

I did the same, and the thing is actually noisier than my whole system. It produces more noise when accessing data randomly than my 3 case fans plus CPU fan plus video card fan plus my other 3 HD's TOGETHER. What's worse, Hitachi simply removed the option to alter the AAM (Automatic Acoustic Management) parameters from their Feature Tool utility since its version 2.13.

If anybody else was unfortunate enough to purchase this drive, here's the solution: get the freeware utility WinAAM or the more sophisticated HD Tune (not freeware), boot the system with the HD set to IDE mode in the BIOS (AAM can't be altered in SATA/AHCI/RAID mode) and set the AAM value to 128. There will be NO noticeable performance penalty (I did A LOT of testing with HD Tach) and the absurd noise will disappear.

I tried contacting Hitachi's support about this but they didn't seem to even bother reading my message and sent me a standard copy and paste reply. This will be my first and last Hitachi hard drive EVER.

 

[-Fran-]

Nice Photos. Loved the article, thanks Tom's and WD!

Cheers!

 

[caparc]

THIS artical is the best one I've seen on this website. This is hardware with a capital H.

An axiom of manufacturing, the more of something you tool up to make the closer the cost can come to the bare cost of raw materials. This process is a fine example of that. And there's more "craftsmanship" in hard drives than I would have guessed.

Hey Tom, or whoever you are, pull some strings and do more articles like this please.

 

[OvrClkr]

There are a lot of DOA complaints on Newegg and even with 40% of that place is required to make sure the drive works before it leaves the building it still has to go through shipping...UPS shows up eight hours after FedEx and the drive it dead because during shipping your package was the substitute baby for 'kick the baby'.

Dont pay atttention to ALL the DOA reviews, many are just uneducated users that had no idea that you need to go into the Bios and set up the drive (boot sequence). You can tell when the review is legit or not

I have been purchasing hardware from the Egg since 2002 (a year after they opened) and I can personally tell you that out of 40+ drives, maybe 1 or 2 gave me problems. I have not had 1 DOA board, GPU, soundcard you name it... It is very unlikely for an item to arrive DOA unless it was mishandled during shipping. The Egg also has TOP-NOTCH RMA service, the best in the business so you really have nothing to lose

 

[shagrathdex666]

whooaaa! nice article ,now i will be more carefull when handling my hd's.

 

[LLJones]

Great Article,

Very nicely laid out. The pictures were phenom.

This is what makes a great site. Anybody and everybody can test equipment, but to actually see it made is a rare treat. So..... when do we get to see Intel/AMD etc?

You have set the bar very high, not going to be satisfied with plain old testing now that we know you can write articles like this.

Thanx for the great read.

 

[7amood]

If it is as clean as they claim... why am i looking at a single hair on the keyboard in picture 12??? it is on the right windows button.

I love WD and I want to see Segate also.
Great article.

 

[eddieroolz]

Amazing story! Thanks to William and WD for an interesting read!

 

[Guest]

Great tour and great photos! A rare glimpse into a secret world.

I really wonder though, as all workers hands looks soaking wet under the gloves: Are you a steaming, hard sweating body after a few hours of work in that (non-breathing?) protective clothing? If that's the case it must be very easy to get everlasting skin problems, and problems with fungus and such...

 

[Guest]

The man you see in the background with no mask is Borat, and yes......the interview was probably FANTASTIC!!

 

[g00ey]

[citation][nom]Hinges[/nom]The man you see in the background with no mask is Borat, and yes......the interview was probably FANTASTIC!![/citation]
Ahh, now I know why every single drive from WD go click-click-click-KLONK! and dies forever.

 

[williamvw]

[citation][nom]7amood[/nom]If it is as clean as they claim... why am i looking at a single hair on the keyboard in picture 12??? it is on the right windows button.[/citation]
Man, you had me going for a minute. I clicked through to the full res version of the image and was like, "No way! It IS a hair!" Fortunately, Gary Wilson also sent me a 2371x4096, 300 dpi TIFF version of this image, and as I sit here looking at it at 100%, the "hair" is clearly a "hairline" fracture in the key. I wish I could paste a capture of it into this reply. But between the tapering of the crack from bottom to top and this sharp bend that happens right below the front facing and top sides of the key, there's no doubt in my mind: It's a fracture, not a hair.

 

[caparc]

"as I sit here looking at it at 100%, the "hair" is clearly a "hairline" fracture in the key."

So you see, these articles aren't just informative. Western Digital and all those other high tech guys need us geeks in there keeping an eye on things.

 

[Guest]

Regarding the mystery talisman in picture 9, it's a Daruma doll, also known as a Dharma doll. From Wikipedia... is a hollow, round, Japanese doll modeled after Bodhidharma, the founder of the Zen sect of Buddhism. These dolls, though typically red and depicting a bearded man (Dharma), vary greatly in color and design depending on region and artist. Though considered an omocha, meaning toy, Daruma has a design that is rich in symbolism and is regarded more as a talisman of good luck to the Japanese. Daruma dolls are seen as a symbol of perseverance and good luck, making them a popular gift of encouragement. The doll has also been commercialized by many Buddhist temples to use alongside goal setting.

 

[Guest]

Seagate tour ?

 

[malnute]

wooow by far one of the coolest th article ever

 

[Guest]

Great article! Reading it was like i was there.
I always thought i had a rough idea how harddisks were made... seems i totally didn't.

This article drops my geek and nerd factor by 10.

 

[NucDsgr]

Marvelous article well worth the time reading and seeing. Very helpful in helping me understand the difficulties in pushing the harddrive technology. Very impressive capital investment.

After witnessing the precision assembly and quality assurance that goes on at Western Digital to produce a quality harddrive, it's too bad NewEgg won't package these drives for consumer purchases in foam crates just to save a couple lousy dollars in packaging. Just bubble pack, cello tape and wrapping paper. Then I see all of these DOA complaints on the NewEgg reviews for Western Digital, Seagate, Hitachi, etc. Why doesn't NewEgg take ZipZoomFly's lead and use foam enclosure package and avoid some RMAs?

@ Western Digital: Thank you for the excellent tour of your R&D facility and pilot assembly line that made possible this article. Arranging tours through such sensitive/restricted areas is disruptive and requires much preparation. Until now, I had no idea how difficult it is to make the platters and heads that allow these 2TB harddrives I can buy today. And the precision of assembly and cleanliness requirements were something I knew but did not quite appreciate. I like Western Digital harddrive and have used them for years. And through this article I have gained a greater respect for them. Again, thanks for educating me.

 

[neiroatopelcc]

[citation][nom]Ephebus[/nom]I did the same, and the thing is actually noisier than my whole system. It produces more noise when accessing data randomly than my 3 case fans plus CPU fan plus video card fan plus my other 3 HD's TOGETHER. What's worse, Hitachi simply removed the option to alter the AAM (Automatic Acoustic Management) parameters from their Feature Tool utility since its version 2.13.If anybody else was unfortunate enough to purchase this drive, here's the solution: get the freeware utility WinAAM or the more sophisticated HD Tune (not freeware), boot the system with the HD set to IDE mode in the BIOS (AAM can't be altered in SATA/AHCI/RAID mode) and set the AAM value to 128. There will be NO noticeable performance penalty (I did A LOT of testing with HD Tach) and the absurd noise will disappear.I tried contacting Hitachi's support about this but they didn't seem to even bother reading my message and sent me a standard copy and paste reply. This will be my first and last Hitachi hard drive EVER.[/citation]

I contacted hitachi support as well, and was told that the drive may be defective and to return it. But from the best of my abilities I just can't see what could be wrong with it as it doesn't have any odd pauses or reports smart errors or anything. It just makes an incredible noise.

ps. was at a friends place yesterday who employs two 320gb hitachi drives - and they're as silent as any other drive! Perhaps it's just their bigger drives that are rubbish and not all of them!

I'll try those tools you linked.

 

[tmc]

Hey! It's MARCH 2010, make with the 3tb 64Mb cache sata 3.0 drives 4k sector drives already(for about $299-$329)! Nobody wants a history lesson.. been there, done that. Start mass producing the future HDDs now...