Is WDDA and Drive Power on Hours Warnings Impacting QNAP Users?
In recent weeks, we have been discussing an on going story surrounding a Western Digital drive health monitoring tool called WDDA (Western Digital Device Analytics). You can find out much more about it in our video here, our original article here or over on channel friend Spacerex’ video here (he broke the story). In brief, the issue surrounds a health monitoring component of WDDA that presents a NAS user with a warning when a drive is 3 years old that suggests they buy a new drive, despite the drive still working perfectly. However, up until now, the main brand that people have been discussing in conjunction with WDDA has been synology. However, they are not the only brand in town! What about arguably their biggest rival in the home/prosumer market, QNAP? Are they impacted by WDDA? And how are they approaching the matter of how warning from WDDA is interpreted by their QTS NAS Software? Let’s discuss.
Quick Recap – Why is everyone angry about WDDA on WD Red HDDs?
WDDA operates similarly to Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology (S.M.A.R.T.). Recently, there was a situation involving WD Red NAS Hard drives equipped with WDDA running on Synology’s DSM 7.0 systems. After three years (counted in powered-on hours), WDDA issued a warning suggesting the drives should be replaced, despite the drives still being in perfectly good health. This led to a heated debate online. Although Synology’s response to this issue was to cease supporting WDDA in their DSM 7.1 and 7.2 updates, they have not confirmed the reasons for this decision. While this has stirred up discussion, the approach of another significant player, QNAP, has been different. Until 2023, QNAP had not supported or integrated WDDA into their QTS or QuTS NAS operating system (though SMART, Seagate Ironwolf and their own QNAP DA Drive Analyzer have been in either software for a while now). This changed in the reveal of the beta and eventual release candidates (RC’s) of QTS 5.1. WDDA has been included in the system storage manager and is accessible via the individual disk monitoring areas an in their new Drive Failure Prediction feature, which uses the multitude of drive health monitoring tools to predict a drive’s potential failure, then cloning the contents of a suspected drive to a healthy one in order to avoid the lost time/performance impact of traditional drive RAID rebuilds when a drive fails.
So, in order to find out a little more about QTS/QuTS 5.1 handles WDDA integration and notifications, Eddie (aka EddieTheWebGuy) took to Putty and used SSH to dig into the backend of the software and identifying what WDDA tests are included in the service and how they are acknowledged/used by the system. So, here are the 18 different WDDA tests and suggested actions:
Then Ed was able to find the interpretations that QNAP have of these tests. It looks like QNAP did not modify these messages in their own internal actions, however, there was no indication of whether these warnings would be actioned. To be more specific, he was not able to ascertain what QTS 5.1 would do if the WDDA drive inside the QNAP QTS 5.1 system would action the WDDA drive 3yrs hours warning in the QTS GUI to the end user. They could be seen, but there was also every possibility that they would only be presented in the WDDA section of the storage manager or in QuLogs, but in an non-direct fashion. There is not enough information here to identify this. Plus, it is not easy to fake the # of hours on an HDD for the system to action the WDDA warning, so we cannot artificially replicate it.
Lastly, WDDA’s support in the new QTS 5.1 Drive Failure Prediction (Predicted Migration) feature is not enabled by default AND is customizable in the extent to which the information it feeds to the calculations of a drive’s failure. This can be adapted to the user’s specifications from within the Storage manager.
Now, QNAP adding support of WDDA on WD Red/Purple drives is not necessarily a bad thing. Indeed, the WDDA test comprises 18 individual tests (not just the power-on-hours test that people are taking issue with) that are made up of unique test types/metrics and/or tests that are comprised of existing SMART values, but presented in a much more human-friendly way. However, there are still question marks around the following utility of WD Red/Purple Drives that support WDDA and QNAP QTS 5.1. Namely, the following:
- Are WDDA services in QTS 5.1 on by default?
- Is there an easy option to disable them?
- What happens when a WDDA warning is pushed to the QNAP QTS system and how/if it is presented to the end user?
These are things that I was not able to completely ascertain in my testing (see the video below), so I reached out to QNAP to ask them.
QNAP and WDDA in QTS 5.1 – Questions and Answers
Although the questions that I put to QNAP regarding their position and support of WDDA in QTS 5.1 are covered in the video above, I include them below:
Question: “What is the default status of WDDA in the QNAP QTS 5.1 Storage Manager? Is it on or off by default?”
“In the current release candidate of QTS 5.1, the Western Digital Device Analytics service is enabled by default. This was to allow the benefits of the additional layer of on drive monitoring analysis to be available immediately to the end user.”
Question: “I was not able to find any means to disable the WDDA service from within QTS 5.1, aside from via an SSH command level action. Is there an option I missed or by design?”
“QTS 5.1 (rc2) does not currently feature the option to disable WDDA, not dissimilar to it not having the facility to disable S.M.A.R.T services. Users can choose to access and download the WDDA test results, but they also have the option to disregard it’s findings. We have also incorporated Western Digital Device Analytics into our predicted drive failure service in QTS 5.1, alongside Seagate Ironwolf Health Management, S.M.A.R.T and our own Drive Analyzer partner service. This is disabled by default and, when enabled, users can tailor the extent to which this information will be utilized in drive failure prediction to greatly minimize time traditionally lost to RAID rebuilding in the event of a drive failure. We will continue to listen to our user base and if the need for a change on WDDA support and its default functionality is clearly requested, we will of course oblige.”
Question: “How are WDDA notifications and alerts handled by QNAP QTS 5.1? More specifically, if the WDDA service sends a warning notification that a drive has exceeded 3 years in hours, how is that message interpreted and delivered to the user in QTS?”
“Suggested actions are supplied to us by Western Digital and in the majority of cases, we have not changed this message in our notifications center. We do not display this as a ‘Warning’ message, instead classifying it as an ‘Advisory’. Our Notifications Center and QuLog Center both allot users to tailor their alerts and actions into ‘Information’, ‘Warning’ and ‘Error’. If a user does not change the default targeting of these groups, a power on hours warning will be treated as Information. This is reflected in the current version of QTS 5.1 rc2 and subject to change.”
Question: “In light of current concerns over the handling of ‘power on hours suggested replacement’ by WDDA services, will QNAP be continuing to include this component in the full release of QTS 5.1?”
“WDDA is included in QTS 5.1 rc2 and we believe it to be a useful addition to the existing range of drive health and analysis tools at the users disposal. We will of course listen to our customers and if a need for how drive health information is delivered is requested, we will oblige.”
Conclusion
As mentioned earlier, it is not necessarily bad that QNAP is integrating WDDA into QTS 5.1. As long as users have the ability to scale it’s notifications and use OR those notifications are not aggressively delivered, then WDDA does deliver a user-friendly alternative to SMART for some of the HDD analytics. However, the use of the 3 years drive warning on some systems that suggest purchasing a new WD drive (especially in the case of HDDs that are Pro class with 5 Year warranty inclusive) has certainly rubbed a lot of users up the wrong way! As we have detailed online in our WDDA videos, if the notification was tweaked, perhaps to kick in when a drive is one month away from the expiry of it’s warranty and served just as a reminder that the drive will no longer be in warranty from X date (again, not a warning, just as ‘information’), that might be a great deal more popular. For now, QNAP sounds like they are willing to listen to their user base on how they roll out in QTS 5.1 from Release Candidate to Full release. We will continue to keep an eye on this in future.
📧 SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER 🔔🔒 Join Inner Circle
Get an alert every time something gets added to this specific article!
This description contains links to Amazon. These links will take you to some of the products mentioned in today's content. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Visit the NASCompares Deal Finder to find the best place to buy this device in your region, based on Service, Support and Reputation - Just Search for your NAS Drive in the Box Below
Need Advice on Data Storage from an Expert?
Finally, for free advice about your setup, just leave a message in the comments below here at NASCompares.com and we will get back to you.
Need Help?
Where possible (and where appropriate) please provide as much information about your requirements, as then I can arrange the best answer and solution to your needs. Do not worry about your e-mail address being required, it will NOT be used in a mailing list and will NOT be used in any way other than to respond to your enquiry.
TRY CHAT
Terms and Conditions
|
 |
At least we arent being charged monthly subscription fees to acces SMART diagnostics… Yet????????
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
The hidden cost of photography is the need for large storage space. I used to recommend Western Digital drives but after two failed experiences trying to receive a WD RED NAS HDD and now having read similar stories of bad experiences I can say with assurance I will never buy from them again. I tried to use reputable sellers, Amazon and Wal-Mart, but they passed the buck claiming returns/refunds were the responsibility of third-party resellers. One knew nothing about proper shipping. The other one sent a bad unit and perhaps even a refurbished disguised as new.
Now you may say this is not Western Digital’s fault. But to understand their role in this is to understand how these manufacturers have changed their distribution channels and vendors for cost cutting measures that leave the consumer poorer quality control and service.
Neither Amazon or Wal-Mart represented these as from third party resellers and consequently did not support them with their return policies. All of them are involved in shady business practices. I share this with you for consideration as you make your purchasing decisions.
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
I had WD Reds in my old Synology NAS drive. But on upgrading I went with Seagate Iron Wolfs. At the time it was not known about the WD thing. I had no problem with the 3TB drives. Still have a few spares. I don’t think I had the option to turn on this “feature”, but one drive had been having issues so I had replaced it under warranty. Very happy with the new drives now. I do not like it when companies try these underhanded approaches like this.
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
Why wouldn’t Synology just handle that warning by showing an “Out of Warranty” status, either as an active drive status or an event log entry?
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
3 years is a long time for a little motor to spin on a hdd that’s brutal work! After 3 i replace em.
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
I only used to purchase WD external hard drives, the portable kind and home Elements. They’ve been okay over the years But I always purchase them from Costco so with such a generous return policy it was never a worry. Only purchased Seagate drives for my NAS. Recently was briefly considering a 16TB WD Red instead of an Exos as I was under the impression they were quieter, better etc except maybe for the price I guess? Now having just purchased a SanDisk cruiser SSD drive for Prme days I didn’t realize they were owned by Western digital, so I will be returning that as it seems very problematic. Will be skipping any other WD purchases I was already hesitant due to their cmr issue.. actually it should be a scandal. The company sounds like it’s a complete shit show actually not sure why anyone would buy anything from them anymore.
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
its not been a year and its been a nightmare that its showing that my HD is critical, shame WD
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
Thank you so much for your valuable information. Regarding the QNAP DA – Drive Analyser, I keep receiving an alert about one of the three Western Digital WD Red WD120EFAX units (which were bought in November 2020) which state: You are receiving this email because one or more drives in your system have crossed thresholds that likely indicate mild to moderate drive problems. You may want to back up your data or take other precautions for affected drives.
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
Congrats for the channel, a must watch for anyone who follows and loves the NAS subject. Currently I am using a Qnap tvs 473 which shows through the Unlike DA tool a Moderate Risk of Failure for one of the three WDD red drives that I am using. In your opinion , how worried should I be and should I think about replacing that drive asap? Thank you!!!!
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
I just purchased a QNAP TS464 with Seagate Ironwolf HDD’s and deliberately ignored WD given this situation. I agree that ‘more’ HDD alerts are good BUT they need to be informative and objective in context so users can decide appropriate action for their own situation. The WD approach is disengenuous and commercially motivated at best and seems cynically aimed at driving premature hardware replacements. My impression is that Eddie really failed to accept this nuance and ultimately puts it to Synology (who clearly suck in thier right) to resolve without a clear argument for his firm views.
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
WD is the bad player here, not QNAP. IMHO, QNAP are behaving honestly and their tools enable you to change your strategy for handling WDDA. One must bear in mind that when you build a new NAS you will normally populate it with a batch of new drives. These will therefore all get their same hours/time and will flag simultaneously. You’d be crazy to configure the NAS to failover the RAID to standby drives because you wouldn’t have enough drives installed and the RAID would bog down for a long time. Out of warranty is just out of warranty; it’s not a reason to junk a set of drives in an array. It stinks like WD trying to sell more drives.
WD need a kick in the ass. A big kick. A 3 year/3000 hours (3yr /= 300hrs anyway) warranty period is hopelessly short of what is required by customers. A drive won’t simply fail and require discarding after 3000hrs- I have drives perfectly happy after 50k+ hrs. In my experience, what matters are high temps and how active the drive head has been- more head moves, particularly for small writes of large files on a fragmented almost full drive at high temps are the drive killer.
WDDA *could* be a useful step forward in conjunction with SMART, but it requires deeper analysis and interpretation of all the actual performance data of the drive’s health before automatic RAID rebuilds are triggered. IMHO, drive manuf need to build in better monitoring and reporting of a drive’s head mechanism to predict upcoming failure, but these data are not available in SMART or WDDA..
QNAP good. WD very very bad. SMART needs updating.
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!
????????????????????
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
This isn’t a QNAP or any other NAS manuf issue. So QNAP isn’t to blame here.
This is all on WD (WDDA)…let’s not forget that.
As you always say, you prefer to have as much information given to the end-user as possible…that’s all these manuf are doing.
–
But now that its being talked about in a negative manner..hopefully QNAP make some adjustments for the better, in their OS with re: to it.
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
Backblaze nees to start counting drives that report this as ‘failed’ in their reliability statistics as they are being represented as unsafe to continue using.
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
Once again. Great video.
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
I have a content suggestion: start tinkering with running local AI models on NAS, and report your results. That’s something I’m trying to research right now, but there’s almost no info available. I want to know things like: what NAS devices are best for this, how big AI models can this or that NAS run, and how well, etc.
Of course, AI models tend to be pretty demanding, but they come in all sizes, and many NAS devices (esp with extended RAM, and adding GPU to a QNAP, etc) should be able to run at least small models.
In some ways NAS devices are perfect for AI, because you want easy 24/7 access, being able to ask a question quickly etc. It’s quite possible (imo) that NAS producers will try to capitalize on the growing AI trend by developing NAS devices built for AI. By starting to explore this option right now you’ll be ahead of the curve. Just saying.
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
Under no circumstances is an expired warranty a warning, because it does not provide the slightest indication of an imminent technical malfunction. The comparison with TBW lags because exceeding the TBW limit indicates a risk of failure. Disabling all warnings is pointless, as real risks remain undetected. So it remains solely WD’s responsibility not to trigger meaningless warnings.
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
I don’t think QNAP would shutdown and reboot when migrating a drive using Predictive Migration – given how normal migrations are done “hot”.
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
Excellent news for QNAP users – that Tailscale icon 😉
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
A seagull-free video. For my money, WD is not getting any.
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
I will never buy WD again.
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
In my own business (early 2000’s) we had about 80 workstations that copped a flogging by our developers and artists. We flip-flopped between Seagate and WD, but these days I find it hard to like WD. It seems that Seagate have forged ahead of WD in some ways. My own personal Synology DS415play it quite aged now, and I just checked the Seagate power on hours – 25,000 and still kicking along fine with old 2TB NAS grade discs. It seems weird to me that WD considers a mere 3000 hours as ‘3 years’ – maybe true for desktop grade drives, but not NAS IMO. I would be interested to hear what other followers have in hours on their WD drives to compare – is WD really less reliable or is this just a marketing scare ?
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
I should not be worried (Toshiba drives), but I am still happy to have watched and learned. Definitely seems like a scare tactic for business users. Keep up the great work!
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
Thanks for the info as ever i wear my heart on my sleeve and think we are just a number to the companies, and they do things we like and not like you know this but you can not say maybe, but they all do it none of them are innocent and i do thank you for all you do its hard but somebody has to do it
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
Can’t stop myself of visualizing this abbreviation as WDDI because of the way you pronounce it 😀
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
hey, kind of off topic, but my qnap ts 264 8 gb arrived today and the ram is not soldered on. It has two ram slots so can I just aadd 8gb or not and which ram do you recommend. would appreciate the help thank you very much.
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
Sounds like a way of WD to try and shift more drives by using a scare tactic, it would be better for WD to inform system OEMs that the Power on Hours needs a multiplier added to the alert level, having access to drive analytics is always a good thing but it sounds like the thresholds need adjusting
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
We do not and are not intending to add or support WDDA.
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
HDDs are expensive. I use them until they are dead. Smart whatsoever . That’s the reason why there’s RAID6 & Backup. Are they really swap the HDDs after a Warning or the Warranty.????
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
I believe that it’s mostly WD’s fault and very partially Synology. Those warnings should not exist in the first place, even if they were completely accurate and just said that “the device warranty has expired”. The warranty period of hard drives is not really supposed to mean anything, as drives are not expected to fail immediately after the warranty expires. If a certain line of drives were known to fail after about 3 years they would probably be treated as faulty drives and rightfully so.
Anyway, as I said, if those warnings were accurate and just said that the drive’s warranty has expired, there would be two kinds of people:
1. Those who know what that means will just ignore that warning or disable it if possible, as drives are expected to last 5-6 years at the very least, and in the first place, the warranty only covers the hardware, while in the case of storage media, it’s the value of the data on the drive that is orders of magnitude higher than the price of the drive itself, and the data was never under warranty in the first place.
2. Those who don’t know exactly what it means might believe that being out of warranty does actually mean that the drive is immediately more likely to fail and they should rush and buy new drives. This is just as bad as the warnings we get now.
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
No we dont !!!
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
hm
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
It number of power on hrs. So that is expected for Nas drives BUT making it a fixed warning since Synology now flags it is UNACCEPTABLE. WD should correct this or a class action suit should be considered
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
Time for a massive lawsuit to shut that down.
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
Thanks guys!
I think WD should be calling this an ‘info’ rather than a warning
And I most certainly think the OS should allow you ‘mute’ it
Otherwise, your drive will be in warning status forever; and well; who listens to someone crying wolf…… I.e. you are note likely to miss future, real warnings.
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
A month ago, I replaced the two WD Red drives in my WD NAS due to a ‘warning’. I replaced them with new WD Red drives (albeit of larger capacity). Now I’m wondering if that was even necessary or did I just spend money I could have better used for other things?
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
SMR, WDDA…This isn’t the way WDC!
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
I agree with Robbie here. My beef is with Synology. Sure they could alert the user to the notification from WDDA but then have the option to clear it. Or even have it show as a flag under the drives themselves. I think this is their(Synology) attempt to push users to use Synology branded drives vs competitor.
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
I mean if you are on QNAP because your drives are used way more than a Synology NAS due to all the hackers being able to get at your data, you might actually want to replace the drives after 3 years when WD flags them as warning. ????????????
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
I have few WD Reds running over 3300 days. And they are OK. Running in decent redundancy system.
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
So,do we ignore the warning ?
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
I’ve been a WD user for decades, both in personal and corporate systems. The SMR/CMR thing really softened my stance on WD, as has some reliability issues we’ve been having with their NVME drives. We will do our own assessment, but this is probably going to be the nail in the coffin for me. I haven’t run across it in our systems yet, but if it rises to the level of a “warning” flag that can’t be turned off we will change brands. A health warning is something that should only require the attention of an admin for actual reliability concerns, not a notification that a drive is exiting it’s warranty period. We have spreadsheets to track that. Any drive health monitoring system instantly becomes useless when it gets used as a sales pitch.
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
Absolutnie nie polecam WD, nie typowe dziwne rozwiązania.
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
I don’t see this test on my DS220+ with one Seagate Iron wolf and one WD drives. Just my WD drive which I shucked from my WD My cloud and it has serial number WD40EFRX (CMR) is reporting not supported by Synology. Little bit weird because until DSM 7.1.1 it was compatible and when upgraded to 7.2, now the compatibility is showing not supported 🙁
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
If the OS gets the type of warning transmitted, then it could just classify this as a info.
Or is WD also transmitting the the warning level?
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
I bought a wd red last week, it was broken.
Hopefully I can switch it to a seagate.
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
I very much appreciate the perspective of your guest. It is the operating system’s role to interpret data from drives. Information is good, interpreting it incorrectly is bad. WD could have used an INFO message type to convey the information, but then most would not have noticed it, even if they cared. In any event, it would be definitely Synology’s fault, if it weren’t possible to simply dismiss that particular message.
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
I’m still rocking 8TB and 10TB wd red drives across 3 synology NASes; however, I have not seen the WDDA as an available option in any of my DSMs. I wonder if my drives are too old or have old firmware.
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
I’m with spacerex. This is a wd issue and I’m regretting buying their drives cuz mine are coming up on three years. This is awful business practice.
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
It feels like many companies are force-feeding consumers (they know better than us, like we’re ignorant, we don’t know what’s best for us) and using methods to push product with little or no added value to consumers (ie WD drives pushing warranty expiration, which is not exclusively indicative of failure or imminent failure; compelled auto-installation of windows 11 without user consent; nvidia’s launch of RTX 4060 with little or no improvement over rtx 3060; Synology significantly shrinking their hard drive compatibility list.)
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
I’ve been looking at buying new, larger wd red pro drives, but I’m holding off until this gets cleaned up and regains my confidence.
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
I use a combination of drives including WD Reds and I ahve never seen that type of alert…. but I’m also still using older drives. My largest is 10TB.
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
Adjudication is in!
Rob 1. Ed 0…….. WD -1Million!
This is like SMR#2 and smells of money!!
I’m saying Bye Bye to My My-Cloud now too and especially after the V3 -V5 debacle!?
Long Live Wolves of Iron! WD …….. Who’s that!?
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
Eddie is right.
Synology’s DSM has a implementation error.
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
It is like buying a new car with a 3 year warranty, getting a check engine warning every time to car starts after 3 years. The card should last 5 to 10 years with only minor maintenance not 3. It gives no useful info. It has no value. Do not buy these drives and Nas. Only least them for 3 year at a discount over owning them.
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
Avoided WD because of their SMR debacle and when i might give them my money again there’s this happens. I’m not running any synology system but this has me avoid WD again and choosing Seagate/Toshiba.
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
I just replaced a WD Red yesterday. It failed (critical errors) the day before. It was brand new maybe 5 months ago. Was in my Synology ds220+ also brand new 5 months ago. Replaced it with same sized non WD this time. F WD. My stack of failed drives is most all WDs. 3 years. I wish.
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
I’m kinda on the fence to how I would want to be notified. On one hand, yes, nice to know that the drive has run for 3 years. Given that typically INFO, WARNING, and CRITICAL are the only three generic alarm types, I’m not sure what a fourth state would be. I’d ignore INFO. But to be constantly nagged about WARNING for an age related non-issue?
I’d say that the firmware on the drives need to look at themselves a bit more closely and see if anything STARTS to go a little wonky and starts to go out of spec IF the drive is beyond that 3 year period. Show the warning of the age, PLUS the warning of what could be going wrong. If everything is running just fine and WELL within spec, but, the age is beyond 3 years, don’t notify.
So, if a drive metric starts to go 25% out of spec from a normal day, then throw the warning IF it’s time is beyond 3 years. If it’s within 3 years, SOP on whatever and however warnings should be handled.
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
I’m always glad to see these videos where y’all don’t agree and have a valuable discussion about it. Not only is the information useful, but you’re demonstrating a useful skill. 😉
I’ve been using refurbished/decommissioned enterprise WD drives (WD Gold) since I started with NAS, so I’m familiar with them and have really enjoyed the experience so far. Up until all this started, I’d have recommended refurb’d Golds without hesitation.
Not anymore. There are too many other options and WD seems to enjoy giving me reasons to look elsewhere. Synology, too, for that matter. I’d absolutely recommend QNAP if I had to choose between them now, even as a QNAP owner and knowing about their security issues. Synology lags on hardware, and is so committed to getting you to buy their brand of HDD that they seem to have no problems intimidating and confusing their customers on purpose.
Watching your video made me think of four points, specifically:
1. More information is not better when it’s presented in a way that confuses the consumer, and it’s catastrophic when it even starts to look like that confusing presentation is on purpose.
2. NAS enthusiasts are technologically sophisticated enough to consider the difference between WDDA’s end of warranty warning and a SMART alert. But home users and even small businesses without an IT department do not necessarily have that capability, and need their devices to be honest at minimum and teach them at best. A warning based on WDDA indicating a warranty expiration should say exactly that: “The warranty on Drive X has expired. If you continue to use this drive, you will be using it with no warranty coverage for anything that happens after Y date.” That would have been simple, true, and unambiguous, and I don’t think anyone could have gotten too mad about it. People could have even decided to keep using the drives because the SMART status was OK and they have backups, depending on their appetite for risk vs. cost of replacement. As it is, Synology, who just happens to sell drives, and WD, who just happens to sell drives, will now benefit financially from less-sophisticated users being (literally) alarmed into buying equipment they might not have needed.
3. Synology is at fault here. If Synology’s OS is triggering these alerts, Synology needs to respond. They’re a competing drive vendor, so of course it’s suspect (and possibly legally anti-competitive?) that they just happen to throw an error when a competing drive goes out of warranty that is worded so as to suggest something is wrong enough that people go out and replace the drive…preferably with Synology equipment.
4. But also: WD is at fault here. I realize they like their extra bolt-on non-standard safety and security features because it lets them raise the price for value add, but storage drives are critical infrastructure. Valuable and sometimes irreplaceable data lives on them. More often than not, spinning rust is being used as a *backup* drive. It’s not a product segment where a great deal of experimentation should exist when that experimentation boils down to unproven bolt-on technology that seemingly has more to do with marketing than anything else. By introducing WDDA while knowing full well that a substantial portion of their buyers would not have the deeper technical understanding to evaluate its actual efficacy as a warning system for drive failures, but would be scared by any error it threw, they not only appear to be leveraging potential consumer intimidation to sell more drives (not everything out of warranty needs to be replaced, etc.), but also provided an opening for Synology’s own bad behavior.
5. Additionally, WD’s behavior is cumulative. SpaceRex mentioned this as a big reason he’s now telling people to avoid the brand. It’s not just the WDDA thing. After the whole SHR thing, WD cannot really claim to be acting in good faith towards consumers. How much they should be avoided following being hacked is a fair question, but they made a deliberate choice to market an SHR drive in a product line they knew was used for NAS. Consumer confusion in the name of selling their products, even when they know or should know they’re selling consumers a product that isn’t fit for the advertised purpose, is not the behavior of company that deserves the business of either highly informed consumers, or entry-level consumers who don’t yet know enough to protect themselves.
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
WDDA is only on a few Synology systems, my DS920+ with WD Red drives does not have WDDA, so I’m not concerned.
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
As a software developer I don’t think its cut and dry who is at fault here. These are two large companies that should have some communication when implementing software like this. WD will have at least provided documentation to Synology but whether the documentation was clear enough is a question. This could simply be an oversight from both companies or it could be that one or both companies see saw it as an opportunity to make some extra cash. Its disappointing that so far that doesn’t seem to be any reps out there able to comment on whats happening.
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
My two 4TB HGST NAS drives lasted me for more than 8 years. In fact, I only replaced them ‘coz I wanted to upgrade to bigger HDDs. The HGST dives are still fine with no SMART errors at all.
Synology should really stop their greediness of only allowing us to use their own own branded Synology drives that they don’t even make themselves and are rebranded Toshiba drives. Why can’t they just focus on improving their outdated hardware instead?
I like Synology DSM and I’ve spent at least more than $6k USD of my own money on Synology NAS’es plus upgrades. I’ll be looking towards QNAP now for my next NAS. Specifically their i9 8-bay NAS that is worth over $3k USD since at least that one still supports 3rd party HDDs & SSDs unlike the new NAS offerings by Synology. ????
Edit:
I know there are hacks that lets you use 3rd party drives on the newer Synology NAS’es and get rid of the warnings but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s unacceptable you have to do this just to use perfectly fine 3rd party drives and worst of all, you will most likely loose your warranty too in return. ????
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
I don’t buy this warranty business for one minute. Does the CPU in you NAS or workstation throw a warning when its warranty runs out? What about the RAM sticks, the motherboard, the case (it might just collapse!), etc, etc.
But it may speak volumes about WDs faith in their own hardware.
As many people have pointed out NAS drives seem to last longer than their warranties. The warranty is a business decision with regards to money charged up front vs repair costs. Does anyone stop trusting their car to drive them safely just because the warranty ran out? On the other hand, I may have just given car manufacturers an evil idea ????
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
after watch Spacerex video last week about the WD drives, i will not be buying WD anymore. TEAM SEAGATE NOW!!
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
Ive got few 16tb drives wD gold that I bought few years ago. They are running perfectly to this day.
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
“More information to the user” is a rubbish argument, because the user is not in the position to interpret all that information. The more information there is, the noisier it becomes. Particularly with this “power-on hours” limit, it is especially meaningless, because the limit is arbitrary. They might as well set it to 2 years, 1 year, or 1 hour — there is nothing inherent with the drives themselves that makes them more likely to fail after exactly 3 years of use but not before.
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
Honestly, once you lose your data because of ignoring “small” alert makes you feel freaking out with alerts like these, trust me, being rational is hard, it brings you bad memories in a split of a second. I’ve been there… And that’s why it is so seriuos
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
*Further Update* – Synology have been in touch regarding this video and were keen to highlight the following statement. I have repeated it below:
“We disagree with the statement that is it not possible to disable usage of WDDA services on supported WD Red hard drives. We would like to confirm the following:
– You can enable/disable WDDA from Storage Manager at any time from the UI. This will remove any warnings (assuming the drive is healthy otherwise).
– Storage Manager has always allowed administrators to “suppress” non-severe drive warnings. This option is also available for this particular warning.
Additionally, regarding the support of WD Red Drives with WDDA on-board services, in DSM:
– WDDA was only introduced into DSM 7.0 (July 2021).
– WDDA is not enabled by default.
– Synology has already deprecated WDDA, an _d it is not included on any -22 series or_ newer system (e.g. DS1522+)
WDDA, and its triggers and warnings, are not developed or controllable by Synology. So while DSM can ignore warnings thrown by WDDA, this defeats the purpose of the health monitoring tool that the administrator knowingly enabled. ” – An Official Synology Source, 9th May 2023
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
From what I hear, I’m more inclined to avoid Synology NAS devices than WD drives.
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
I got a better idea than to fix DSM to interpret these warnings properly … just dont buy WD. I stopped buying anything from them back in the SMR scam days, and I see no reason to start buying them now. At the end of the day I dont need a warning at my home NAS here, that my drive may be getting close to warranty … if it fails … I’ll replace it. I dont need to be told by WD that I should auto spend more money with them. Regarding DSM? If I dont buy WD drives, I dont have a problem with DSM not running these warnings properly.
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
Why can’t this be in “Information” notification? A “Warning” should indicate something is type of notification that something is potentially “out of order” and may need attention. In my opinion an Informational notification would be more appropriate for end of warranty.
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
I’m with Eddie, Synology is the narrative here and not WD.
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
Great video! I completely agree with Robbie. The message that WDDA is printing out is not “hey your drive is out of warranty” they are printing out “Your drives have had too many power on hours, consider replacing them soon”.
No one should be replacing NAS drives that are under 5 years old unless there is actually an issue shown from the smart test. If you read up on WDDA from their site it talks about how it uses AI to predict hard drive failure. When clearly its not doing that…
WDDA should be removed from all NAS software, as its not giving useful information
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
Great content, this sort of problems are very common on enterprise storage.. Sinology just needs to work with WD, develop a fix and push it to all their units that are potentially affected by this.. .is not a big deal in the end
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
Generally, for me, WD discussion is dead for me, WD products is something i dont care anymore, its not that much worth it, i would not buy any WD product.
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
I bought 6 Seagate Ironwolf drives in December and all were duds, I returned them and bought Toshiba drives, touchwood to date had no problems. There are plenty of applications out there that can check the drives.
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
Total BS… this is obviously a scam by WD to generate sales
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
Just let S.M.A.R.T. do its proper job and the user make its own decision. No need for more useless noise on the line…
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
I have used WD for almost 30 years and exclusively when I was doing IT consulting. It is very concerning to me about the lack of transparency WD is doing. I have Seagate Ironwolf Pro drives in my Synology and they are fast, quiet and so far (3 years) never had an issue. WD needs to learn from this.
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
There’s nothing wrong with a mfg giving you a head’s up warranty status. However, it should not be an involuntary nag screen. Just offer it when the user requests a drive status, such as SMART etc. Thanks guys ! ????????????
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
I plan my NAS drives for at least 5 years use, no matter the warranty period. I don’t like or want to be confronted with such a warning for years. Since the WD Red SMR debacle/scandal, WD drives are not on my short list anymore.
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
The fix is after warranty, need a WD hack to reset the drives life clock.
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
Look at the Backblaze HDD usage reports, a Hard Drive (NAS or Server Drives) runs easily more then 3 years. A warning after 3 years to replace the drives is not the best way to recommend WD Drives. You just throw away perfectly fine drive who could run a few years more. A more discreet info or warning after 3 years would be much more appropriate.
REPLY ON YOUTUBE
My take is right inline with Eddie on this one. WD might not be the most loved HD manufacturers in the world at the moment, and not unwarrantedly so (pun not intended), but i don’t see how you can blame them for doing anything wrong on this one. The info is usefully to have and surely it’s down to Synology to give the option to silence the warning in their OS, if they wrote in the code to recognise it in the first place?
REPLY ON YOUTUBE