When should you be concerned about a NAS hard drive failing? Multiple factors are at play, so many might turn to various SMART (self-monitoring, analysis, and reporting technology) data. When it comes to how long the drive has been active, there are backup companies like Backblaze using hard drives that are nearly 8 years old. That may be why some customers have been panicked, confused, and/or angered to see their Western Digital NAS hard drive automatically given a warning label in Synology’s DiskStation Manager (DSM) after they were powered on for three years. With no other factors considered for these automatic flags, Western Digital is accused of age-shaming drives to push people to buy new HDDs prematurely.The practice’s revelation is the last straw for some users. Western Digital already had a steep climb to win back NAS customers’ trust after shipping NAS drives with SMR (shingled magnetic recording) instead of CMR (conventional magnetic recording). Now, some are saying they won’t use or recommend the company’s hard drives anymore.
“Warning,” your NAS drive’s been on for 3 years
As users have reported online, including on Synology-focused and Synology’s own forums, as well as on Reddit and YouTube, Western Digital drives using Western Digital Device Analytics (WDDA) are getting a “warning” stamp in Synology DSM once their power-on hours count hits the three-year mark. WDDA is similar to SMART monitoring and rival offerings, like Seagate’s IronWolf, and is supposed to provide analytics and actionable items.
The recommended action says: “The drive has accumulated a large number of power on hours [throughout] the entire life of the drive. Please consider to replace the drive soon.” There seem to be no discernible problems with the hard drives otherwise.
Synology confirmed this to Ars Technica and noted that the labels come from Western Digital, not Synology. A spokesperson said the “WDDA monitoring and testing subsystem is developed by Western Digital, including the warning after they reach a certain number of power-on-hours.”
The practice has caused some, like YouTuber SpaceRex, to stop recommending Western Digital drives for the foreseeable future. In May, the YouTuber and tech consultant described his outrage, saying three years is “absolutely nothing” for a NAS drive and lamenting the flags having nothing to do with anything besides whether or not a drive has been in use for three years.
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Users are also concerned that this could prevent people from noticing serious problems with their drive.
Further, you can’t repair a pool with a drive marked with a warning label.
“Only drives with a healthy status can be used to repair or expand a storage pool,” Synology’s spokesperson said. “Users will need to first suppress the warning or disable WDDA to continue.”
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Since Western Digital’s questionable practice has come to light, there has been discussion about how to disable WDDA via SSH.
Synology’s spokesperson said if WDDA is enabled in DSM, one could disable WDDA in Storage Manager and see the warning removed.
“Because the warning is triggered by a fixed power-on-hour count, we do not believe [disabling WDDA] it to be a risk. However, administrators should still pay close attention to their systems, including if other warnings or I/O disruptions occur,” the Synology rep said. “Indicators such as significantly slower reads/writes are more evident signs that a drive’s health may be deteriorating.”
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Source: “Clearly predatory”: Western Digital sparks panic, anger for age-shaming HDDs | Ars Technica
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