Western Digital is finding itself in some hot water for scaring people running its hard drives in network-attached storage (NAS) devices. The company's software that monitors drive health and other stats has begun urging users to consider replacing drives once they hit three years of runtime, even if they are still healthy and not showing any signs of failure. The three-year time limit tracks with the warranty period for its Red drives, designed to run 24/7 in a NAS. However, it's common knowledge that modern hard drives can run far beyond three years before dying, making WD's warning seem like a blatant attempt to get people to buy new hard drives unnecessarily.
The problem centers around WD's drive monitoring software, Western Digital Device Analytics (WWDA). It's built into the Synology OS that runs on that company's NAS devices, allowing folks with WD drives to monitor their drives' health. Users are now reporting seeing a permanent warning flag when the drives have been running for three years. According to Ars Technica, the warning states, "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." Yes, that phrasing bothers us as well. This warning will appear regardless of any other factor and has already caused some users to swap out their drives just to be safe.
Synology says the warning is not coming from its own OS but Western Digital's software. It's similar to S.M.A.R.T in that it monitors the drive(s) for various red flags indicating problems and can warn the user to prevent data loss. "WDDA monitoring and testing subsystem is developed by Western Digital, including the warning after they reach a certain number of power-on-hours," a Synology rep told Ars.
WD drives that use WDDA software get the warning. Which models are affected is unclear, though Synology says it at least includes WD Red Pro, Red Plus, and WD Purple. However, WDDA only works on older Synology NAS devices and is not supported on new units as of the DS1522+, which came out a year ago. It's also only supported on OS versions DSM 7.0, 7.1, and 7.2.
WD Red drives for NAS include a three-year warranty, so it sounds like the company is telling users to be careful. There's also empirical evidence from cloud backup provider Backblaze that the average lifespan for failed drives was two years and six months. However, drives don't typically go from fine to dead instantly, as there are usually warning signs, such as uncorrectable sectors that come before a drive becomes unusable. It's also not cool to be scaring users about unnecessary upgrades, either. If this popped up on our NAS, we'd be pretty unhappy about it.
There's no indication that WD plans to change course on the WDDA warning and has yet to comment. If you have WD drives in your Synology NAS and see this warning, don't freak out, but keep a close eye on the drives' read and write speeds. You can also disable WDDA, according to NASCompares, by turning it off in the OS's Storage Manager.
