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I just bought a new 500GB Western Digital hard drive from a reseller and I noticed it was too slow, so I proceeded to check its smart data and almost all attributes are in Pre-Fail or Old Age state and Power-On Hours says that it has been turned on for 5 years, 3 months and 21 days. Though the disk seems to be physically perfectly fine. Can it be an error on the disk or the SMART tests or have I been scammed?

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    Take it back. Print a SMART report that has the serial number of the drive visible and get it swapped.
    – Michael Frank
    Nov 11, 2014 at 3:38
  • Most WD drives have the manufactured date listed right on the label, it is there with lots of other data so it might not be realised, but chances are good it is there. side notes -This date can be useful also for knowing the state of a warrenty and getting warrenty replace when you dont have all the paperwork for a drive, or smart is not even accessable.
    – Psycogeek
    Nov 11, 2014 at 3:49

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Can it be an error on the disk or the SMART tests or have I been scammed?

I can't speak to a failure in the SMART system, but I do have some experience with Western Digital scamming folks.

I had two WD drives that were failing. I pulled them, and shipped them back to WD for repair since they were under warranty. I put new drives in the machines. I got the repaired drives back and put them on a shelf.

Over time, I needed the drives. I put one in and found the problem was not fixed. It had the same exact problem I shipped it back to WD for. It was easy to tell the problem was not fixed since the problem was the drive arm would bang rhythmically against the enclosure when the drive warmed up.

I tried replacing first backup with the second backup. The second drive had the same exact problem I shipped it back to WD for. (It was a different problem than the rythmic banging, but I don't recall what it was).

I know Western Digital will scam folks since they scammed me (twice). They may have scammed the reseller, too. I can only say "may" with respect to the reseller since you will probably never know who is lying (Western Digital or the Reseller (or both)).

Moral of the story: don't trust Western Digital, and don't buy their drives.

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  • I just sent an email to my reseller to have them respond for this issue, since they offer a 1 month warranty directly with them and it's clearly a defective product.
    – arielnmz
    Nov 11, 2014 at 4:21
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You can check the health of your HDDs with a tool, provided on the WD site, called Data Lifeguard Diagnostic (http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=612&sid=3). It will scan your drives for bad sectors and correct them (if any). You can check your Warranty here – http://wdsupport.wdc.com/warranty/warrantycheck.asp?custtype=end . You'll need your serial number for that. Hope this helps. Keep me posted on your situation, so I can help you better.

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  • I just did this using a brand-independent utility called smartctl.
    – arielnmz
    Nov 11, 2014 at 13:30

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