Hi, I recently bought a 500 GB WD Blue ssd. So I downloaded WD ssd dashboard and wanted to make sure my ssd is ok before migrating OS from my old hdd. I did a quick and extended test. everything seems ok in the main panel. Normal and 100 percent life remaining. The only thing that worries me is the SMART diagnostic results.
It says the drive has a maximum number of 420 bad blocks and 24 bad blocks per die. Also after 3 to 4 days of regular usage (migrating the OS, Installing a few software packages, etc.) the wearout amount shown in the SMART diagnostic is around 0.2 percent! This is a pretty high number of bad blocks and wearout rate for a brand new drive right out of the box. If my drive wears out at this rate, in less than a year it needs to be replaced 
Is this normal? Should I go for a replacement or refund immediately while the drive is still under warranty? Unfortunately the manual and support are pretty vague on this issue. All my hdds have been from WD and I have been always happy with their performance and durability. But to be honest Iām very disappointed with this new ssd if it is going to wearout so quickly, One more question: should I leave some free space on drive (lets say around 20 percent unallocated) for drive performance as it used to be the rule for ssds or WD ssds donāt need this extra over provisioning? I read somewhere that modern ssds already have some reserved over provisioned space and can be used to full capacity. Please clarify these two issues.
Hi there,
I think the best option in this case is to get the hard drive replaced by the retailer or with WD. In regards to the second question, no, that will just wear the drive faster in the part that you use and leave part untouched and unusable. The drive does its own leveling, donāt try to do it manually or you will undermine the protection of the drive.
OK, Thanks for your reply. Iāll follow your advice and take the drive back to the retailer. WD used to have a reputation for reliability, but obviously this doesnāt stand anymore. I also have a 2TB Passport that only after a year has developed bad sector, and gave me āCURRENT SECTOR PENDINGā warning. 
Disappointing!
Hello,
Can you check your āGrown Bad Blocksā attribute in SMART ?
The WD Blue SSD may come with bad blocks as a manufacture process result, and it is a normal condition, the SSD is a bit different from original HDD, a bad block does not cause the full product to fail and the drive is equipped with controller and firmware to work with it
Thanks for the reply.
Grown Bad Blocks is 0 . But media wearout indicator is at (0.24 / percent) which I think is still pretty high. Pls. correct me if iām wrong about it. And what about OP? do I need to set aside some unallocated drive space for OP or is it done already and I can use the full capacity of the drive?
Hi There, I know this topic is OLDā¦
But I just got a WD Blue 3D Nand 1TB SSD, and the WD Dashboard says it has 793 Bad Blocks. Iām reviving this topic because 420 bad blocks on a new SSD alarmed me and then I ran the SMART in my WD SSD Dashboard and it said that MY brand new SSD had 793 bad blocks,
I donāt think that means what it sounds like. Iām running HD Tune Pro and it lists that as an āUnknown Attributeā. Iām running a full error scan on the drive right now (and it is moving along pretty fast). Iāve only got a little less than 200gb on a 1TB drive, so weāll see if any actual bad blocks are reported. Iāll see if I can paste any screenshots.! And, just as I suspected, NO bad blocks.
Did you migrate your original drive to the SSD? Maybe the Dashboard SMART is picking up something from your OS and reporting it as erroneous bad blocksā¦
