Hello,
I want to share my experience of 3.5 years with a WD NAS: The My Book Live Duo of 6TB. Final capacity of 3TB as mounted in RAID1.
In the absence of a satisfactory solution as well as the answer to me and to the others of WD: “Sorry, buy a new NAS”, I become a whistle-blower: avoid at any cost !!!
Facts:
As mentioned, I had to sell some MBLD units so much I was convinced that I had found a great solution. Obviously, one of my arguments was: “Look, it’s really simple. If you have a DD that fails, you replace it with another one and it’s over, No stress, no data lost!”
Of course, I was aware that the security would still be to have a copy of the data and if possible elsewhere. But procrastination, an excess of confidence and also the budget, have always made me reject this ultimate solution. Thank God, the problem does not prevent me from accessing my data. I bought a hard drive docking station. As this NAS runs on Linux, it’s finally R-Linux that allows me to access my data.
It’s a very significant slowdown in reading and writing my files that made me discover that something was wrong with my NAS. No message alerted me that there was a problem, neither for a DD nor for the motherboard of the NAS.
Yes it is true, we could say 3.5 years of life for a DAS of NAS is not possible anymore, but the MTBF is the MTBF and bad luck too. Not enough to show frustration on social media. “Change your drive, and move on to something else” could you tell me.
Except that…
Before this experiment, I thought I had only to take any DD of a capacity at least equivalent (I had the secret hope of increasing the capacity of the NAS the day there would be 2DD of 10TB in it). I thought that the worst I could encounter was that the capacity would be blocked to the original capacity of the NAS. Moreover, a detection of the mark thus preventing the use of anything that is not WD.
Well, they made it worse!!!
I have to replace my DD with an identical model. And when we say identical, it is strictly identical. So mine that is a WD30EZRX (green series), must be replaced with a WD30EZRX-00MMMB0 and nothing else!
It is extremely restrictive and yet it does not stop there!
I had the misfortune to have the My Book Live Duo with the green series. Later WD took out the red series. The difference for me? WD abandoned the green series (in 1995, except for error). They merged it with the blue series. So they do not make my model anymore. The only ones I found on the internet are very expensive and … second hand. Would you take the risk?
What is ultimately unbelievable is that it does not seem at all to frustrate WD. Zero malaise. No action plan seems to have been established to support its clientele by finding B plans like: By a firmware, make the NAS compatible with the red or blue series. Technically impossible? When they offer the motherboard ad hoc with a series always manufactured. Ultimately, an exchange of the whole box at a price taking into account the prejudice experienced. But nothing at all. Here is the message I received from the support:
For the security of your data, I advise you to proceed with the purchase of a new NAS. However, I would like to recall that neither WD nor any other manufacturer could guarantee you a certain lifetime for the NAS.
(édité)
At first I never asked for a lifetime warranty, but for the parts needed to keep my NAS working as long as possible. Then I read what I had to read to make my choice before buying my NAS. If there is information about this product which indicates that I would never be able to install other DD than those STRICTLY identical to the originals then please do show it to me.
In summary, at least for the Western Digital NAS Duo, go your way if you’re not ready to live with the idea that it is disposable consumable in as short a time as 4 years!