Western Digital is replacing several enterprise HGST Ultrastar disks because of higher than expected failure rates in a certain batch. The company works together with affected customers to replace the disks.
It's unclear what exactly is wrong with the disks. When asked by TheRegister a Western Digital spokesman said, "We have identified a small, isolated population of HGST Ultrastar disk drives demonstrating higher than expected failure rates when used in specific situations and use cases."
He went on to add, "While the Ultrastar product is meeting our expected field performance overall, we are addressing this specific issue, and working with applicable customers to identify and replace potentially affected drives. Western Digital is focused on delivering high quality products and supporting the needs of our customers."
The Ultrastar series is HGST's enterprise line up. The drives are more expensive than consumer drives and Western Digital is serious when it comes to offering reliable drives to its enterprise customers. Drives that are not replaced as part of this recall have a 2M hours MTBF and 5-year warranty with 24x7 availability.
