In the grand scheme of things this isn’t a big deal. If you’re not using some kind of RAID parity system I guess I wouldn’t mind the notification. I think it is probably overkill, though. Just seems like they want everyone that’s had a hard drive for three years to buy a new one. The fact that some drives that are still under warranty show the warning is sketchy.

Pretty scummy overall, but average user probably doesn’t understand the drives could fail at any moment and that the older the drives age the more likely it will fail.

Regardless though, it would better serve to warn users to have a backup of their data than just a blanket age-shaming.

I think it will, in part, depend on how software handles it. I’m guessing quite a few people just look at the health summary in software like Crystal Disk Info. If this makes the summary go from green to yellow, it’s going to fool a lot of people.

People who actually look at the individual stats and warnings will probably just shrug it off. Hell, I’m pretty sure I’ve gotten used drives that had over 3 years logged before I even put them in service, and that didn’t bother me.

I keep seeing this pop up, isn’t it just a warning in WD’s own software that does this?

It’s a bit of a shitty move age-shaming if you’re using their software…But if that’s all it is, it’s not the end of the world.

And hey, might even mean some cheap drives on the second hand market from corpos remembering their drives are getting on in years.

I think my drives are older 🙊 Didn’t WD use to be one of the better brands?