New pc build with i7 3770K

Jim Cockfield wrote:

But, that's not even the main issue (although I suspect the excessive load cycles contribute to the drive problems with WD Green Models).  Sector Read errors inside of a year of use is the issue I've had with them, even though SMART data showed the firmware hadn't reallocated any bad sectors to spares (leaving them in a "pending reallocation" state instead.

IMO, that's horrible behavior, since users may not realize their disk drive is what's causing their issues until they lose important data.

Example (SMART info from the last one I had problems with after only 233 days of power on time).   It had not reallocated any sectors to spares (leaving 64 of them in  "pending reallocation" state), and couldn't even get past 10% of short self tests without read failures:

== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family:     Western Digital AV-GP family
Device Model:     WDC WD15EVDS-73V9B0
Serial Number:    WD-WMAVU2482427
Firmware Version: 01.00A01
User Capacity:    1,500,301,910,016 bytes
Device is:        In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is:   8
ATA Standard is:  Exact ATA specification draft version not indicated
Local Time is:    Wed May  1 15:13:19 2013 EDT
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled
=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status:  (0x84) Offline data collection activity
                                        was suspended by an interrupting command from host.
                                        Auto Offline Data Collection: Enabled.
Self-test execution status:      ( 121) The previous self-test completed having
                                        the read element of the test failed.
Total time to complete Offline
data collection:                 (35400) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities:                    (0x7b) SMART execute Offline immediate.
                                        Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
                                        Suspend Offline collection upon new
                                        command.
                                        Offline surface scan supported.
                                        Self-test supported.
                                        Conveyance Self-test supported.
                                        Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities:            (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering
                                        power-saving mode.
                                        Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability:        (0x01) Error logging supported.
                                        General Purpose Logging supported.
Short self-test routine
recommended polling time:        (   2) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time:        ( 255) minutes.
Conveyance self-test routine
recommended polling time:        (   5) minutes.
SCT capabilities:              (0x303f) SCT Status supported.
                                        SCT Error Recovery Control supported.
                                        SCT Feature Control supported.
                                        SCT Data Table supported.
SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x002f   200   200   051    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0027   214   186   021    Pre-fail  Always       -       4275
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       50
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   200   200   140    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x002e   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   093   093   000    Old_age   Always       -       5662
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0032   100   253   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
 11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0032   100   253   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       38
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       19
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   141   141   000    Old_age   Always       -       179657
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   113   108   000    Old_age   Always       -       37
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       64
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0030   200   200   000    Old_age   Offline      -       17
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x0008   199   199   000    Old_age   Offline      -       261
SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged
SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num  Test_Description    Status                  Remaining  LifeTime(hours)  LBA_of_first_error
# 1  Short offline       Completed: read failure       90%      5610         1435135086
# 2  Short offline       Completed: read failure       90%      5596         1435131440
# 3  Short offline       Completed: read failure       90%      5595         1339288601