I recently bought a WD Red HDD drive for my NAS direct from WD, and it arrived in a crushed box. Now, things do get damaged in transit, but I don't want to install a drive, start using it, then get errors which were caused by damage which occurred before I even got it.

I sent the customer support team an email asking them to confirm that the level of box damage seen wouldn't affect the drive, or alternatively to provide a return label and replacement drive. Their response was "try it out, and if it fails, we'll replace it".

Having seen quite a few stories like this about WD and sub brands, I'm tempted to just return it for a refund and go elsewhere...