Is there a problem with head parks on WD Green HDDs?

Silencing hard drives, optical drives and other storage devices

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m0002a
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Location: USA

Post by m0002a » Sun May 24, 2009 6:53 am

NickBurns23 wrote:I thought you are only able to increase the idle to 25 seconds from 8? How did you turn it off completely?

If I can turn it off completely on the 1.5TB green drives I'll buy one.
If you have the wdidle3.exe utility, you can disable the unloads with the /D option. It must be booted with DOS to run the utility, and the DOS should be as simple as possible with as few drivers/memory managers as possible (I had to experiment with several DOS boot disks to get it to work).

I ran the utiility on my 500GB WD5000AACS-00ZUB0 drive and it worked (no more unload/load cycles unless I reboot).

ranmori
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Location: London

Post by ranmori » Mon May 25, 2009 4:58 pm

Thanks m0002a! :D It was a fun experience.

whiic
Posts: 575
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Location: Finland

Post by whiic » Tue May 26, 2009 2:45 am

I don't get this "idle3 can be configured only in RAID edition" rumour. RAID edition can be created of normal GreenPowers with just WDTLER application (minus warranty length - it does not increase magically if you run the tool) so how does WDIDLE3 require RAID edition? Don't they have the same firmwares with just differents factory setting for TLER? Some claim there's some other differences but no-one has stated what else is differing between RAID and non-RAID WDs (be them Caviars or GreenPowers).

It is said that WDIDLE3 does not work with some non-RAID GreenPowers. That may be true, or maybe some have just failed in attempting to make the configuration. My non-RAID 1.0TB GreenPowers (two 1st and one 2nd generation, three in total) were successfully configured and non-volatile. The setting persist over reboot.

It may be that most non-working configuration attempts could be traced to how drives were connected (chipset, PCI adapter, SATA-to-IDE bridge, etc.) and whether they needed drivers to run in FreeDOS (because that's where you'll need to run WDIDLE3 as it cannot be run in Windows command prompt), etc.

I post mine:
Asus Commando, Intel P965 / ICH8R chipset. GreenPowers that I configured were connected directly to the motherboard. Booted to FreeDOS with boot floppy (yes, the motherboard still has the floppy port) with WDIDLE3 added to it.

If the problem indeed is not related to environment, then we should make a list of drives that does not work with WDIDLE3. Also, if anyone has a drive that is listed, yet manages to make persistent (non-volatile) changes to it, it's position on the list should be re-evaluated as possible enviromental issue.

subsonik
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Location: Belgium
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Post by subsonik » Sat Jun 13, 2009 1:05 pm

Apart from the discussion whether the head parks are a problem or not, I'd like to share some numbers about my WD 10EACS in my homeserver.

With just windows XP and occasional fileserver usage, I'd get about 8 to 9 head parks per hour. Please not that I turned indexing service + warn on low diskspace off. Not a big deal, that's about 400K head parks in 5 years.

However, I found some applications which seem to access the disk quite often:

* Skype. Accesses the disk around once a minute. 500K head parks in just one year.

* Squeezecenter (the server software to stream music to my Logitech Squeezebox). Accesses the disk every 10 seconds. THREE MILLION head parks per year. Rated number of head parks reached in just 34 days. Squeezecenter owners, beware!


Luckily I could disable the idle timer with the wdidle3 tool. Let's hope the disk lasts for 5 years of continuous use now :) (the previous one surely did, a Seagate 7200.7 80GB, still running fine with 46K hours on the counter)

Ksanderash
Posts: 353
Joined: Sat Oct 18, 2008 6:30 am
Location: Moldova, exUSSR

Post by Ksanderash » Mon Jun 15, 2009 12:06 pm

(A crosspost of the message I've wrote in a parallel WD thread)

========================================
Found a WD Support answer (the author is unknown):

"Unfortunately The WDIdle Utility is no longer available from Western Digital. The problem here is that WDidle is a tool which was developed for older drives but still works on some new drives. It was not designed for this and so the outcome can be unpredictable, hence we do not support it. It can be found throughout the Internet but is no longer distributed by WD. By using WDIdle your drive's firmware is altered and the warranty will be voided. The reason why this feature (IntelliPark) was created and placed on the drives, was in order to lower power consumption in order to be more eco-friendly. The unit will not encounter a sudden death due to this feature."

...

I also have intercepted such talks in the same conference (summarized and translated to English by me):

There is no a "magic" vendor-specific ATA command that tells the drive either do the park, or do not, and he remembers all that. It happens in a more complicated way. The WDIDLE is sending a standard command of the overwrite a firmware module over the original, sends the module body, and a compatible drive becomes successfully patched. But these modules quite differs from model to model, so the WDIDLE utility can't overwrite the module correctly, cause there is simply an incompatible module inside! That means that you can damage your original module with non-working code. And that's why WD has finished the support of this utility. Now it is available (WDIDLE3 v1.03) only for the strict number of drives: WD RE2-GP WD1000FYPS-01ZKB0, WD7500AYPS-01ZKB0, and WD7501AYPS-01ZKB0 with the updated firmware.

It looks like vague rumours? Yeah, they actually are. Only WD knows what is going on indead, and we can only do more or less appropriate guesses :)

swivelguy2
Posts: 404
Joined: Sun Jul 04, 2004 9:18 pm
Location: Illinois, USA

Post by swivelguy2 » Thu Jul 02, 2009 5:33 am

This thread inspired me to fire up HDtune and check my laptop HDD's SMART data.

I have a 100GB Seagate Momentus 7200.1 (ST910021AS)

Age: ~24 months
Power on hours: 10251 (~14 months)
Power cycle count: 2659
Start/stop count: 6501
Power off Retract count: 16108
Load cycle count: 2,954,613

It's going up by exactly 1 every 5 seconds as I watch it.

The drive works perfectly, and every row has an "Ok." in the last column of the SMART info. I personally suspect that drives reporting a high number here have nothing to worry about.

acadiel
Posts: 1
Joined: Sat Aug 22, 2009 6:20 pm
Location: US

Post by acadiel » Sat Aug 22, 2009 6:25 pm

Just saw this thread on Google.

Here's my EACS one running in FreeNAS (since early 2008):

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Device Model: WDC WD10EACS-00ZJB0
Firmware Version: 01.01B01
User Capacity: 1,000,204,886,016 bytes

ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x000f 200 200 051 Pre-fail Always - 0
3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0003 197 181 021 Pre-fail Always - 7116
4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 450
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 200 200 140 Pre-fail Always - 0
7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x000e 200 200 051 Old_age Always - 0
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 083 083 000 Old_age Always - 12589
10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0012 100 100 051 Old_age Always - 0
11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0012 100 253 051 Old_age Always - 0
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 46
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 310
193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 001 001 000 Old_age Always - 1739851
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 116 099 000 Old_age Always - 36
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0012 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0010 200 200 000 Old_age Offline - 0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x003e 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 1
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x0008 200 200 051 Old_age Offline - 1

Yes, that's 1.73 million. :)

swivelguy2
Posts: 404
Joined: Sun Jul 04, 2004 9:18 pm
Location: Illinois, USA

Post by swivelguy2 » Sun Aug 23, 2009 8:34 pm

(see my post a couple above for more details)

I'm running Vista 32-bit and have found that I can use the hdparm utility to disable head parking on my HDD.

I got it from here: http://hdparm-win32.dyndns.org/hdparm/

By running the command prompt as administrator and typing "hdparm -B 254 hda" the load cycle count stops increasing, and I can hear that the faint ticks of head parking cease.

However, this procedure needs to be repeated every time I reboot or resume from sleep. Does anyone know how I can automatically run that command (as administrator) upon boot and resume?

dhanson865
Posts: 2198
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Location: TN, USA

Post by dhanson865 » Mon Aug 24, 2009 6:36 am

swivelguy2 wrote:However, this procedure needs to be repeated every time I reboot or resume from sleep. Does anyone know how I can automatically run that command (as administrator) upon boot and resume?
On boot could be done several ways but I'd just make a batch file and put a shortcut to it in the startup group. The shortcut can be modified to run as administrator.

On resume I don't know a way to automate it but you could just run the same shortcut you made for the startup group.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/54297 ... ng-standby discusses automating on resume items. I haven't tried it myself.

swivelguy2
Posts: 404
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Location: Illinois, USA

Post by swivelguy2 » Mon Aug 24, 2009 10:13 am

Okay, I have figured out how to reliably and automatically disable head parks. This procedure should work for all hard disks, but may vary for different versions of Windows (I have Vista 32 business).

Here's what I did:

- Download and install hdparm
- Run hdparm from a command line (as administrator) like this:
hdparm -B 254 hda
and verify (using HDtune or whatever) that the smart attribute for Load Cycle Count has stopped increasing.
- Create a text file in notepad containing that same command:
hdparm -B 254 hda
- Save it as headpark.bat in an out-of-the-way location
- Open the task scheduler. In Vista, just type "task" into the start menu search
- In the Action menu, select Create Task
- On the general tab, give it a descriptive name ("disable head parks")
- On the general tab, choose "run whether the user is logged in or not" and "run with highest privileges"
- On the Triggers tab, click "new"
- In the drop-down menu, select "At startup."
- Press Ok
- On the Triggers tab, click "new" again
- In the drop-down menu, select "On an event"
- Select the radio button "Basic"
- From the Log dropdown, select System
- From the Source dropdown, select Power-Troubleshooter
- In the Event ID field, type 1
- Click Ok.
- In the Actions tab, click New.
- From the Action dropdown, select "start a program"
- Click browse and locate your headpark.bat file
- Click Ok.
- In the Conditions tab, uncheck "start the task only if the computer is on AC power" (this option may only be on laptops)
- Click Ok twice.
- Close the task scheduler
- Test that after rebooting and/or sleeping and resuming, the Load Cycle Count does not increase rapidly.

I was never too worried about load cycles causing disk failure, but disabling them has eliminated some faint ticking noises as well as an occasional half-second hangup while the system waits for the hard disk to unpark.

awdrifter
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Location: USA

Post by awdrifter » Wed Oct 28, 2009 1:13 am

I just bought a WD7500AADS, is this model affected? Thanks.

spykez
Posts: 20
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Location: Europe

Post by spykez » Thu Oct 29, 2009 8:55 am

Are the new WD Greens 1.5TB affected by this issue?

Vicotnik
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Location: Sweden

Post by Vicotnik » Thu Oct 29, 2009 2:39 pm

spykez wrote:Are the new WD Greens 1.5TB affected by this issue?
They have this feature, yes. :D

whiic
Posts: 575
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Location: Finland

Post by whiic » Thu Oct 29, 2009 4:14 pm

One of my WD went south at 360000 cycles. Too many (1265) bad sectors that appeared out of nowhere suddenly. Haven't grown in number since but because it fails SMART, the HDD has probably entered some failsafe mode and write speeds have dropped to below 10MB/s. It probably verifies each write which causes the slowdown.

It's not the one with the most cycles. Oldest GP in my possession has 569128 cycles ATM which is far from what some other people have reported. Like that 1.73 million cycles for example...

I will probably receive a F2/F3 Ecogreen as replacement from the retailer. I like their absence of idle noise (and unload clicking as well). GP is fine too... especially when comparing them to drives I used to before buying a load of GPs and EGs: WD3200JB, 7K400, DiamondMax 9, MLII... Since I've had my back-up drives installed for the past month, my system has been far from quiet lately. Can't wait for that warranty replacement.

Tasslehoff
Posts: 2
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Location: Kendermore

Post by Tasslehoff » Wed Nov 04, 2009 4:16 pm

Hi all, yesterday I bought a new WD15EADS-00P8B0 for my NMT (Popcorn Hour A110).
Sadly I read about the problem on parking system of this damn Intelli-Park feature only today :(
And yes, Murphy's law are absolutely right...

I've read about this problem, find everything, people with WD Green with strange noise during disk idle who solved with 'hdparm -B 255 <dev>'
Others have input/output (or read/write) error after the same command.
Someone solved the problem with WD dos utility to raise the number of seconds the hard drive wait for parking heads (more than these damned 8 seconds...).

As I know the real problem comes from this feature (parking heads after 8" of idle state) using OS like linux where the kernel check the hard drive every 10"; this generates a useless stress on the hard drive making heads parking and move on again very frequently, reaching the recomended limit in a short time. I am right?

I must confess I'm a bit confused about this topic, so I tried to reproduce the problem.
I installed the hard drive on my pc (motherbord DFI with Intel P35 and ICH9R) loading a linux live distribution (normally on this pc I use Vista SP2 32bit) and started with some tests.

I collected Load_Cycle_Count value with smartmontools (smartctl -a <dev>) for 5 times, between each iteration I waited some seconds.
The tests was made waiting 7", 8", 9", 30", 60" and 180" between each iteration, leaving the system in idle.

7" delay

Code: Select all

====================================================
Load Cycle test on WD15EADS-00P8B0 - loop every 7"
====================================================
Date:             2009-11-04 22:13:49
Device Model:     WDC WD15EADS-00P8B0
Firmware Version: 01.00A01
User Capacity:    1,500,301,910,016 bytes
  9 Power_On_Hours                 13
193 Load_Cycle_Count               210
========================================
Date:             2009-11-04 22:13:57
Device Model:     WDC WD15EADS-00P8B0
Firmware Version: 01.00A01
User Capacity:    1,500,301,910,016 bytes
  9 Power_On_Hours                 13
193 Load_Cycle_Count               210
========================================
Date:             2009-11-04 22:14:04
Device Model:     WDC WD15EADS-00P8B0
Firmware Version: 01.00A01
User Capacity:    1,500,301,910,016 bytes
  9 Power_On_Hours                 13
193 Load_Cycle_Count               210
========================================
Date:             2009-11-04 22:14:11
Device Model:     WDC WD15EADS-00P8B0
Firmware Version: 01.00A01
User Capacity:    1,500,301,910,016 bytes
  9 Power_On_Hours                 13
193 Load_Cycle_Count               210
========================================
Date:             2009-11-04 22:14:18
Device Model:     WDC WD15EADS-00P8B0
Firmware Version: 01.00A01
User Capacity:    1,500,301,910,016 bytes
  9 Power_On_Hours                 13
193 Load_Cycle_Count               210
8" delay

Code: Select all

====================================================
Load Cycle test on WD15EADS-00P8B0 - loop every 8"
====================================================
Date:             2009-11-04 22:16:17
Device Model:     WDC WD15EADS-00P8B0
Firmware Version: 01.00A01
User Capacity:    1,500,301,910,016 bytes
  9 Power_On_Hours                 13
193 Load_Cycle_Count               212
========================================
Date:             2009-11-04 22:16:26
Device Model:     WDC WD15EADS-00P8B0
Firmware Version: 01.00A01
User Capacity:    1,500,301,910,016 bytes
  9 Power_On_Hours                 13
193 Load_Cycle_Count               212
========================================
Date:             2009-11-04 22:16:34
Device Model:     WDC WD15EADS-00P8B0
Firmware Version: 01.00A01
User Capacity:    1,500,301,910,016 bytes
  9 Power_On_Hours                 13
193 Load_Cycle_Count               212
========================================
Date:             2009-11-04 22:16:42
Device Model:     WDC WD15EADS-00P8B0
Firmware Version: 01.00A01
User Capacity:    1,500,301,910,016 bytes
  9 Power_On_Hours                 13
193 Load_Cycle_Count               212
========================================
Date:             2009-11-04 22:16:50
Device Model:     WDC WD15EADS-00P8B0
Firmware Version: 01.00A01
User Capacity:    1,500,301,910,016 bytes
  9 Power_On_Hours                 13
193 Load_Cycle_Count               212
9" delay

Code: Select all

====================================================
Load Cycle test on WD15EADS-00P8B0 - loop every 9"
====================================================
Date:             2009-11-04 22:17:43
Device Model:     WDC WD15EADS-00P8B0
Firmware Version: 01.00A01
User Capacity:    1,500,301,910,016 bytes
  9 Power_On_Hours                 13
193 Load_Cycle_Count               214
========================================
Date:             2009-11-04 22:17:53
Device Model:     WDC WD15EADS-00P8B0
Firmware Version: 01.00A01
User Capacity:    1,500,301,910,016 bytes
  9 Power_On_Hours                 13
193 Load_Cycle_Count               215
========================================
Date:             2009-11-04 22:18:02
Device Model:     WDC WD15EADS-00P8B0
Firmware Version: 01.00A01
User Capacity:    1,500,301,910,016 bytes
  9 Power_On_Hours                 13
193 Load_Cycle_Count               216
========================================
Date:             2009-11-04 22:18:12
Device Model:     WDC WD15EADS-00P8B0
Firmware Version: 01.00A01
User Capacity:    1,500,301,910,016 bytes
  9 Power_On_Hours                 13
193 Load_Cycle_Count               217
========================================
Date:             2009-11-04 22:18:21
Device Model:     WDC WD15EADS-00P8B0
Firmware Version: 01.00A01
User Capacity:    1,500,301,910,016 bytes
  9 Power_On_Hours                 13
193 Load_Cycle_Count               218
========================================
30" delay

Code: Select all

====================================================
Load Cycle test on WD15EADS-00P8B0 - loop every 30"
====================================================
Date:             2009-11-04 22:07:13
Device Model:     WDC WD15EADS-00P8B0
Firmware Version: 01.00A01
User Capacity:    1,500,301,910,016 bytes
  9 Power_On_Hours                 13
193 Load_Cycle_Count               199
========================================
Date:             2009-11-04 22:07:43
Device Model:     WDC WD15EADS-00P8B0
Firmware Version: 01.00A01
User Capacity:    1,500,301,910,016 bytes
  9 Power_On_Hours                 13
193 Load_Cycle_Count               200
========================================
Date:             2009-11-04 22:08:13
Device Model:     WDC WD15EADS-00P8B0
Firmware Version: 01.00A01
User Capacity:    1,500,301,910,016 bytes
  9 Power_On_Hours                 13
193 Load_Cycle_Count               201
========================================
Date:             2009-11-04 22:08:43
Device Model:     WDC WD15EADS-00P8B0
Firmware Version: 01.00A01
User Capacity:    1,500,301,910,016 bytes
  9 Power_On_Hours                 13
193 Load_Cycle_Count               202
========================================
Date:             2009-11-04 22:09:14
Device Model:     WDC WD15EADS-00P8B0
Firmware Version: 01.00A01
User Capacity:    1,500,301,910,016 bytes
  9 Power_On_Hours                 13
193 Load_Cycle_Count               203
60" delay

Code: Select all

====================================================
Load Cycle test on WD15EADS-00P8B0 - loop every 60"
====================================================
Date:             2009-11-04 22:19:16
Device Model:     WDC WD15EADS-00P8B0
Firmware Version: 01.00A01
User Capacity:    1,500,301,910,016 bytes
  9 Power_On_Hours                 13
193 Load_Cycle_Count               219
========================================
Date:             2009-11-04 22:20:16
Device Model:     WDC WD15EADS-00P8B0
Firmware Version: 01.00A01
User Capacity:    1,500,301,910,016 bytes
  9 Power_On_Hours                 13
193 Load_Cycle_Count               220
========================================
Date:             2009-11-04 22:21:16
Device Model:     WDC WD15EADS-00P8B0
Firmware Version: 01.00A01
User Capacity:    1,500,301,910,016 bytes
  9 Power_On_Hours                 13
193 Load_Cycle_Count               221
========================================
Date:             2009-11-04 22:22:17
Device Model:     WDC WD15EADS-00P8B0
Firmware Version: 01.00A01
User Capacity:    1,500,301,910,016 bytes
  9 Power_On_Hours                 13
193 Load_Cycle_Count               222
========================================
Date:             2009-11-04 22:23:17
Device Model:     WDC WD15EADS-00P8B0
Firmware Version: 01.00A01
User Capacity:    1,500,301,910,016 bytes
  9 Power_On_Hours                 13
193 Load_Cycle_Count               223
========================================
180" delay

Code: Select all

====================================================
Load Cycle test on WD15EADS-00P8B0 - loop every 180"
====================================================
Date:             2009-11-04 22:33:18
Device Model:     WDC WD15EADS-00P8B0
Firmware Version: 01.00A01
User Capacity:    1,500,301,910,016 bytes
  9 Power_On_Hours                 13
193 Load_Cycle_Count               224
========================================
Date:             2009-11-04 22:36:18
Device Model:     WDC WD15EADS-00P8B0
Firmware Version: 01.00A01
User Capacity:    1,500,301,910,016 bytes
  9 Power_On_Hours                 13
193 Load_Cycle_Count               225
========================================
Date:             2009-11-04 22:39:18
Device Model:     WDC WD15EADS-00P8B0
Firmware Version: 01.00A01
User Capacity:    1,500,301,910,016 bytes
  9 Power_On_Hours                 13
193 Load_Cycle_Count               226
========================================
Date:             2009-11-04 22:42:18
Device Model:     WDC WD15EADS-00P8B0
Firmware Version: 01.00A01
User Capacity:    1,500,301,910,016 bytes
  9 Power_On_Hours                 13
193 Load_Cycle_Count               227
========================================
Date:             2009-11-04 22:45:18
Device Model:     WDC WD15EADS-00P8B0
Firmware Version: 01.00A01
User Capacity:    1,500,301,910,016 bytes
  9 Power_On_Hours                 13
193 Load_Cycle_Count               228
========================================
As you can see the Load_Cycle_Count rise for only 1 unit and only if the hard drive is left idle for more than 8".
Reading online I was expecting the Load_Cycle_Count value will rise more and more quickly; I think the Load_Cycle_Count value will rise by 1 unit after 8" for parking heads by Intelli-Park feature, and rise for another unit 2" after for kernel work. So on in a 30" delay I expected the value rises by at last 6 units.
From my tests It seems the hard drive normally park heads after 8" and then leave them in that position if the drive is left on idle state. If something try to read some data from the hard drive, it returns the heads in position and return parking them after the work is done and 8" of idle are passed.

It is right?
Someone knows if something was corrected with recent linux kernel (I used Ubuntu 9.04) or WD fix the features in the last Green series hd?

Thanks for every info :)

matt_garman
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Post by matt_garman » Thu Nov 05, 2009 6:10 am

I started to research this a while back, but got sidetracked, ran out of time, and haven't revisited it since.

Anyway, I posted my findings in this thread on the linux-raid mailing list (subject: "linux disk access when idle", started August 20, 2009).

Another point, that I didn't mention in the linux-raid thread is this: I run a weekly "long" smart test on all my drives, then email myself a full smart report. I do this in the hopes of catching a dying drive before it's too late. But for a while, I was logging the Load_Cycle_Count values to a spreadsheet.

The interesting thing was, the values varied quite a bit week-to-week, literally by a factor of two or three. The usage pattern of my drives should be reasonably constant---certainly not as wildly varied as the numbers I was seeing.

My point is, you took measurements on a very short scale (on the order of seconds/minutes). I'd wager that if you logged these values as I did over much longer periods, you'd also see wild variance.

If there's interest, I can post the numbers from my spreadsheet.

Tasslehoff
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Nov 04, 2009 3:34 pm
Location: Kendermore

Post by Tasslehoff » Thu Nov 05, 2009 3:44 pm

matt_garman wrote:SNIP
My point is, you took measurements on a very short scale (on the order of seconds/minutes). I'd wager that if you logged these values as I did over much longer periods, you'd also see wild variance.

If there's interest, I can post the numbers from my spreadsheet.
Yes thank you, I think it will be interesting :)

Today I tried to repeat the tests with a different filesystem; the test I posted yesterday was made under Ubuntu 9.04 live using only one big 1.5TB primary partition and filesystem NTFS.
Today I repeated the test with the same partition but EXT3 filesystem.
Same results.

Tomorrow I will try again installing the hard drive on my Popcorn Hour A110, installing smartmontools and telnet I can run the same script I used today and yesterday.

I also received a reply to the case I opened on WD support.
I'm quite disappointed for this reply, the drive seems working very well but if WD do not change their support policies I think this will be my first and last WD hard disk :(

Here is the reply directly pasted from support crm.
Thank you for contacting Western Digital Customer Service and Support. My name is [EDIT].

I do apologize for the inconvenience, Intellipark cannot be disabled and there is no firmware update available for this drive, unfortunately Western Digital does not support the use of our internal drives in third party enclosures, please see more details below.

Title: Can I install a WD EIDE or Serial ATA drive in an external enclosure or Personal Video Recorder?
Link: [EDIT]

Title: Support for WD products in LINUX or UNIX
Link: [EDIT]


If you have any further questions please reply to this email and we will be happy to assist you further.
PS: sorry but forum antispam policies don't let me post url until I reach 3 posts :x
I'll edit them as soon I can post links.

awdrifter
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Post by awdrifter » Tue Nov 10, 2009 3:53 am

So if I purposely keep the drive from parking it's head by running some background programs, will it help lengthen the life of the drive?

matt_garman
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Post by matt_garman » Tue Nov 10, 2009 5:20 am

Here's the Load_Cycle_Count data from my four WD RE2 GP 1TB drives.

The columns are as follows:
  • Date - YYYY/MM/DD
  • Drive - One of four
  • LCC - Raw Load_Cycle_Count value obtained from SMART
  • Delta - LCC difference compared to the previous week's reading
  • Per_Hour - Averaged number of LCCs per hour
  • Hours_Per - Averaged number of hours between LCC increments (i.e. inverse of Per_Hour)

Code: Select all

Date        Drive    LCC     Delta  Per_Hour  Hours_Per
2009/03/30  Drive_A  134206
            Drive_B  133684
            Drive_C  134167
            Drive_D  134096

2009/04/06  Drive_A  134329  123    0.732142  1.365853
            Drive_B  133806  122    0.726190  1.377049
            Drive_C  134290  123    0.732142  1.365853
            Drive_D  134220  124    0.738095  1.354838

2009/04/13  Drive_A  134511  182    1.083333  0.923076
            Drive_B  133987  181    1.077380  0.928176
            Drive_C  134471  181    1.077380  0.928176
            Drive_D  134401  181    1.077380  0.928176

2009/04/20  Drive_A  134728  217    1.291666  0.774193
            Drive_B  134197  210    1.250000  0.800000
            Drive_C  134686  215    1.279761  0.781395
            Drive_D  134620  219    1.303571  0.767123

2009/04/27  Drive_A  134951  223    1.327380  0.753363
            Drive_B  134416  219    1.303571  0.767123
            Drive_C  134908  222    1.321428  0.756756
            Drive_D  134840  220    1.309523  0.763636

2009/05/04  Drive_A  135502  551    3.279761  0.304900
            Drive_B  134968  552    3.285714  0.304347
            Drive_C  135461  553    3.291666  0.303797
            Drive_D  135391  551    3.279761  0.304900

2009/05/11  Drive_A  136030  528    3.142857  0.318181
            Drive_B  135487  519    3.089285  0.323699
            Drive_C  135982  521    3.101190  0.322456
            Drive_D  135918  527    3.136904  0.318785

2009/05/18  Drive_A  136318  288    1.714285  0.583333
            Drive_B  135770  283    1.684523  0.593639
            Drive_C  136270  288    1.714285  0.583333
            Drive_D  136207  289    1.720238  0.581314

2009/05/25  Drive_A  136718  400    2.380952  0.420000
            Drive_B  136167  397    2.363095  0.423173
            Drive_C  136676  406    2.416666  0.413793
            Drive_D  136608  401    2.386904  0.418952

2009/06/01  Drive_A  137367  649    3.863095  0.258859
            Drive_B  136816  649    3.863095  0.258859
            Drive_C  137322  646    3.845238  0.260061
            Drive_D  137251  643    3.827380  0.261275

2009/06/08  Drive_A  137505  138    0.821428  1.217391
            Drive_B  136959  143    0.851190  1.174825
            Drive_C  137464  142    0.845238  1.183098
            Drive_D  137395  144    0.857142  1.166666

2009/06/15  Drive_A  137893  388    2.309523  0.432989
            Drive_B  137350  391    2.327380  0.429667
            Drive_C  137857  393    2.339285  0.427480
            Drive_D  137784  389    2.315476  0.431876

2009/06/22  Drive_A  138075  182    1.083333  0.923076
            Drive_B  137533  183    1.089285  0.918032
            Drive_C  138034  177    1.053571  0.949152
            Drive_D  137965  181    1.077380  0.928176

2009/06/29  Drive_A  138643  568    3.380952  0.295774
            Drive_B  138102  569    3.386904  0.295254
            Drive_C  138605  571    3.398809  0.294220
            Drive_D  138534  569    3.386904  0.295254

2009/07/06  Drive_A  138699  56     0.333333  3.000000
            Drive_B  138157  55     0.327380  3.054545
            Drive_C  138660  55     0.327380  3.054545
            Drive_D  138587  53     0.315476  3.169811

2009/07/13  Drive_A  138802  103    0.613095  1.631067
            Drive_B  138262  105    0.625000  1.600000
            Drive_C  138765  105    0.625000  1.600000
            Drive_D  138692  105    0.625000  1.600000

2009/07/20  Drive_A  139035  233    1.386904  0.721030
            Drive_B  138494  232    1.380952  0.724137
            Drive_C  139000  235    1.398809  0.714893
            Drive_D  138925  233    1.386904  0.721030

2009/07/27  Drive_A  139505  470    2.797619  0.357446
            Drive_B  138962  468    2.785714  0.358974
            Drive_C  139473  473    2.815476  0.355179
            Drive_D  139394  469    2.791666  0.358208

2009/08/03  Drive_A  139933  428    2.547619  0.392523
            Drive_B  139392  430    2.559523  0.390697
            Drive_C  139900  427    2.541666  0.393442
            Drive_D  139822  428    2.547619  0.392523

2009/08/10  Drive_A  140486  553    3.291666  0.303797
            Drive_B  139957  565    3.363095  0.297345
            Drive_C  140457  557    3.315476  0.301615
            Drive_D  140388  566    3.369047  0.296819

2009/08/17  Drive_A  140997  511    3.041666  0.328767
            Drive_B  140470  513    3.053571  0.327485
            Drive_C  140957  500    2.976190  0.336000
            Drive_D  140891  503    2.994047  0.333996

2009/08/24  Drive_A  141317  320    1.904761  0.525000
            Drive_B  140782  312    1.857142  0.538461
            Drive_C  141280  323    1.922619  0.520123
            Drive_D  141210  319    1.898809  0.526645

2009/08/31  Drive_A  141444  127    0.755952  1.322834
            Drive_B  140911  129    0.767857  1.302325
            Drive_C  141411  131    0.779761  1.282442
            Drive_D  141333  123    0.732142  1.365853

2009/09/07  Drive_A  141520  76     0.452380  2.210526
            Drive_B  140982  71     0.422619  2.366197
            Drive_C  141483  72     0.428571  2.333333
            Drive_D  141406  73     0.434523  2.301369

2009/09/14  Drive_A  141600  80     0.476190  2.100000
            Drive_B  141066  84     0.500000  2.000000
            Drive_C  141562  79     0.470238  2.126582
            Drive_D  141483  77     0.458333  2.181818

2009/09/21  Drive_A  141769  169    1.005952  0.994082
            Drive_B  141236  170    1.011904  0.988235
            Drive_C  141730  168    1.000000  1.000000
            Drive_D  141651  168    1.000000  1.000000

2009/09/28  Drive_A  142041  272    1.619047  0.617647
            Drive_B  141510  274    1.630952  0.613138
            Drive_C  142013  283    1.684523  0.593639
            Drive_D  141918  267    1.589285  0.629213

2009/10/05  Drive_A  142185  144    0.857142  1.166666
            Drive_B  141651  141    0.839285  1.191489
            Drive_C  142158  145    0.863095  1.158620
            Drive_D  142061  143    0.851190  1.174825

2009/10/12  Drive_A  142278  93     0.553571  1.806451
            Drive_B  141741  90     0.535714  1.866666
            Drive_C  142248  90     0.535714  1.866666
            Drive_D  142150  89     0.529761  1.887640

2009/10/19  Drive_A  142360  82     0.488095  2.048780
            Drive_B  141814  73     0.434523  2.301369
            Drive_C  142324  76     0.452380  2.210526
            Drive_D  142224  74     0.440476  2.270270

2009/10/26  Drive_A  142449  89     0.529761  1.887640
            Drive_B  141900  86     0.511904  1.953488
            Drive_C  142414  90     0.535714  1.866666
            Drive_D  142308  84     0.500000  2.000000

2009/11/02  Drive_A  142478  29     0.172619  5.793103
            Drive_B  141928  28     0.166666  6.000000
            Drive_C  142443  29     0.172619  5.793103
            Drive_D  142337  29     0.172619  5.793103

drdaz
Posts: 13
Joined: Wed Aug 17, 2005 7:25 am

Possible cause + solution under Linux?

Post by drdaz » Tue Nov 17, 2009 3:52 pm

I just bought and installed a 1.5TB WD Green Power. I remembered that this was a potential issue, and saw in the SPCR review of the 2TB model that the behavior had returned.

What may be interesting for Linux users here is that I have managed to make the Load / Unload Cycle count stop increasing at such a drastic pace by disabling two daemons: smartmontools and hddtemp. It was this thread that clued me up, as Speedfan SMART polling caused the issue on Windows. So basically, every time we poll the drive for SMART stats, we cause it to come out of its power saving mode. I have no idea why that's necessary, but apparently it is. The two processes on my system which were doing this were the aforementioned smartmontools and hddtemp. Now, the load cycle count only seems to count up when I poll the SMART data myself, or when the drive has been idling and starts being used by a user process.

I have 3 drives connected to my system (a Ubuntu-based HTPC running MythTV, for what it's worth) at present, and their data make for an interesting comparison. The first disk, is a 2.5 year old WD Caviar 500GB (Device Model: WDC WD5000AAKS-65TMA0). I am about to switch it out, since I make a habit of switching my disks roughly every 2-3 years. It's been running as my OS disk:

Code: Select all

ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x000f   200   200   051    Pre-fail  Always       -       1
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0003   186   178   021    Pre-fail  Always       -       5683
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       91
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   200   200   140    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x000e   200   200   051    Old_age   Always       -       0
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   074   074   000    Old_age   Always       -       19665
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0012   100   253   051    Old_age   Always       -       0
 11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0012   100   253   051    Old_age   Always       -       0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       91
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       10
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       91
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   102   101   000    Old_age   Always       -       48
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0012   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0010   200   200   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x003e   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x0008   200   200   051    Old_age   Offline      -       0
Load cycle count is at 91.

The second disk, a 1TB WD Green Power (Device Model: WDC WD10EADS-00L5B1) has also been in 24/7 usage, but purely for storage and playback of ripped / otherwise obtained videos (HD and HDTV rips mostly), for about 10 months:

Code: Select all

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   202   202   021    Pre-fail  Always       -       4883
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       8
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   200   200   140    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x002e   100   253   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   091   091   000    Old_age   Always       -       7097
 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       -       5
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       4
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       7
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   105   104   000    Old_age   Always       -       45
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0030   200   200   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x0008   200   200   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
Load cycle count here is at 7. 7 times in 10 months. It's been mentioned elsewhere in this thread that this particular revision (WD10EADS-00L5B1) has the unloading feature disabled. This sounds likely, as I don't recall ever hearing the drive click, and the numbers are shockingly low.

The last disk, and the one which prompted my digging, is my new 1.5TB WD Green Power (Device Model: WDC WD15EADS-00P8B0). It's been connected for a few days, and given that it's running in the same configuration and environment as the other two drives, I would have expected similar behaviour. But no:

Code: Select all

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   100   253   021    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       6
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   200   200   140    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x002e   100   253   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       73
 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       -       3
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       2
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       239
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   118   109   000    Old_age   Always       -       32
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0030   200   200   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x0008   200   200   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
Load cycle count here is already up to 239. The count was increasing by itself until I disabled those two daemons. In fact, this was happening even though the disk wasn't mounted, so in my case at least the cycling wasn't being caused by file writes / accesses.

I hope this helps somebody else.

*Note: I'm not sure if these daemons autostart by default in Ubuntu, but at least smartmontools seems like a likely candidate. If not these, then anything that will be polling your disk for health data. Also, obviously, I don't have any file indexing running constantly*

swivelguy2
Posts: 404
Joined: Sun Jul 04, 2004 9:18 pm
Location: Illinois, USA

Post by swivelguy2 » Tue Nov 17, 2009 4:19 pm

swivelguy2 wrote:Okay, I have figured out how to reliably and automatically disable head parks. This procedure should work for all hard disks, but may vary for different versions of Windows (I have Vista 32 business).

Here's what I did:

- Download and install hdparm
- Run hdparm from a command line (as administrator) like this:
hdparm -B 254 hda
and verify (using HDtune or whatever) that the smart attribute for Load Cycle Count has stopped increasing.
- Create a text file in notepad containing that same command:
hdparm -B 254 hda
- Save it as headpark.bat in an out-of-the-way location
- Open the task scheduler. In Vista, just type "task" into the start menu search
- In the Action menu, select Create Task
- On the general tab, give it a descriptive name ("disable head parks")
- On the general tab, choose "run whether the user is logged in or not" and "run with highest privileges"
- On the Triggers tab, click "new"
- In the drop-down menu, select "At startup."
- Press Ok
- On the Triggers tab, click "new" again
- In the drop-down menu, select "On an event"
- Select the radio button "Basic"
- From the Log dropdown, select System
- From the Source dropdown, select Power-Troubleshooter
- In the Event ID field, type 1
- Click Ok.
- In the Actions tab, click New.
- From the Action dropdown, select "start a program"
- Click browse and locate your headpark.bat file
- Click Ok.
- In the Conditions tab, uncheck "start the task only if the computer is on AC power" (this option may only be on laptops)
- Click Ok twice.
- Close the task scheduler
- Test that after rebooting and/or sleeping and resuming, the Load Cycle Count does not increase rapidly.

I was never too worried about load cycles causing disk failure, but disabling them has eliminated some faint ticking noises as well as an occasional half-second hangup while the system waits for the hard disk to unpark.
I can confirm that this method works under Windows 7 x64 (the x32 hdparm available at http://hdparm-win32.dyndns.org/hdparm/ works fine on x64).

Actually, I mostly just wanted to quote myself because this technique really does completely fix (read: end) head parking when idle, so there's no need to panic!

drdaz
Posts: 13
Joined: Wed Aug 17, 2005 7:25 am

Post by drdaz » Tue Nov 17, 2009 4:25 pm

- Run hdparm from a command line (as administrator) like this:
hdparm -B 254 hda
Trouble is, this doesn't seem to work on the WD Green series:

Code: Select all

drdaz@el-mahico:~$ sudo hdparm -B254 /dev/sdc

/dev/sdc:
 setting Advanced Power Management level to 0xfe (254)
 HDIO_DRIVE_CMD failed: Input/output error
Which drive did you do this with?

EDIT: It doesn't work on any of the drives I have connected... Hmm. It could well be that I have APM disabled through BIOS.

EDIT 2: From my dmesg log:

Code: Select all

[   60.704201] apm: disabled - APM is not SMP safe.
It seems this is expected behavior. It should be possible to re-enable APM on newer multi-core machines: http://linux.derkeiler.com/Mailing-List ... /2431.html

I doubt I'll be fiddling more with this unless the load cycle count skyrockets. But this may be a path worth following if you are looking to disable the feature.

TBorgeaud
Posts: 13
Joined: Fri Sep 05, 2008 2:31 am
Location: London, UK

Post by TBorgeaud » Fri Nov 20, 2009 3:00 am

drdaz wrote: ...
EDIT: It doesn't work on any of the drives I have connected... Hmm. It could well be that I have APM disabled through BIOS.

EDIT 2: From my dmesg log:

Code: Select all

[   60.704201] apm: disabled - APM is not SMP safe.
...
I think (not really sure though) that the Linux apm driver is not quite the same thing as hard drive apm support. You shouldn't need any apm driver in order to set hard drive apm parameters.

I have used a utility called ataidle (similar to Linux's hdparm) in order to turn of APM on my 2.5" drives (to stop head parking).

Note that turning off the apm features of a hard disk only to prevent excessive head parking is obviously not quite ideal (even if it is a good deal better than polling a disk to make sure it is never idle).

expxe
Posts: 51
Joined: Wed Nov 11, 2009 2:31 am
Location: Canada

Post by expxe » Sat Nov 28, 2009 1:49 pm

would this problem affect ALL WD Green Drives? i see the firmware update only will work on certain drives. I have a 1.5TB wd green drive (model WD15EADS) and want to know if it has the problem or if it has been fixed? how can i confirm?

Iron_Dreamer
Posts: 60
Joined: Sun Sep 21, 2003 11:43 pm

Post by Iron_Dreamer » Mon Nov 30, 2009 9:11 pm

drdaz wrote:
- Run hdparm from a command line (as administrator) like this:
hdparm -B 254 hda
Trouble is, this doesn't seem to work on the WD Green series:

Code: Select all

drdaz@el-mahico:~$ sudo hdparm -B254 /dev/sdc

/dev/sdc:
 setting Advanced Power Management level to 0xfe (254)
 HDIO_DRIVE_CMD failed: Input/output error
Which drive did you do this with?

EDIT: It doesn't work on any of the drives I have connected... Hmm. It could well be that I have APM disabled through BIOS.

EDIT 2: From my dmesg log:

Code: Select all

[   60.704201] apm: disabled - APM is not SMP safe.
It seems this is expected behavior. It should be possible to re-enable APM on newer multi-core machines: http://linux.derkeiler.com/Mailing-List ... /2431.html

I doubt I'll be fiddling more with this unless the load cycle count skyrockets. But this may be a path worth following if you are looking to disable the feature.
I ran into the same exact problem trying to set my WD15EADS. If it just means that it'll only work on a single-core machine, I guess that is OK, as my new server shall be sempron-based.

jimmyzaas
Posts: 145
Joined: Fri Jul 15, 2005 2:40 pm
Location: Toronto, CANADA

My WD20EADS Experience

Post by jimmyzaas » Wed Dec 16, 2009 7:48 pm

I recently decided to purchase a WD20EADS despite the LCC problem. It was either that or the Samsung F2 (Seagate = poor reviews). Given my luck with Samsung HDDs, I was really only left with one choice.

After reading pages upon pages of threads on the LCC issue, it occurred to me that the issue was purely random. I prayed that my new drive would not have this issue.

Alas when it arrived, it was DOA.

Image

I soon got a replacement and I began to use it like I normally would with any other hard drive including the occasional torrents, movie watching and playing mp3s. After 3 days or so, I decided to check the SMART stats because I just remembered about the LCC problem.

My findings were bad:

Image

That's 43HEX 67DEC Power On Hours and 488HEX / 1160DEC load cycles! That's 17 loads an hour!

I searched desperately to find answers. Tried HDParm, does not work on my system Vista 64bit. Read WDIDLE3 /d does not even work for 00R6B0 drives (http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php ... 009&page=2)

I became worried until I found this wonderful site. http://www.synology.com/support/faq_sho ... u&q_id=407

Upon reading, I found out that their version is 1.03 and is actually designed to work around the newer desktop drive models. I came to the conclusion that most stories floating around used version 1.00, where the drive would actually set a lower time than 8 seconds if you used the disable switch. The max you could set with version 1.00 is 25.5 seconds.. at least for the 00R6B0 model.

I promptly followed the instructions and the results were..

Image

Unexpected. The disable doesn't appear to work but it indicates that I get a full 3720 secs or 62 minutes before the head would park. I figure this is ok. Lo and behold, 62 odd minutes (or more) of idling later..

Image

The LCC count did not increase! I guess the WDIDLE3 v1.03 disable switch (/d) does work after all!

I hope this post would help someone out there. I sure would have liked to have this information before my purchase.

Note 1: using WDIDLE3 did not wipe any data I had.
Note2: ok I cheated a little, the first pic was actually taken after I did the wdidle disable. This means the LCC count might have been slightly less before I used wdidle.

Ralf Hutter
SPCR Reviewer
Posts: 8636
Joined: Sat Nov 23, 2002 6:33 am
Location: Sunny SoCal

Post by Ralf Hutter » Sat Dec 19, 2009 7:41 am

So, after having this WD 640 Green running non-stop for the past 11 months (8214 hours according to the SMART reading), if I'm reading the SMART report correctly, it has only parked the heads (15HEX = 21DEC) 21 times. Is that correct, or am I reading something wrong?

Image

MikeC
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Post by MikeC » Sat Dec 19, 2009 10:31 am

Ralf Hutter wrote:So, after having this WD 640 Green running non-stop for the past 11 months (8214 hours according to the SMART reading), if I'm reading the SMART report correctly, it has only parked the heads (15HEX = 21DEC) 21 times. Is that correct, or am I reading something wrong?

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Isn't it "193 - load/unload cycle count - 15" times? and "009 - power on hours count -- 2016"?

qviri
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Post by qviri » Sat Dec 19, 2009 11:55 am

MikeC wrote:Isn't it "193 - load/unload cycle count - 15" times? and "009 - power on hours count -- 2016"?
The column is labelled as "raw (hex)", that is hexadecimal, base 16.

(15 in base 16) is (21 in base 10) and (2016 in base 16) is (8214 in base 10).

lobuni
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Post by lobuni » Sun Dec 20, 2009 1:05 am

I just bought a WD10EADS-00M2B0 and am having trouble with AHCI. It's giving me a "port reset error," when I do a cold boot. During booting I think can hear the drive spin up twice.
Do any of your drives do the same?
That would explain the high Spin Up Time SMART values many of you have been reporting, mine: Spin Up Time 129 6550.

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