WD20EARS or WD20EADS? What about seagate's 2tb drive?

Silencing hard drives, optical drives and other storage devices

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ces
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Post by ces » Thu Mar 25, 2010 6:06 am

whiic wrote: This of course assumes you keep back-ups. If you don't... then you are an
IDIOT.
Shame on you. There are many forums out there for adolescents with one too many zits and one too few girlfriends. This isn't it. You should go find a forum with your own kind where such discourse is acceptable.

MoJo
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Post by MoJo » Thu Mar 25, 2010 2:25 pm

puddnhead wrote:He didn't call you an idiot, like you are making out.
Please review the thread. I never suggested that he was calling me an idiot personally, that is entirely in your head. I understood it was a general comment, I just felt that his already weak argument had turned into an off-tangent rant.

I don't know where you got this bizarre idea that I tool it personally. It helps if you don't just assume the worst.

puddnhead
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Post by puddnhead » Tue Apr 27, 2010 9:17 am

MoJo wrote:I don't know where you got this bizarre idea that I tool it personally. It helps if you don't just assume the worst.
I guess it was from the fact you felt compelled to announce that you were not going to discuss anything with him any more.

If that wasn't taking something personally, I'm not sure what to call it. What was the point of posting that announcement? But ... hopefully we are not going back to semantic arguments again with you (what is "taking it personally", whether saying people who don't do backups are "idiots" was meant as an insult to you, etc).

naujoks
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Post by naujoks » Thu May 06, 2010 4:03 am

So personal differences aside, which is the QUIETEST 2TB drive out there at the moment? I don't care about anything else, apart from reliability. For me it's all about noise.

rpsgc
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Post by rpsgc » Thu May 06, 2010 6:40 am

naujoks wrote:So personal differences aside, which is the QUIETEST 2TB drive out there at the moment? I don't care about anything else, apart from reliability. For me it's all about noise.
That would most likely be the WD Caviar Green.

MikeC
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Post by MikeC » Thu May 06, 2010 7:30 am

naujoks wrote:So personal differences aside, which is the QUIETEST 2TB drive out there at the moment? I don't care about anything else, apart from reliability. For me it's all about noise.
Check the revised http://www.silentpcreview.com/Recommended_Hard_Drives , and also the table of HDDs tested in the anechoic chamber in the most recent HDD review, which at this time is http://www.silentpcreview.com/wd-green-1.5tb (page 5)

naujoks
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Post by naujoks » Thu May 06, 2010 9:25 am

rpsgc wrote:
naujoks wrote:So personal differences aside, which is the QUIETEST 2TB drive out there at the moment? I don't care about anything else, apart from reliability. For me it's all about noise.
That would most likely be the WD Caviar Green.
But there's this whole fight going on about whether the EADS or EARS is quieter!

graysky
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Post by graysky » Tue Jun 22, 2010 12:47 pm

MoJo wrote:There are loads of reports of the drives failing. It was worst with Linux systems. The drive reaches the SMART programmed limit for load/unload cycles and reports a SMART parameter failure after just a few months.

It might be fine for desktop use. Might even be fine for NAS or a Linux server. Why chance it for so little gain though?
Just curious where you read about these drives failing and why it is worse on a Linux system. I just purchased an EARS drive for a Linux server.

Thanks for any info!

joetekubi
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linux and wd green load_cycles

Post by joetekubi » Tue Jun 29, 2010 9:06 am

graysky wrote:
MoJo wrote:There are loads of reports of the drives failing. It was worst with Linux systems. The drive reaches the SMART programmed limit for load/unload cycles and reports a SMART parameter failure after just a few months.

It might be fine for desktop use. Might even be fine for NAS or a Linux server. Why chance it for so little gain though?
Just curious where you read about these drives failing and why it is worse on a Linux system. I just purchased an EARS drive for a Linux server.

Thanks for any info!
Well, I didn't say that, but most Windoze users either can turn off the automatic head parking, or don't seem to have a continued problem. I've got some 2010 WD15EARS drives that insist on parking every 15 seconds, and I can't seem to stop it with any combination of "hdparm" commands.

Linux seems to need to write logs to disk every 20-30 seconds or so, and that wakes up the disk, which unparks the heads, only to park them again just before the next log write. (I think that's right).

My disks are only about 3 months old, and have over 100,000 load_cycles at present. Trying to make user my backups are up to date, and not worry too much about it.

-joe

graysky
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Post by graysky » Tue Jul 13, 2010 1:06 pm

Don't blame linux for this "feature" in the drive. One can easily disable it under Linux:

Use hdparm in your /etc/rc.local to disable this 'feature' and likely add life to your hdd:

Code: Select all

# echo "hdparm -S 242 /dev/sdX" > /etc/rc.local
If you have several, here is a simple bash script to automatically do it for them:

Code: Select all

#!/bin/bash
for DISK in `fdisk -l |grep 2000.4 | cut -c13-13`
 do echo hdparm -S 242 /dev/sd$DISK
done

#note you need to substitute 1000.2 in for 2000.4 if you have a 1 gig version

nicko
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Post by nicko » Mon Sep 13, 2010 11:38 am

Hi,

can someone tell me what is the formatted capacity of the WD 20EARS drive? Is it still 1860gb, even tough it uses 4K sectors? (I have Win 7 x64 Pro if that matters)

rpsgc
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Post by rpsgc » Mon Sep 13, 2010 1:58 pm

nicko wrote:Hi,

can someone tell me what is the formatted capacity of the WD 20EARS drive? Is it still 1860gb, even tough it uses 4K sectors? (I have Win 7 x64 Pro if that matters)
Yes.

nicko
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Post by nicko » Tue Sep 14, 2010 12:02 am

rpsgc wrote:
nicko wrote:Hi,

can someone tell me what is the formatted capacity of the WD 20EARS drive? Is it still 1860gb, even tough it uses 4K sectors? (I have Win 7 x64 Pro if that matters)
Yes.
Ah....it's a shame then. Why even use 4K sectors if OS can't see it...
Thx anyway!

faugusztin
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Post by faugusztin » Tue Sep 14, 2010 12:55 am

It is to have less wasted space on HDD itself.

nicko
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Post by nicko » Tue Sep 14, 2010 5:23 am

I agree, but if user can't see that aditional space, what's the point?

faugusztin
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Post by faugusztin » Tue Sep 14, 2010 5:42 am

Higher data density, less platters => manufacturing costs are cheaper => drives are cheaper.

nicko
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Post by nicko » Tue Sep 14, 2010 5:44 am

That's true :) But I would like to get also more space ;)

coredio2
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Post by coredio2 » Thu Sep 16, 2010 5:49 am

Pierre wrote:So I bought the Seagate LP 2TBWestern Digital WD20EARS drive, which I really wanted to, to tell you the truth...gaining 100gb of storage with a change of formatting is no little thing...
What u mean ? I m gonna buy it formatted i know its around 1.82GB with advanced format it will be 1.92GB ? I'm planning to use it on windows 7.
What are the steps i have to do to make it work as an advanced formatted
disk ?
Or its just a gimmick for the seller ?
I really cannot understand what all this advanced format is all about and i even red some on anandtech,but it doesnt talk bout formatted space....

Pierre
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Re: WD20EARS or WD20EADS? What about seagate's 2tb drive?

Post by Pierre » Sat Oct 23, 2010 4:31 pm

Well it's been a long time since I wrote that...
...it won't work that way, though, capacity is the same as in other 2TB...

I now have 1xWD20EADS, 1xST32000542AS & 1xWD20EARS (3x667 platters)...

the latter is the most silent, dead silent really...the first one I purchased had 38 bad sectors and failed the self test...the replacement worked ok...
on 2TB drives I am sold on WD...

pcunite
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Re: WD20EARS or WD20EADS? What about seagate's 2tb drive?

Post by pcunite » Mon Dec 13, 2010 11:22 am

I just bought two of the WD20EARS 2TB 64mb Cache drives. How are they working for everyone else?

pcunite
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Re: WD20EARS or WD20EADS? What about seagate's 2tb drive?

Post by pcunite » Fri Dec 24, 2010 5:46 pm

pcunite wrote:I just bought two of the WD20EARS 2TB 64mb Cache drives. How are they working for everyone else?
Well, one of them just crashed... I guess the $99 for a 2TB drive is a bit of a catch huh?

HFat
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Re: WD20EARS or WD20EADS? What about seagate's 2tb drive?

Post by HFat » Sat Dec 25, 2010 7:38 am

All drives fail. If you bought one and it failed, that doesn't make it a bad product.

Vicotnik
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Re: WD20EARS or WD20EADS? What about seagate's 2tb drive?

Post by Vicotnik » Sat Dec 25, 2010 1:09 pm

The larger ones seems to have a somewhat higher failure rate though. For reliability go for the one platter drives, or at least the ones with fewer platters.

I think all of my HDDs are four platter-versions though.. Always backup all your important data. :p

Erelyes
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Re:

Post by Erelyes » Wed Dec 29, 2010 2:35 am

I've just bought a WD20EARS, because the dollar rules. It's going to just store FLAC backups of my CDs, so if it fails, no biggee. We'll see how it goes.
MoJo wrote:It's like the cam belt in a car. You replace it after so many thousands of miles, even though it isn't broken.
To use another automotive analogy - the head park feature is much like how a Toyota Prius turns its motor off when running off battery. Let's suppose some goon re-flashed the Prius ECU to turn the motor on and off every 5 seconds, even when sitting at the lights. To me, complaining about head park is just like the goon complaining that their car's starter motor 'might' fail in 100,000miles - because they can't make the motor run all the time. (I would note as an amusing aside, that the Prius has a chain driven motor, doing away with the problem of cambelts altogether)

God forbid the day hardware manufacturers stop including nifty features, just because of idiosyncratic code. (I wonder if these Linux people are aware of the existence of RAM?)

pcunite wrote:Well, one of them just crashed... I guess the $99 for a 2TB drive is a bit of a catch huh?
Let us know if your other one, or if your warranty replacement, also crashes! Any idea on cause?

faugusztin
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Re: Re:

Post by faugusztin » Wed Dec 29, 2010 8:48 am

Erelyes wrote:To use another automotive analogy - the head park feature is much like how a Toyota Prius turns its motor off when running off battery. Let's suppose some goon re-flashed the Prius ECU to turn the motor on and off every 5 seconds, even when sitting at the lights. To me, complaining about head park is just like the goon complaining that their car's starter motor 'might' fail in 100,000miles - because they can't make the motor run all the time. (I would note as an amusing aside, that the Prius has a chain driven motor, doing away with the problem of cambelts altogether)

God forbid the day hardware manufacturers stop including nifty features, just because of idiosyncratic code. (I wonder if these Linux people are aware of the existence of RAM?)
Issue with head parking is not that it does many times (i don't care at all). What i care for and why this "feature" is bad is response time. It takes few seconds for a drive to "wake up" from this state. With good OS-side caching and some downloading it can happen to you that you will start the drive, write few kilobytes of data, drive stops in 8 seconds, 2 seconds later you again write few kilobytes of data. So drive will do nothing else than spin down, spin up, write something, spin down, spin up, write something, ... .

Features are good. If you can turn them off.

PS: And there is nothing about Linux in my post - this problem is valid for ANY OS. Including Windows, Linux, Mac OS X or any other OS.

Erelyes
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Re: Re:

Post by Erelyes » Wed Dec 29, 2010 4:56 pm

faugusztin wrote:Issue with head parking is not that it does many times (i don't care at all). What i care for and why this "feature" is bad is response time. It takes few seconds for a drive to "wake up" from this state. With good OS-side caching and some downloading it can happen to you that you will start the drive, write few kilobytes of data, drive stops in 8 seconds, 2 seconds later you again write few kilobytes of data. So drive will do nothing else than spin down, spin up, write something, spin down, spin up, write something, ... .
At the moment, for users that still run their OS/programs off a terabyte drive - yes that is a problem.

In 1-2 years time, when nearly everyone is using an $50-100 SSD for their OS/Programs, and a hard disk for their file storage (FLAC, movies etc) it will become a non-issue.

In fact, I would confidently guess that WD is aiming their drives at this very market - people that use the drive for storing occasionally-accessed files, and have an SSD on hand for program/OS performance.

PS: My Linux comment was not in reply to your post, faugusztin. Rather this one.
joetekubi wrote:Linux seems to need to write logs to disk every 20-30 seconds or so, and that wakes up the disk, which unparks the heads, only to park them again just before the next log write. (I think that's right).

pcunite
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Re: Re:

Post by pcunite » Fri Dec 31, 2010 9:59 am

Erelyes wrote:Let us know if your other one, or if your warranty replacement, also crashes! Any idea on cause?
Well, after taking the drive out, fiddling with cables, the drive now works! I've ran WD LifeGuard tools and all checks out well. It think it may have been a bad cable or bad driver combo. Intel just updated IaStor drivers on 12-15 I noticed. Anyway all is well now...

faugusztin
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Re: Re:

Post by faugusztin » Sat Jan 01, 2011 8:56 am

Erelyes wrote:At the moment, for users that still run their OS/programs off a terabyte drive - yes that is a problem.

In 1-2 years time, when nearly everyone is using an $50-100 SSD for their OS/Programs, and a hard disk for their file storage (FLAC, movies etc) it will become a non-issue.

In fact, I would confidently guess that WD is aiming their drives at this very market - people that use the drive for storing occasionally-accessed files, and have an SSD on hand for program/OS performance.
I'm exactly the market you describe - and this feature is a problem. I would have nothing against it if we talk about shutdown after minutes of inactivity. But 8 seconds is simply idiotic, and there is nothing you can say to change my mind about that. 8 seconds is simply too short timeout for any sensible usage of the drive. Thanks god i was able to turn off this feature on my drives, so they don't turn off every few seconds, in my case the sensible timeout is 1 hour after last usage.

pcunite
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Re: WD20EARS or WD20EADS? What about seagate's 2tb drive?

Post by pcunite » Sat Jan 01, 2011 5:59 pm

Just an update on the problems I was having... the reason the WD20EARS went offline was because of a bizarre conflict when using the ICH9R (or ICH7R, ICH8R) chipset with an onboard Marvell Yukon 88E8056 nic. I had to update the onboard ROM to REV4 and things started to permanently work right. All the reboots I was doing masked the problems for a while.

No matter what brand of motherboard you have you need to do the following if you have an Marvell Yukon 88E8056 onboard nic.
I can confirm that any motherboard using the onboard Marvell Yukon 88E8056 will have stability problems unless it is updated to REV 14. You're not crazy. This is the correct fix. Download the following file and from DOS run the included eep.bat file. Enjoy the new stability.

Read install notes below:
http://www.gigabyte.com/fileupload/FAQ/ ... eeprom.zip

This 88E8056 firmware update (an option ROM) will correct the following issues:
  • "The device, \Device\Ide\iaStor0, did not respond within the timeout period."
    CDROM DVD showing up missing.
    Windows "Server" service hang.
    Hard disk activity light staying on.
    System and hard drive hang.
Flashing the 88E8056.
  • 0. Download the faq_marvell_eeprom.zip file.
    1. Uninstall the driver using device manager in windows.
    2. Boot into dos.
    3. run the eep.bat file.
    4. Boot into windows and install the latest Marvell Driver which is currenly 11.30.1.3 (listed as yk62x64_v11.30.1.3 at marvell.com).
    5. Install the latest Intel storage driver which is currenlty 10.1.0.1008 (listed as Intel Matrix Storage Manager dated 12/15/2010). If you're using ICH9R (ICH7R, ICH8R, etc) onboard raid you should download the RST version.
    6. Optional: If you're using SSD drives you should update the BIOS Option rom for the ICH*R series to whatever your mother can support. For the ICH9R series this is 8.9.0.1023. To do this you may need to have someone make a custom BIOS mod for you. Ask them if they can included the updated Marvell rom to help some other poor soul.
Reading on the subject:
http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?SLa ... 3182205171
I hope this helps someone. I was really wonder what happened to my stable system. Before I had just one drive hook up and this does not cause conflicts. Installing several sata devices really brings out the trouble until you update the EEPROM.

Erelyes
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Re: Re:

Post by Erelyes » Sat Jan 01, 2011 8:54 pm

faugusztin wrote:I'm exactly the market you describe - and this feature is a problem. I would have nothing against it if we talk about shutdown after minutes of inactivity. But 8 seconds is simply idiotic, and there is nothing you can say to change my mind about that. 8 seconds is simply too short timeout for any sensible usage of the drive. Thanks god i was able to turn off this feature on my drives, so they don't turn off every few seconds, in my case the sensible timeout is 1 hour after last usage.
Interesting, what util did you use to modify it to 1 hour? The WDIDLE3 util says newer drives can have a timer set from 8 to 300 seconds.

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