Hardware question (WD20EARX HD)

[dougmon]

Hi:

I've done a forum search on this and haven't found an answer so...either it's not here or my search skills are poor. In any event...

I've read a lot about the WD EARS drives and how the idle time has to be reset to avoid a high Load/Unload Cycle count (or basically, possible excessive wear on the disc).

But I haven't read anything about the WD20EARX HD, and I don't find much on the net -- but what I do find is conflicting (yes, it has th excessive parking problem, no, it doesn't, yes, it does....etc.( WD doesn't seem to list it in the list of drives that could possibly require idle adjustment, but anecdotal evidence suggests that it does.

So...does anyone have experience with this drive?

Thanks,

Doug

[dougmon]

So...all I had to do was post this question, and I found the answer the next time I looked: http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/inde...t-1565889.html. One of the users on the Ubuntu forums reports that running wdidle3 on the WD20EARX has the same effect (or at least the same reported effect) as running it on one of the EARS drives.

Thanks to all who thought about this one, though...

[Ron Olsen]

See http://vortexbox.org/threads/1011-We...Support-in-1-3 and http://www.ngohq.com/news/19805-crit...reen-hdds.html for more info on how to see if your Western Digital hard drives are affected by this issue, and how to fix it if you think it's necessary.

You can check the info for a hard drive by logging into your VB and entering

smartctl -a /dev/sda

If you have more than one hard drive, repeat the above command for /dev/sdb, /dev/sdc, etc.

This command produces a lot of output. If you just want to see the Load Cycle Count:

smartctl -a /dev/sda | grep Load

The LCC is the last number on the right.

[dougmon]

Thanks, Mr. Olsen.

I'm a little confused: the literature from WD would suggest that this drive does not have the problem and that wdidle3 should not be run on this drive. Anecdotal evidences suggests otherwise. I'm just going to see if wdidle3 produces a report -- then decide from there. From what I've read on the net (which as we all know is the source of all true knowledge*), running wdidle3 on the WD20EARX isn't harmful.

*

[Ron Olsen]

What does

smartctl -a /dev/sda | grep Load

show?

[dougmon]

What does

smartctl -a /dev/sda | grep Load

show?

Well...nothing yet. I was only thinking of using the drive in my Vortexbox. I haven't yet installed it. Probably this weekend. Or this evening, if I get ambitious.

[Macross]

Here is the output of my 3tb WD green hdd for both commands. I would assume that the issue has been fixed on my drive.

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family: Western Digital Caviar Green (Adv. Format)
Device Model: WDC WD30EZRX-00MMMB0
Serial Number: WD-WCAWZ1538706
LU WWN Device Id: 5 0014ee 2b105d7ee
Firmware Version: 80.00A80
User Capacity: 3,000,592,982,016 bytes [3.00 TB]
Sector Sizes: 512 bytes logical, 4096 bytes physical
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 Apr 11 17:58:22 2012 PDT
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: (0x82) Offline data collection activity
was completed without error.
Auto Offline Data Collection: Enabled.
Self-test execution status: ( 0) The previous self-test routine completed
without error or no self-test has ever
been run.
Total time to complete Offline
data collection: (50700) 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: (0x3035) SCT Status 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_FAI
LED RAW_VALUE
1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x002f 200 200 051 Pre-fail Always -
0
3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0027 167 149 021 Pre-fail Always -
8650
4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always -
36
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 097 097 000 Old_age Always -
2670
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 -
34
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always -
13
193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 191 191 000 Old_age Always -
27091
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 122 109 000 Old_age Always -
30
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 -
1


SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged


SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
No self-tests have been logged. [To run self-tests, use: smartctl -t]




SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
SPAN MIN_LBA MAX_LBA CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
1 0 0 Not_testing
2 0 0 Not_testing
3 0 0 Not_testing
4 0 0 Not_testing
5 0 0 Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.

193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 191 191 000 Old_age Always -
27090

[waltonb]

This page seems to have gone missing:

http://www.ngohq.com/news/19805-crit...reen-hdds.html

[Ron Olsen]

This page seems to have gone missing:

http://www.ngohq.com/news/19805-crit...reen-hdds.html

Try again; it's still there in Safari on my iPad and Safari on my Mac Pro.

[Ron Olsen]

Here is the output of my 3tb WD green hdd for both commands. I would assume that the issue has been fixed on my drive.

ID#  ATTRIBUTE_NAME     FLAG     VALUE  WORST THRESH  TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
 
9    Power_On_Hours     0x0032   097    097   000     Old_age   Always       -        2670
 
193  Load_Cycle_Count   0x0032   191    191   000     Old_age   Always       -        27091

Your drive may still have the problem. The Load Cycle Count is 27091; the Power On Hours is 2670; this gives 27091/2670 = 10.1 Load Cycles per hour, or a Load Cycle every 6 minutes. You should consider doing the wdidle3 fix on this drive, as discussed in http://www.ngohq.com/news/19805-crit...reen-hdds.html

You can check just the Power On Hours and Load Cycle Count by entering

smartctl -a /dev/sda | egrep "Power.On|Load"

On my VBA with a 3 TB WD30EZRS drive, this gives

  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   099   099   000    Old_age   Always       -       913
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       12

So the rate is 12/913 = 0.013 Load Cycles per hour. Thus the drive heads are almost never parked on this drive, whereas your drive is parking the heads every 6 minutes. I suggest you consider doing the wdidle3 fix on your drive.