Hardware question (WD20EARX HD)

[Ron Olsen]

Here's the info on my download from http://files.ngohq.com/fs/wdidle3.iso:

ls -l wdidle3.iso
-rw-r--r--@ 1 ronolsen  staff  1835008 Apr 12 18:30 wdidle3.iso

md5sum wdidle3.iso 
79d35636dd55515ada06dd3613c79ea8  wdidle3.iso

I was able to burn this ISO to a CD and boot it on my VBA.

EDIT: Here's another source for a bootable ISO with wdidle3: http://www.jzab.de/content/ultimate-...-util-included

[divreg]

Out of curiosity, I checked my system and one of my drives is the WDC WD20EARX (2TiB). To my surprise, the drive is parking every 4 minutes.

Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I will be doing this fix very soon and staying clear away from WD in the future.

[firedog]

I ran the wdidle3 on my machine (I have 2 WD Green HDs), it appears it worked for one drive, not for the other. How do I make sure it corrects the sda drive as well as the sdb drive:

At 11 AM:

[vortexbox.localdomain ~]# smartctl -a /dev/sda | egrep "Power.On|Load"
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 066 066 000 Old_age Always - 25455
193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 001 001 000 Old_age Always - 781949


AT 8:30 PM:

9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 066 066 000 Old_age Always - 25465
193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 001 001 000 Old_age Always - 782388

At 11 AM:
[vortexbox.localdomain ~]# smartctl -a /dev/sdb | egrep "Power.On|Load"
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 091 091 000 Old_age Always - 6886
193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 187 187 000 Old_age Always - 39257


At 8:30 PM:
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 091 091 000 Old_age Always - 6895
193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 187 187 000 Old_age Always - 39260

[Ron Olsen]

If you boot from the wdidle3 ISO, what does

wdidle3 /r

show?

[firedog]

Hi Ron=

When I run wdidle3 /r

it shows the model and serial number for each drive. Under the model and serial number for each one it says "Idle 3 timer is enabled and set to 300 seconds".

Okay, but if that is so, how does we account for the results of the sda drive above?

And I just checked the sda drive again, these were the results:


[vortexbox.localdomain ~]# smartctl -a /dev/sda | egrep "Power.On|Load"
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 066 066 000 Old_age Always - 25485
193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 001 001 000 Old_age Always - 783192

[Ron Olsen]

Try disabling the Idle3 timer with

wdidle3 /d

and then check with

wdidle3 /r

What are the model numbers of your drives?

[firedog]

My Drives are:


ATA WDC WD10EARS-00Y (Direct-Access)
- ATA WDC WD5000AACS-0 (Direct-Access)
The AACS is the one that hasn't seemed to respond to the wdidle program.

They are both WD Green, the AACS is an older model.

when I run wdidle3 /d and follow it with wdidle3 /r:

I get "configure idle3"
then each drive listed, and each followed by "idle3 timer is disabled"

I realize the AACS drive is not one of the ones listed at http://www.ngohq.com/news/19805-crit...reen-hdds.html

but it does exhibit the behavior - parking every 8 seconds.

[garym]

Testing the numbers, I definitely need to do this for my 3TB VBA. One question, can I boot from the wdidle3 ISO disk and then still login to enter the needed line commands from a cryptoterm connection, or will I need to connect a monitor and keyboard?

[Ron Olsen]

You'll have to connect a monitor and keyboard to the VBA. Boot from the wdidle3 ISO, then follow the procedure in post #12: http://vortexbox.org/threads/3675-Ha...ll=1#post24182

[rgro]

I have the WD10EARS-22Y and, when I ran the check, it had a very high number of cycles--something like 627,000. So I performed the post #12 procedure and, indeed, saw that it was set to park every 8 sec. So, it's now set to park every 300 sec. Which brings me to the next question: How hard is it to actually replace a hard drive on VBA once it goes?----keeping in mind that I'm a complete novice when it comes to such things. If it's a relatively easy process----I can use a screwdriver and am pretty good at following detailed instructions----does it make sense to order a spare HD and have it handy for the day the existing one fails? Or is this something best handled by sending the VBA to Small Green Computer to perform that task?

If it's something that I can do myself fairly easily, which drive would be the best to get as a replacement (I don't think I'll really need more than the 1tb)?

Thanks to all on this thread for discovering this AND giving us the fix for it and boo on WD for their planned obsolescence!

rgro