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From: Khelben Blackstaff <eye.of.the.8eholder@gmail.com>
To: linux-raid@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: Use of WD20EARS with MDADM
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 2010 19:13:50 +0300	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <201004221913.50692.eye.of.the.8eholder@gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <4BCF4693.3020101@buttersideup.com>

> I believe that these disks only come in the "green" variety.  I recently
> picked up a 1.5 tb version for testing and cheap bulk storage, and I
> would not suggest using them in a raid array because the green drives
> firmware automatically parks the head after 8 seconds of inactivity and
> reduces the rpm of the disk.  The constant parking can quickly wear out
> the head under high use and there is no way to disable this "feature".

As previously mentioned wdidle utility can disable the head unloading.

> The specifications say it's good for 300,000 cycles, so do the
> math... getting 5 unloads per minute would lead to probable failure
> after 41 days.  Granted that is about worst case, but still something to
> watch out for.  In order to make it the entire 3 year warranty period,
> you need to stay under 11.4 unloads per hour.  If you have very little
> IO activity, or VERY MUCH, then this is entirely possible, but more
> moderate loads in the middle have been observed to cause hundreds of
> unloads per hour.

WD mentions in the customer help (Answer ID 5357) that these newer drives
were validated to 1M load/unload cycles and not 300K.

> 
> If you want to fix it, then wdidle3.exe worked for me.  Search for:
> 
> wdidle3_1_00.zip
> 
It worked fine for me too. I had a Load Cycle Count of 59, 15 mins
after connecting the drive for the first time. After running wdidle
the Count stopped at 104 and never increased again. I now have 11 hours
With wdidle 1.00 disabling the timer did nothing. I had to set the timer to
a large value. There is a newer version though (1.03) that supports
these new drives better. 

  parent reply	other threads:[~2010-04-22 16:13 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 52+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2010-03-25 16:20 Use of WD20EARS with MDADM Andrew Dunn
2010-03-25 17:01 ` Asdo
2010-03-25 17:58   ` Mark Knecht
2010-03-25 20:23     ` John Robinson
2010-03-26 10:45     ` Asdo
2010-03-25 17:10 ` David Lethe
2010-03-25 17:45   ` Asdo
2010-03-28 16:19     ` Stefan *St0fF* Huebner
2010-03-29 16:59       ` WD20EARS data Stefan /*St0fF*/ Hübner
2010-03-29 17:13         ` Stefan /*St0fF*/ Hübner
2010-04-14 19:53       ` Use of WD20EARS with MDADM Bill Davidsen
2010-04-19 14:17         ` Phillip Susi
2010-04-21 13:20           ` Bill Davidsen
2010-04-21 13:45             ` Tim Small
2010-04-21 14:32             ` Mikael Abrahamsson
2010-04-21 21:58               ` Berkey B Walker
2010-05-02 22:33                 ` Bill Davidsen
2010-05-03  0:08                   ` Berkey B Walker
2010-04-21 15:14             ` Phillip Susi
2010-04-21 16:42               ` Bill Davidsen
2010-04-21 17:36               ` Mark Knecht
2010-04-21 18:40                 ` Tim Small
2010-04-21 19:01                   ` Mark Knecht
2010-04-21 19:31                     ` Clinton Lee Taylor
2010-04-22  0:51                       ` Steven Haigh
2010-04-21 19:33                     ` Phillip Susi
2010-04-21 20:36                       ` Mark Knecht
2010-05-12 13:06                       ` Tim Small
2010-04-22 11:40                     ` wdidle3 Tim Small
2010-04-22 16:13                   ` Khelben Blackstaff [this message]
2010-04-22 18:16                     ` Use of WD20EARS with MDADM Simon Matthews
2010-04-22 19:44                     ` Phillip Susi
2010-04-22 23:23                       ` Mark Knecht
2010-04-23  0:03                         ` Richard Scobie
2010-04-23  1:29                           ` Mark Knecht
2010-04-23  3:49                           ` Phillip Susi
2010-04-23  3:44                         ` Phillip Susi
2010-04-21 15:52             ` Simon Matthews
2010-04-21 19:24             ` Richard Scobie
2010-03-26 20:27 ` Peter Kieser
2010-03-26 20:59   ` Mark Knecht
2010-03-26 21:01     ` Peter Kieser
2010-03-26 21:06       ` Mark Knecht
2010-03-26 21:16         ` Mark Knecht
2010-03-26 21:19           ` Richard Scobie
2010-03-26 22:38             ` Mark Knecht
2010-03-26 22:47               ` Peter Kieser
2010-03-26 22:50               ` Matt Garman
2010-03-26 22:51                 ` Peter Kieser
2010-03-26 23:01               ` David Rees
2010-03-27 23:31                 ` Mark Knecht
2010-03-26 21:45   ` Matt Garman

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