Critical Design Flaw Found in WD Caviar Green HDDs

[MadHacker]

I have 5 of them in Raid6, No problems with them what so ever

[NEOAethyr]

Yep, known for along time now.
They park there heads every 5secs.
Which causes alot of stress.

Older ver's of the drives you could mod with 2 dos util's.
One util was to change the idle config, the 2nd to enable some sort of raid command/s that the green drives didn't have but the blacks did.

My 2 drives were among the last models to support those apps.
The newer drives, the 1.5tb and above, can't use those 2 dos apps.

Really a shame though, greens are the way to go, nice after they are modded.
They are slower by 10megs compared to the blacks but there temps and wattage requirements are awesome.

I would not buy a green unless you could mod it.
So essentially I would never buy another green drive again ^^, sucks.
But that's just how things are, unless westerndigital wants to re-open the ability to mod them.

I completely disabled idle on my 2 drives.
Still uses way less power then the blacks.

I think the 2 apps were called:
wdidle3_1_00
WDTLER

//=============================================================================
//
// Copyright 2005-2008 Western Digital Corporation
//
// RESTRICTED RIGHTS LEGEND
// ------------------------
//
// Use, duplication or disclosure by any commercial industry (public
// or private), private individual or by any Government Agency without
// an expressed written consent of release from Western Digital
// Corporation is subject to restriction set forth in paragraph
// (b)(3)(B) of the Rights in Technical Data and Computer Software
// clause in DAR 7-104.9(a). 
//
// Manufacturer is:
//
// Western Digital Corporation
//   20511 Lake Forest Dr.
//   Lake Forest, CA 92630
//   1-800-275-4932
//=============================================================================

WDIDLE3 Version 1.00 for DOS


DESCRIPTION
- DOS Level utility to setup or report the idle3 value.


FEATURES
- Scan for all drives. Non-WD Drives shall only show the model and serial 
  numbers.
- Uses a Vendor Specific Command to set or get the idle3 timer.
- Timer can be set from 100 ms to 25.5 seconds, in 100ms increments.


USAGE
WDIDLE3 [/S[<Timer>]] [/D] [/R] [/?]
where:
/S[<Timer>] Set timer, units in 100 milliseconds (1 to 255). Default=80.
/D          Disable timer.
/R          Report current timer.
/?          This help info.

DOS ERRORLEVEL
0     No error
1     Drive problem
254   Internal program error
255   Invalid command line argument

The other prog I think is the raid timeout modder thing.

Edit:
Just realized, Hawk-NGO and his/her website... in the news again.
Ohwell I guess lol.

[RPGWiZaRD]

Is Samsung really the only decent reliable manufacturer atm? Oh wait not for long...

[BababooeyHTJ]

Is Samsung really the only decent reliable manufacturer atm? Oh wait not for long...

I should probably pick up another 2GB F4.

[stangracin3]

I should probably pick up another 2GB F4.

i love mine. so quiet. i should grab to more and run some raid 10

[breakfromyou]

Is Samsung really the only decent reliable manufacturer atm? Oh wait not for long...

..yes. no.

Gave up on Seagate years ago, went with WD, ran into issues with every 500gb platter drive i've touched, started to go Samsung--just in time for them to give up...

[The Duke]

Yep, known for along time now.
They park there heads every 5secs.
Which causes alot of stress.

Older ver's of the drives you could mod with 2 dos util's.
One util was to change the idle config, the 2nd to enable some sort of raid command/s that the green drives didn't have but the blacks did.

My 2 drives were among the last models to support those apps.
The newer drives, the 1.5tb and above, can't use those 2 dos apps.

Really a shame though, greens are the way to go, nice after they are modded.
They are slower by 10megs compared to the blacks but there temps and wattage requirements are awesome.

I would not buy a green unless you could mod it.
So essentially I would never buy another green drive again ^^, sucks.
But that's just how things are, unless westerndigital wants to re-open the ability to mod them.

I completely disabled idle on my 2 drives.
Still uses way less power then the blacks.

I think the 2 apps were called:
wdidle3_1_00
WDTLER

//=============================================================================
//
// Copyright 2005-2008 Western Digital Corporation
//
// RESTRICTED RIGHTS LEGEND
// ------------------------
//
// Use, duplication or disclosure by any commercial industry (public
// or private), private individual or by any Government Agency without
// an expressed written consent of release from Western Digital
// Corporation is subject to restriction set forth in paragraph
// (b)(3)(B) of the Rights in Technical Data and Computer Software
// clause in DAR 7-104.9(a). 
//
// Manufacturer is:
//
// Western Digital Corporation
//   20511 Lake Forest Dr.
//   Lake Forest, CA 92630
//   1-800-275-4932
//=============================================================================

WDIDLE3 Version 1.00 for DOS


DESCRIPTION
- DOS Level utility to setup or report the idle3 value.


FEATURES
- Scan for all drives. Non-WD Drives shall only show the model and serial 
  numbers.
- Uses a Vendor Specific Command to set or get the idle3 timer.
- Timer can be set from 100 ms to 25.5 seconds, in 100ms increments.


USAGE
WDIDLE3 [/S[<Timer>]] [/D] [/R] [/?]
where:
/S[<Timer>] Set timer, units in 100 milliseconds (1 to 255). Default=80.
/D          Disable timer.
/R          Report current timer.
/?          This help info.

DOS ERRORLEVEL
0     No error
1     Drive problem
254   Internal program error
255   Invalid command line argument

The other prog I think is the raid timeout modder thing.

Edit:
Just realized, Hawk-NGO and his/her website... in the news again.
Ohwell I guess lol.

did you turn the idle timer off or what?