Critical Design Flaw Found in WD Caviar Green HDDs

[MadHacker]

both my highpoint raid controllers always gave me smart and temperature readings...
i realy don't want pull the dive out of the array.

edit:

This is why I've never liked Green drives Who cares about a couple extra watts when the Blue/Black drives are so much better anyway. I've always looked at the Green drives as for people who are tight fisted and just want to save a few quid, so they deserve their failure rates

I bought the green drives since they would run cooler
therfore need less cooling and less fan noise.

[kaktus1907]

This my 2 years old 5001AALS raid0 = Load/Unload Cycle Count 3132
1 year old 5001AALS raid0 = Load/Unload Cycle Count 1229

6 months old 20EARS = Load/Unload Cycle Count 15099


used Hard Disk Sentinel

[Lanek]

[ WDC WD5000AAKS-00A7B2 (WD-WMASY8106824) ] (Blue caviar ( 3-4 years old)
Load/Unload Cycle Count 199 199 4546 OK

[ WDC WD1002FAEX-00Z3A0 (WD-WCATR2832199) ] ( Black Caviar less of 1 year old)
Load/Unload Cycle Count 0 200 200 576 OK

Look ok ...

[don_xvi]

I don't get how this is news, but I can appreciate that it's new info to some. Back a couple of years ago when this really was news, I recall the issue was supposed to be a linux thing. I don't remember (and I started skipping thru the thread).

I've got a pair of 1 TB drives with 630,000 head park cycles each. Running great! 2.9 years power on time. I checked that I'd done the WDIDLE just fine, but didn't think I had anywhere near that many cycles back then. What's the bogey again at which ones drives are supposed to melt down?

[M.Beier]

so; WD EURS or Samsung F4EG

[M.Beier]

This is why I've never liked Green drives Who cares about a couple extra watts when the Blue/Black drives are so much better anyway. I've always looked at the Green drives as for people who are tight fisted and just want to save a few quid, so they deserve their failure rates

This is the dumbest/most narrow minded comment I have read in Xtreme News section at XS so far...
Lower temp, and when using alot of drives power is a concern.... I myself was considering;
WD-AV 2TB (WD20EURS)
WD Green (WD20EARS)
Samsung F4EG

WD-AV is not cheap, but has 4.5W operation, which I think is decent when running 8-32 drives.

[NEOAethyr]

Yeah reg drives are around 12-15w's.
Judging by the 5v and 12v rails amps they tend to be rated for.

While these green drives are rated far below that.

You can have 2x greens and still run lower power then a single drive.
When you raid them, it's gonna be faster then a single black anyways.
Definitely worth something right there.

That's why I picked them.
I'm all into saving electricity.

Instead of using the same amount of power as 2 cfl's (2x blacks), I'm using less power then a single cfl light bulb with 2 drives...

Besides the fact that I was originally on a 350w psu, I figured the extra watts left over would be a helpful.

I almost bought 2x laptop drives instead, those don't even use the 12v rail .
But getting large ones like the 1tb's I got cost to much.

After modding they perform decently.
As a single drive, they are ruffly 10megs slower then a single black (explorer file copying in win7).
I've got a 500gig black for my mom to the side and that's what I'm comparing to.
I didn't want to take a chance on a new green drive not being modable so I bought her a black drive.

Green drives or older seagates would be the only ones I would put in an xbox or whatever.
I've got an older 40gig seagate in my original xbox right now.

I would not say greens suck...
I like them, and I would definitely buy more if I was sure about the tler and idle thing.

[Manabu]

Besides thermals and power consumption, the Green Drivers are also quieter and vibrate less.

WD-AV should not be used to hold normal data. From what I read, it may happly corrupt it for the sake of constant write/read rate.

[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?

[Kobaltrock]

Besides thermals and power consumption, the Green Drivers are also quieter and vibrate less.

WD-AV should not be used to hold normal data. From what I read, it may happly corrupt it for the sake of constant write/read rate.

What ? That makes zero sense.
Data is data, no matter what the type is. If it corrupts data, then that is a flaw.

[NKrader]

yep i love my green drives.
had a 500gb for about 3 years now still running strong
and 1tb for bout 2 years still just as good as day1

i only use greens currently. almost as good warrentee as blacks. and for storage who cares how fast they are. i can buy 2 of em and mirror for the same price as black series drives.

no brainer.


as for all you people saying "blablabla ive had em die after x# of time" LOL all drives have problems.. if you dont belive me look at the newegg page for what ever "god drive" you like. there WILL be tons of bad reviews saying exactly what your saying about this drive.

[gumballguy]

as for all you people saying "blablabla ive had em die after x# of time" LOL all drives have problems.. if you dont belive me look at the newegg page for what ever "god drive" you like. there WILL be tons of bad reviews saying exactly what your saying about this drive.

ALMOST true.

No other brand has the idle problem afaik.
But all manufacturers have problem models and firmwares.

This is such a long standing oversight that it shouldn't be forgiven though. I would treat any long standing problem from any manufacturer the same way.

[BoredByLife]

I have 4 of them in Z-RAID (somewhat like RAID5) en they perform excellently. I changed the setting from 8 to 60 seconds though. Otherwise my drives would be toast by now.

[mattkosem]

I have 4 of them in Z-RAID (somewhat like RAID5) en they perform excellently. I changed the setting from 8 to 60 seconds though. Otherwise my drives would be toast by now.

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.

60 seconds eh?

[ridney]

i'm looking to get a 3 tb green so you guys think its safe? i noticed there are two types of these so which particular one has the problem?

[BoredByLife]

60 seconds eh?

yes 60 seconds...

[jogshy]

I just bought 10 Caviar Blue for the Chemical Brothers :p They make good sounds !

[lutjens]

Why anyone would buy a consumer level drive is beyond me. For only a small increase in price, you get a much better drive (the RE series) that is manufactured to a MUCH higher standard. If you value your data at all, the RE series is an excellent investment, especially for very large drives.

[stangracin3]

Why anyone would buy a consumer level drive is beyond me. For only a small increase in price, you get a much better drive (the RE series) that is manufactured to a MUCH higher standard. If you value your data at all, the RE series is an excellent investment, especially for very large drives.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...CE&PageSize=20

i didn't know twice the price was only a little more

[gumballguy]

What does it take to actually make this cycle every 8 secs?

I've got 5 20EARS (or EADS? can't remember) and the count doesnt seem to go up fast. But, in my OS, they are set to idle every minute (it's rare that any of them are being accessed by myself at all, so if the OS isn't attempting to use them, windows should be telling them to idle all the time).

So.. windows idle + intellipark = no load cycle counts?
non windows idle + not being used = load cycle counts?

[don_xvi]

haha, yes,gumballguy, you've just caught onto the important detail here. Note the OP says something about "certain operating systems".
Back when this was news a couple of years ago, linux was the only problem because it liked to access drives for journaling or something every 5 seconds and the idle time was set to 3 seconds back then. I haven't seen anything in WD Greengate 2011 to make me think it's even as big of a problem now as it was then.

[mattkosem]

yes 60 seconds...

Sure it worked? The tool's documentation seems to indicate that 25.5 seconds is as high as you can go.

--Matt

[Falkentyne]

Sigh...did you guys even read the thread? And this isn't even news anymore...should be moved to the HD section.

For those who can't read, I said it already: you need wdidle3 1.05, NOT 1.00. It will DISABLE the LCC. And yes it works on green drives. Used it on a 2 TB (ears) one before.

I said this above but people are still talking about 1.00 ....heck I even LINKED it.....

This thread isn't news anymore. Someone please move it to the proper section....

[gumballguy]

haha, yes,gumballguy, you've just caught onto the important detail here. Note the OP says something about "certain operating systems".
Back when this was news a couple of years ago, linux was the only problem because it liked to access drives for journaling or something every 5 seconds and the idle time was set to 3 seconds back then. I haven't seen anything in WD Greengate 2011 to make me think it's even as big of a problem now as it was then.

I think you confirmed exactly what I was thinking, mostly. But not sure that it's a linux only thing....??

My new understanding (=guess) is:

Operating system idles the drive = no load cycle counts, regardless of wdidle setting.
Something is accessing the drive, but not continuously (ie: a file here, a file there, but at least an 8 second gap between files) & the OS hasn't reached it's timeout to put the drive into full idle = load cycle count.

PLEASE offer feedback anyone that knows for sure.

I would think this could happen under windows too.
But in my system, my drives idle 99% of the time. The OS doesnt try to access them, so no big deal.
Could build up to a lot of wear and tear on a system drive though (all my WDs are used for media storage).

[don_xvi]

That was certainly the issue when this concern emerged.
If the OS doesn't feel the need to touch every drive on a certain time schedule, the drive just goes to sleep and stays asleep. The issue was that linux (some or all filesystems) wanted to access every drive at 5 second intervals, so the drives (which tried to go to sleep after 3 seconds originally) kept parking and unparking the read heads.
FYI, 690,000 cycles each on my oldest WD Green drives. There was concern that they were only intended to survive so many cycles, but, then again, your car only comes with a 36,000 mile warranty, even though it'll go on, reliably, much longer!