Messages in this thread | | | Date | Thu, 10 Apr 2008 17:01:38 +0200 | From | "Christian Pernegger" <> | Subject | Re: Western Digital GreenPower drives and Linux |
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[ Keep me CCd on this, please. ]
> Those fancy new WD GreenPower drives seem to be heavily suffering from the > rapidly increasing head load/unload problem. [...] I got one of them > (WD5000AACS) recently and to my horror [...]
I have the same disks, only with more warranty and supposedly "enterprise" firmware (WD1000FYPS). The bug is the same, though, on all four of them (~ 9 cycles /hour):
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 099 099 000 Old_age Always - 917 193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 198 198 000 Old_age Always - 8025
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 099 099 000 Old_age Always - 906 193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 198 198 000 Old_age Always - 7908
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 099 099 000 Old_age Always - 907 193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 198 198 000 Old_age Always - 8051
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 099 099 000 Old_age Always - 918 193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 198 198 000 Old_age Always - 7869
> I got the _DOS_ utility from WD which issues vendor specific commands to > control that feature.
Have they confirmed it's a bug? I have no idea how often the disks should do that.
> [...] With it the unload feature can be either disabled or timer set from > 100ms to 25.5 seconds. But obviously I can't try it...
Why? Using a DOS boot disk once would not be that bad as a workaround, would it? Or is the setting not persistent? Either way I'd prefer to be able to leave the feature on (in usable form), eventually.
The bigger question is - why the rapid loads / unloads? In my case the disks are idle hours at a time. No system files on there, just bulk data. Does / could the controller (sata_sil24 in my case) have any influence on this kind of power management?
Thanks,
C.
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