[SOLVED] [Old] WD Green Power drives may kill themselves !!

[Ton]

Hello,

as announced by Western Digital ( link 1 ) there are problems of wearing down there disks extremely quick due to there power saving features.

What happens with the WD green disks is that after 8 second of "idle", they positioning the heads into a park position ( Idle 3 ), shortly after this the linux on our bubba accesses the disk again, so the heads are activated again. This is called a Load Cycle.
Unfortunately the WD green disks are designed for max 300000 of these Load Cycles.

You can check the load cycles with the command : smartctl -d ata -a /dev/sda ( smartctl is not installed per default on bubba, so install )

I was really shocked by the result of load cycle count of my WD 1Tb green disk (WDC WD10EACS-00ZJB0 Firmware Version: 01.01B01) which was just in my Bubba 2 for all of its life.

date; smartctl -d ata -a /dev/sda | grep -i -E '(load_cycle|temp|Power_On_Hours|Device Model)'

Thu Feb 5 09:36:56 UTC 2009
Device Model: WDC WD10EACS-00ZJB0
009 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 097 097 000 Old_age Always - 2719
193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 115 115 000 Old_age Always - 257554
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 116 103 000 Old_age Always - 36

As you can see, after just 2719 hours (113 days) of uptime, I have reach 257554 Load cycles, meaning I will reach the max load count, after which WD will not guarantee the correct functioning of the disk, before the disk is half a year old !!!

Bubba team : why is bubba doing an average of 95 load cycles per hour ???? ( Load_Cycle_Count / Power_On_Hours )

As WD writes there are 2 solutions to fix the problem :

1 ) Make sure the OS / applications don't access the disk every 8+n seconds, causing the Load cycles and wear down the disk.
--> Is there a Bubba solution ( planned ) for this ??
This bug was already filed in the bubba forum on 01 feb 2008 ( link 2 ) but is probably unnoticed

2 ) Increase the Idle 3 timeout of the disk.
--> This is also not so easy . . .
Unfortunately the linux workaround ( hdparm -B 255 /dev/sda ) to switch off the power management does not work on the WD green disks
WD has unfortunately just DOS/Windows tools to change this settings, and for the WD10EACS disk there is just an unsupported dos program ( wdidle3.exe ) to change this which I found in the silentpcreview forum (link 3)

Furthermore people warn that disabling the power management of the disks can cause the disk temprature to increase/overheat, because they are designed to work with the power ( and heat ) saving features, so the best solution would be to reduce the disk accesses from bubba.

So after this long description I would like to know if other bubba users are facing the same extreme Load cycle count with there WD green ( or other disks ) and if the Bubba team can provide an solution for the problem, because as I recall the Bubba two with build-in disk are using the same WD disks . . .

Best regards,

Ton.

1 ) http://www.silentpcreview.com/Terabyte_Drive_Fix
2 ) http://forum.excito.net/viewtopic.php?t=888
3 ) http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/vi ... hp?t=51401
4 ) https://bugs.launchpad.net/debian/+sour ... viewstatus
5 ) http://paul.luon.net/journal/hacking/BrokenHDDs.html
6 ) http://www.networkedmediatank.com/showt ... ?tid=16327

[peter]

Here are my results:

Code: Select all

Thu Feb  5 13:15:32 CET 2009
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   098   098   000    Old_age   Always       -       1708
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   136   136   000    Old_age   Always       -       193775
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   126   111   000    Old_age   Always       -       26

I reported this issue a few days ago to excito (email).
I created a very small program which uses the drive every 5 seconds, it kills the 'green' behaviour of the disk but the LCC stopped incrementing...

WDC wrote:

Affected Models:
WD1000FYPS-01ZKB0, WD7500AYPS-01ZKB0, WD7501AYPS-01ZKB0 drives Load/Unload counter for S.M.A.R.T ATTRIB 193 continues to increase?

Symptom:
WD drives are designed to reduce power consumption, in part by positioning the heads in a park position (unloading the heads) and turning off unnecessary electronics, resulting in substantial power savings. WD defines this mode as Idle 3.

Some utilities, operating systems, and applications, such as some implementations of Linux, for example, are not optimized for low power storage devices and can cause our drives to wake up at a higher rate than normal. This effectively negates the power-saving advantages of low-power drives, such as Western Digital’s RE2GP, and artificially increases the number of load-unload cycles.

Solution:
The number of systems using such applications and utilities is limited and customers can resolve this symptom by optimizing their systems to not wake up the drives unnecessarily every 10 to 30 seconds or so, thereby gaining substantial power savings and eliminating superfluous activity.

Most customers, when made aware of the unnecessary activity caused by their systems, have modified their utility, operating systems, or applications to take advantage of Western Digital's advanced power-saving mode. Other customers have requested a utility (See link below) to modify the behavior of the drive to wait longer before invoking Idle 3 mode. Although such a change eliminates significant power savings during periods of inactivity. This update is described in WD's Process Change Notice PCN 2579-701324-A02 (see attached PDF file).
Please click on this link, RE2GP Idle Mode Update Utility, to download the utility.

NOTE: The update also supports a low-power spin-up feature optimized for highly energy efficient, large scale storage applications, which is enabled using a utility, WDSpinUp Utility, also available at the RE2GP Download page.

[kees]

Mine seems to sleeping a lot, or is busy every 7 sec. Very little Load Cycles:

Code: Select all

root@bubba:/home/kees# smartctl -d ata -a /dev/sda | grep -i -E '(load_cycle|temp|Power_On_Hours)'
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       453
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       16
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   116   108   000    Old_age   Always       -       34

Strange... or am I missing something??

[whilbone]

Here's my numbers... seems alright with me.

Code: Select all

  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   097   097   000    Old_age   Always       -       2553
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       13
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   107   103   000    Old_age   Always       -       43

[peter]

Kees, can you check your model number?

Mine is a WDC WD1000FYPS-01ZKB0 (output of smartctl: grep "Device Model")
I just found some extra info of WDC. The models ending with B1 have the
updated firmware which should fix this problem.

See info of WDC below:

Product Change Notice
WD Green Power EP250

Feature and Performance enhancements

Dear Valued WD Customer:

As a result of product evaluation consistent with Western Digital's quality
systems and our commitment to provide the highest quality products, we
are updating our Green Power EP250 product family.

Description of change:

A firmware upgrade will provide feature and performance enhancements.
These changes do not affect the form or fit of the drive, but do positively
affect the function of the drive.

Models Affected:

Current Model Number New Model Number
WD1000FYPS-01ZKB0 WD1000FYPS-01ZKB1
WD7501AYPS-01G5B0 WD7501AYPS-01G5B1
WD7500AYPS-01ZKB0 WD7500AYPS-01ZKB1

Details of firmware changes between 02.01B01 (CCC B0) and 02.01B02 (CCC B1):
Feature Enhancement:
Added Low-Power Spin-up Mode--This mode allows the drive to spin-up
with less than 1.0A of current vs. 1.6A in standard mode. The time to
ready will increase in Low-Power Spin-up Mode from 17 seconds to 20
seconds (typical). A utility will be provided upon request to enable this
mode.

Performance Enhancement:
Extended the default value for the idle-3 timer (Low Power Mode) to five
minutes. This timer can be changed to values between eight seconds and
five minutes with a utility that will be provided upon request.

Implementation:
The CCC B1 configuration will begin shipping from the factory the week of
December 1, 2008.

The firmware upgrade utility is available now from your authorized WD
Representative.

Please contact your Western Digital representative for any questions
regarding this Product Change Notification.

[lelle]

Models Affected:

Current Model Number New Model Number
WD1000FYPS-01ZKB0 WD1000FYPS-01ZKB1
WD7501AYPS-01G5B0 WD7501AYPS-01G5B1
WD7500AYPS-01ZKB0 WD7500AYPS-01ZKB1

[/quote]

Isn't the 500GB model (WDC WD5000AACS-00ZUB0 in my case) affected by this problem?

I can see a high number of load cycles on mine:

bubba:~# date; smartctl -d ata -a /dev/sda | grep -i -E '(load_cycle|temp|Power_On_Hours)'
Thu Feb 5 14:42:42 CET 2009
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 096 096 000 Old_age Always - 3522
193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 137 137 000 Old_age Always - 189413
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 109 102 000 Old_age Always - 38

[whilbone]

Guess I'm not affected

Code: Select all

Device Model:     WDC WD10EACS-00D6B0

[lelle]

Firmware upgrade for increasing idle time on affected models (WD1000FYPS-01ZKB0, WD7500AYPS-01ZKB0, WD7501AYPS-01ZKB0) can be downloaded from [b]http://support.wdc.com/product/downl ... ang=en[/b]

Obviously, the disk needs to be removed from the B2 and temporary installed on a Windows computer....

[Ton]

The model numbers are not the only affected models, it are just the few models for which WD has provided a firmware update.

My WD10EACS ( 1 TB WD Green ) is definitely affected, but the just don't have released a new firmware which changes the idle-3 timer and therefore not in the list.

In fact not just an WD disks are affected but probably also disks from other manufacturers. All disks with aggressive spin down / head parking strategies ( to save power / heat / noise ) are possible victims of this problem when the OS keeps waking the disks up just after putting them in idle.

So the best solution would be to get the linux on Bubba tuned in such a way that it avoids waking up the disk just after idle, this would be a solution for ALL disks using these idle features. Meaning either wait long between the disk accesses, saving energy and heat or use very short disk interval ( below 7 seconds ), avoiding the disk going to idle, costing more energy and heat . . .

[whilbone]

My WD10EACS ( 1 TB WD Green ) is definitely affected, but the just don't have released a new firmware which changes the idle-3 timer and therefore not in the list.

Ohhh... I guess I just got to keep my bubba as busy as it has been and I don't have to worry about it.

[darione75]

Sorry, but i've not understand if my HD have the problem to be fixed. I post the result of the command typed. Could someone help me please?
Thanks

smartctl version 5.36 [powerpc-unknown-linux-gnu] Copyright (C) 2002-6 Bruce Allen
Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Device Model: WDC WD5000AACS-00ZUB0
Serial Number: WD-WCASU4833322
Firmware Version: 01.01B01
User Capacity: 500,107,862,016 bytes
Device is: Not in smartctl database [for details use: -P showall]
ATA Version is: 8
ATA Standard is: Exact ATA specification draft version not indicated
Local Time is: Thu Feb 5 15:29:25 2009 UTC
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status: (0x84) Offline data collection activity
was suspended by an interrupting command from host.
Auto Offline Data Collection: Enabled.
Self-test execution status: ( 0) The previous self-test routine completed
without error or no self-test has ever
been run.
Total time to complete Offline
data collection: (13560) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities: (0x7b) SMART execute Offline immediate.
Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
Suspend Offline collection upon new
command.
Offline surface scan supported.
Self-test supported.
Conveyance Self-test supported.
Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities: (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering
power-saving mode.
Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability: (0x01) Error logging supported.
General Purpose Logging supported.
Short self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 2) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 158) minutes.
Conveyance self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 5) minutes.

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x000f 200 200 051 Pre-fail Always - 0
3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0003 167 162 021 Pre-fail Always - 4616
4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 34
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 200 200 140 Pre-fail Always - 0
7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x000e 200 200 051 Old_age Always - 0
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 097 097 000 Old_age Always - 2897
10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0012 100 253 051 Old_age Always - 0
11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0012 100 253 051 Old_age Always - 0
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 12
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 12
193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 171 171 000 Old_age Always - 88760
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 108 103 000 Old_age Always - 39
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0012 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0010 200 200 000 Old_age Offline - 0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x003e 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x0008 200 200 051 Old_age Offline - 0

SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
No self-tests have been logged. [To run self-tests, use: smartctl -t]


SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
SPAN MIN_LBA MAX_LBA CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
1 0 0 Not_testing
2 0 0 Not_testing
3 0 0 Not_testing
4 0 0 Not_testing
5 0 0 Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.

[whilbone]

I would unfortunately say yes according to what I've read here.

193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 171 171 000 Old_age Always - 88760

[kees]

hi peter

this is my Green Power:

Code: Select all

root@bubba:/home/web/images# smartctl -d ata -a /dev/sda | grep "Device Model"
Device Model:     WDC WD10EACS-00D6B1

[darione75]

Thanks whilbone.
So i've the problem. There's non bubba sw solutions at the moment.
I've not a dos pc for upgrade firmware and i don't want to disinstall the hd. So what can i do?
Think that bubba2 manage all my work email, so if bubba is broken, i'm no able to work...in fact i want to create ann rsync application for external backup but this is another story..

[whilbone]

I wonder if a simple forever loop would work that simply reads a few lines from the system log?

Something like this perhaps?

Code: Select all

while [ true ];do
sleep 5
tail /var/log/messages >NUL
done

Someone with a bit more knowledge in scripting should probably comment on this. For instance, I'm not sure if the script actually does a read from messages when redirected to NUL.