Hi,

The WDC WD10EARS-00Y5B1 1TB "green" harddisk has an design flaw:
The heads are parked after a much too short time. Or in other words:
The designed maximum of head-park-cycles are reached much too fast.

WD has offered a tool called widdle, which seem to modify the timer
settings of that part of the firmware, which is responsible for
the parking of the heads.

Has somewhere out there applied widdle to a

WDC WD10EARS-00Y5B1

1TB harddisk with success with -for example- a freedos bootdisk?

Thank you very much in advance for any help and info!
Best regards,
mcc

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On Mon, May 31, 2010 at 11:35 AM, <meino.cramer@gmx.de> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> The WDC WD10EARS-00Y5B1 1TB "green" harddisk has an design flaw:
> The heads are parked after a much too short time. Or in other words:
> The designed maximum of head-park-cycles are reached much too fast.

I have 2TB samsung drives which, by default, park heads very quickly.
Using hdparm I changed power saving mode from "off" (which parks after
a minute) to "254" and now the heads never park. (Different levels can
give different results). Maybe your WD drive is similar.

on 2010-06-01 at 01:23 Paul Hartman wrote:

>I have 2TB samsung drives which, by default, park heads very quickly.
>Using hdparm I changed power saving mode from "off" (which parks after
>a minute) to "254" and now the heads never park.

i have a drive similar to the OP (WD10EADS) and the problem is this:

acme7 ~ # hdparm -B 254 /dev/sda

/dev/sda:
setting Advanced Power Management level to 0xfe (254)
HDIO_DRIVE_CMD failed: Input/output error
HDIO_DRIVE_CMD(identify) failed: Input/output error

Paul Hartman <paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com> [10-06-01 17:04]:
> On Mon, May 31, 2010 at 11:35 AM, <meino.cramer@gmx.de> wrote:
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > The WDC WD10EARS-00Y5B1 1TB "green" harddisk has an design flaw:
> > The heads are parked after a much too short time. Or in other words:
> > The designed maximum of head-park-cycles are reached much too fast.
>
> I have 2TB samsung drives which, by default, park heads very quickly.
> Using hdparm I changed power saving mode from "off" (which parks after
> a minute) to "254" and now the heads never park. (Different levels can
> give different results). Maybe your WD drive is similar.
>

Hi Paul,

thanks fopr your help.

When I submit a

sudo hdparm -B /dev/sda

I get back:

/dev/sda:
APM_level = not supported


when I do a

sudo hdparm -B 254 /dev/sda

I get back

/dev/sda:
setting Advanced Power Management level to 0xfe (254)
HDIO_DRIVE_CMD failed: Input/output error
APM_level = not supported

so I think I loose the game.

Or did you use other options?

Best regards,
mcc



--
Please don't send me any Word- or Powerpoint-Attachments
unless it's absolutely neccessary. - Send simply Text.
See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html
In a world without fences and walls nobody needs gates and windows.

On Tue, Jun 1, 2010 at 9:36 AM, <meino.cramer@gmx.de> wrote:
> Paul Hartman <paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com> [10-06-01 17:04]:
>> On Mon, May 31, 2010 at 11:35 AM, *<meino.cramer@gmx.de> wrote:
>> >
>> > Hi,
>> >
>> > The WDC WD10EARS-00Y5B1 1TB "green" harddisk has an design flaw:
>> > The heads are parked after a much too short time. Or in other words:
>> > The designed maximum of head-park-cycles are reached much too fast.
>>
>> I have 2TB samsung drives which, by default, park heads very quickly.
>> Using hdparm I changed power saving mode from "off" (which parks after
>> a minute) to "254" and now the heads never park. (Different levels can
>> give different results). Maybe your WD drive is similar.
>>
>
> Hi Paul,
>
> thanks fopr your help.
>
> When I submit a
>
> * *sudo hdparm -B /dev/sda
>
> I get back:
>
> /dev/sda:
> *APM_level * * *= not supported
>
>
> when I do a
>
> * *sudo hdparm -B 254 /dev/sda
>
> I get back
>
> * */dev/sda:
> * * setting Advanced Power Management level to 0xfe (254)
> * * HDIO_DRIVE_CMD failed: Input/output error
> * * APM_level * * *= not supported
>
> so I think I loose the game.
>
> Or did you use other options?
>
> Best regards,
> mcc
>

I have 7 of these drives but only two in operation at this time. I can
confirm that they don't respond to most of the APM command set and to
date I've not found a way (within Linux) to reset the head parking
times.

There are reports of wdidle3 not really helping. Apparently it has a
maximum that isn't all that much higher than what the drives do by
default.

I haven't had the time (or the need frankly) to get around to looking
at this yet but I'd be happy to take a shot at it if we can come up
with a plan of attack. I think it will require both changing the
values and then some amount of testing to ensure we know what the side
effects are.

- Mark

On Tue, Jun 1, 2010 at 11:36 AM, <meino.cramer@gmx.de> wrote:
> Paul Hartman <paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com> [10-06-01 17:04]:
>> On Mon, May 31, 2010 at 11:35 AM, <meino.cramer@gmx.de> wrote:
>> >
>> > Hi,
>> >
>> > The WDC WD10EARS-00Y5B1 1TB "green" harddisk has an design flaw:
>> > The heads are parked after a much too short time. Or in other words:
>> > The designed maximum of head-park-cycles are reached much too fast.
>>
>> I have 2TB samsung drives which, by default, park heads very quickly.
>> Using hdparm I changed power saving mode from "off" (which parks after
>> a minute) to "254" and now the heads never park. (Different levels can
>> give different results). Maybe your WD drive is similar.
>>
>
> Hi Paul,
>
> thanks fopr your help.
>
> When I submit a
>
> sudo hdparm -B /dev/sda
>
> I get back:
>
> /dev/sda:
> APM_level = not supported
>
>
> when I do a
>
> sudo hdparm -B 254 /dev/sda
>
> I get back
>
> /dev/sda:
> setting Advanced Power Management level to 0xfe (254)
> HDIO_DRIVE_CMD failed: Input/output error
> APM_level = not supported
>
> so I think I loose the game.
>
> Or did you use other options?

I think it appears like WD just disables it... Sorry for the red herring.