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

Got problems with your B2 or B3? Share and get helped!
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RobV
Posts: 34
Joined: 05 Oct 2008, 05:48

Post by RobV »

Hi Johannes,
The hard-disk was actually included in the B2 1TB package as I purchased it at the official local Bubba dealer.
Today my load count is 144640 (B2 in use for almost 5 months now).
Rob
johannes
Posts: 1470
Joined: 31 Dec 2006, 07:12
Location: Sweden
Contact:

Post by johannes »

Yes, thats almost one offload per minute. Strange, I haven't seen that before. Perhaps the -FYPS drives are even more agressive in their offload timer.

Thanks for this information. We'll take it into account.
/Johannes (Excito co-founder a long time ago, but now I'm just Johannes)
peter
Posts: 26
Joined: 07 Oct 2008, 09:35
Location: the Netherlands

Post by peter »

Hello Johannes, Robv

I have exactly the same disk as RobV.
The proposed script does not work for me either.
I managed to stop the Load Cycle Count increase with the script below.
Just run it as 'normal' user (su is not needed).

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh
while [ 1 ]; do
    ls -l $HOME/. > $HOME/wd.prevent.unload.txt
    sleep 5
done
Here are my figures:

Code: Select all

Mon Feb 23 10:56:01 CET 2009
Device Model:     WDC WD1000FYPS-01ZKB0
Serial Number:    WD-WCASJ1909169

  9 Power_On_Hours       0x0032   098   098   000    Old_age  Always  -    2137
193 Load_Cycle_Count     0x0032   136   136   000    Old_age  Always  -  193803
194 Temperature_Celsius  0x0022   123   111   000    Old_age  Always  -      29

Puma
Posts: 230
Joined: 29 Sep 2008, 06:30

Load cycle script works

Post by Puma »

Hi Johannes,

YES the cycle stopped after your last change yesterday.

it is stopped by 257.233 (with torrents at work but that didn't help much before so it must be the script.)

Thanks for now.

I contacted WD and they take no responsibility for linux systems. I do not expect much from them.

Thanks

Puma
RobV
Posts: 34
Joined: 05 Oct 2008, 05:48

Post by RobV »

Dear Johannes,
I can confirm that Peter's solution (using the $HOME instead of the /tmp directory) works for me as well; even with a sleep of 5 seconds!!!
It appears that Linux deals with the /tmp directory in a different way than it does with other directories. Please take notice of that when trying to find a solution.
You might even consider moving the Linux log files to /tmp???
Kind regards, Rob
Cohan
Posts: 21
Joined: 12 Aug 2008, 15:42

Post by Cohan »

RobV wrote:Dear Johannes,
I can confirm that Peter's solution (using the $HOME instead of the /tmp directory) works for me as well; even with a sleep of 5 seconds!!!
It appears that Linux deals with the /tmp directory in a different way than it does with other directories. Please take notice of that when trying to find a solution.
You might even consider moving the Linux log files to /tmp???
Kind regards, Rob
Some linux systems have /tmp mounted as a RAM-drive, but I'm fairly sure that this isn't the case with Bubba, and hence the /tmp would work as any other folder. I suspect that that the simple touch command can be handled by the cache while the more data shoveling ls -l has to be handled directly, and thus preventing spin-down.
Cohan
Posts: 21
Joined: 12 Aug 2008, 15:42

Post by Cohan »

Here are my numbers:

Code: Select all

tis mar  3 11:26:04 CET 2009
Device Model:     WDC WD10EACS-65D6B0
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   096   096   000    Old_age   Always       -       3227
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       30
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   123   102   000    Old_age   Always       -       27
I ordered the Bubba August/September sometime. Seems like I'm on the lucky side of the line.
helder
Posts: 24
Joined: 17 Jun 2007, 16:21

Post by helder »

Hummm, no luck for me!

Code: Select all

Tue Mar  3 21:22:29 WET 2009
Device Model:     WDC WD5000AACS-00ZUB0
Serial Number:    WD-WCASU4833413
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   097   097   000    Old_age   Always       -       2837
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   126   126   000    Old_age   Always       -       223664
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   108   102   000    Old_age   Always       -       39
It would be nice to have an answer from WD...

On the bright side the script on this thread worked as advertised.

Helder
rewien
Posts: 127
Joined: 27 Sep 2008, 18:10

Post by rewien »

Any progress made by Excito for solving this problem?, may be another disk that isn't affected by this problem?

I don't think we should wait on WD.

Greetz. Rewien
trencarbe
Posts: 103
Joined: 11 Aug 2008, 16:02

Post by trencarbe »

I have added the proposed 5s script to start at boot time, but now the Bubba cannot reboot unless I kill the 5s process!
And when it gets back from a reboot, the LED is blinking all the time... The Apache and ntp process are not started.


This is what I did:

I put the script in /etc/init.d/ directory and made it executable: chmod +x stopHDread.sh

Then I issued the command:

Code: Select all

update-rc.d stopHDread.sh defaults
The script itself:

Code: Select all

cat /etc/init.d/stopHDcycles.sh
#!/bin/sh

case "$1" in
  start)
    echo "Starting stopHDcycles.sh script...!"
    PID=`ps ax | grep 'stopHD'| awk '{print $1}'| sed 2d`
    echo $PID > /var/run/stopHDcycles.pid
    echo "Started"
    ;;

  stop)
    echo "Stopping stopHDcycles.sh..."
    start-stop-daemon --stop --pidfile /var/run/stopHDcycles.pid
    echo "Stopped"
    exit 0
    ;;

  *)
    echo "Usage: /etc/init.d/stopHDcycles.sh {start|stop}"
    exit 1
esac


while [ 1 ]; do
    ls -l $HOME/. > $HOME/wd.prevent.unload.txt
    sleep 5
done
As I said, the script starts at boot time, but is not letting the server into going into reboot or shutdown unless I kill the process manually!
How do I make it to stop automatically?! (OR start it properly in the first place?!)
6feet5
Posts: 269
Joined: 13 Apr 2007, 17:32
Location: Gnesta, Sweden
Contact:

Post by 6feet5 »

I haven't examined how Debian call its start-up scripts so correct me if I'm wrong, but having an infinite loop in a start-up script is a bad thing. It will probably prevent other scripts from running.

You should consider moving the infinite while loop to a separate script that you call from your start-up script using start-stop-daemon with the -b option to make it run in the background.

/Johan
joost
Posts: 23
Joined: 04 Oct 2008, 08:36

Post by joost »

I guess there's no news on the situation from WD/Excito themselves?

I dl torrents 24/7 just to try to stop this, but still the Load_Cycle_Count creeps up. :(
trencarbe
Posts: 103
Joined: 11 Aug 2008, 16:02

Post by trencarbe »

6feet5: makes sense...!
rewien
Posts: 127
Joined: 27 Sep 2008, 18:10

Post by rewien »

joost wrote:I guess there's no news on the situation from WD/Excito themselves?

I dl torrents 24/7 just to try to stop this, but still the Load_Cycle_Count creeps up. :(
I'm wondering the samething, if Excito have found any solotion to this problem?
peter
Posts: 26
Joined: 07 Oct 2008, 09:35
Location: the Netherlands

Post by peter »

Today I took out my harddisk out of the Bubba and attached it to a PC.
Started the PC in DOS mode and flashed my harddisk with the WD firmware update (RE2IdleModeUpd.zip). After that I used the spinup tool of WD (wdspinup.zip) and set the drive to "super low current spinup mode".
After that I put the harddisk back into the Bubba again and rebooted.

Note: The firmware update only works for the WD-RE2 Drives (See model number below).

Everything looks fine upto now. I don't need any script to keep the drive busy.
A side-effect of the firmware update is that the smartctl data is reset.

Code: Select all

Sat Mar 21 15:50:01 CET 2009
Device Model:     WDC WD1000FYPS-01ZKB1
Serial Number:    WD-WCASJ1909169
Firmware Version: 02.01B02
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       5
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       1
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       5
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   122   122   000    Old_age   Always       -       30

It should be possible for WD to deliver a firmware update which can be started from a linux device (Bubba). I don't understand why this still has to be DOS.
Can't excito put some pressure on WD to achieve this?
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