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

[johannes]

It is a very custom binary that we don't have source for. We have been struggeling to get any licence text (since we have to push it to all our B3's) but failed, only got spoken promise that it's ok to distribute. Anyways there is not much use for it since it's locked down, no parameters etc, all it does is checking for a wd disk and increasing the wdidle timer to 5 minutes.

[DanielM]

It is a very custom binary that we don't have source for. We have been struggeling to get any licence text (since we have to push it to all our B3's) but failed, only got spoken promise that it's ok to distribute. Anyways there is not much use for it since it's locked down, no parameters etc, all it does is checking for a wd disk and increasing the wdidle timer to 5 minutes.

Really makes you wonder what century this is...

/Daniel

[misiu_mp]

So... it's an obscure custom binary blob that will run on our free and secure servers with root privileges?
I still think you should change the hdd provider. At least be more careful about pushing it to the users. Run it some way to ensure it won't access anything but /dev/sda (can selinux/chroot/virtualization do it?). A low-tech way would be you run it yourself after checksuming the system, reboot and verify the sums. This way you could "certify" the security of it.

[johannes]

Good point. However, we don't consider it obscure - after all it's a binary built by wd developers to change the wdidle timer on ARM NAS systems (this was originally built for Netgear I think). We got it from the wd devs through the official large-customer support channel, it's just that they didn't seem to want to engage a laywer to clear out the licensing stuff. And we have tested it for some months now without anything looking strange so we are confident this does good on your systems.

[RandomUsername]

Hi Johannes. I have temporarily had to re-install my B3 onto a smaller drive. When I get buy a new, bigger, drive, I intend to make an image to image copy and simply extend the lv to fill the new disk. Does this package run as part of the boot process or will I need to manually run it to adjust the setting on the new disk?

[Cheeseboy]

Does this package run as part of the boot process or will I need to manually run it to adjust the setting on the new disk?

Hi RandomUsername,

I found that it did not update my new external disk automatically.
When I bought the external storage from Excito, it came with a WD disk without the fix applied and the B3 never applied the fix automatically. It had already executed once for the first disk, and it seems to only run once.

I found the utility on the disk though:
/usr/share/bubba-backend/wdtIdle3_ARM.tar.gz

Ran it manually and all was fine...

Cheers,

Cheeseboy

[RandomUsername]

Thanks.

[Cheeseboy]

As a side note I can confirm that having cloned my original HDD, the B3 did NOT apply the patch automatically.
You will have to to do it manually as indicated in the previous post.

[peter]

Just received a b3.
I had to apply the patch manually.
After that a powerdown and restart was necessary to stop the LCC to increase.
The LCC is now on 177 (the tool did not reset it).

My b2 (2008) has a LCC of 50, but that was after a manual patch (see my previous post of 2009-03-21 15:58 http://forum.excito.net/viewtopic.php?f ... 4&start=89) in this thread.
I'm glad a tool is available on the b3 now!

[macke]

Just received my B2 back from Excito. It was sent in for a system restore since the B2 was bricked because of a failed system upgrade. Anyway, I found this thread and I checked my value of the Load_Cycle_Count... Hold on now... 581240! I have applied the 5sec-script and that seems to prevent the counter from increasing. I've also checked if my disk had the wdSetIdle3To5Min executable but I could only find it for the ARM processor How can I get hold of a version for the PowerPC?

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family: Western Digital Caviar Green (Adv. Format) family
Device Model: WDC WD10EARS-00Y5B1
Serial Number: X
Firmware Version: 80.00A80
User Capacity: 1,000,204,886,016 bytes
Device is: In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is: 8
ATA Standard is: Exact ATA specification draft version not indicated
Local Time is: Tue Feb 5 23:35:39 2013 CET
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x002f 200 200 051 Pre-fail Always - 0
3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0027 129 125 021 Pre-fail Always - 6508
4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 58
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 200 200 140 Pre-fail Always - 0
7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x002e 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 088 088 000 Old_age Always - 8815
10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 253 000 Old_age Always - 0
11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 253 000 Old_age Always - 0
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 54
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 33
193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 007 007 000 Old_age Always - 581240
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 102 095 000 Old_age Always - 45
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0030 200 200 000 Old_age Offline - 0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x0008 200 200 000 Old_age Offline - 0

[johannes]

Hi, according to WD that figure is not alarming by itself. Is it still increasing?

Western digital does not provide the wdidle tool for PPC, so we cannot fix that for you I'm afraid.

If you cannot get the LCC to stop running and you worry about that, contact support again and we'll work something out.

[macke]

Hi, according to WD that figure is not alarming by itself. Is it still increasing?

Western digital does not provide the wdidle tool for PPC, so we cannot fix that for you I'm afraid.

If you cannot get the LCC to stop running and you worry about that, contact support again and we'll work something out.

Hi Johannes. The counter stays put when the "5 sec-script" is applied but without the script it is increasing pretty fast. I will contact support tomorrow. To bad I didn't know about this when I sent it in the first time. It will be hard to live without my B2 another 2-3 weeks...

[vladi]

Hi,

I have a brand new B3 (2 weeks old) and the hard drive is driving me nuts. It makes constant noises even when there is no activity and on top of that LCC went through the roof

Code: Select all

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family:     Western Digital Caviar Green (Adv. Format) family
Device Model:     WDC WD10EARS-00Y5B1
Serial Number:    WD-WCAV5P689884
Firmware Version: 80.00A80
User Capacity:    1,000,204,886,016 bytes
Device is:        In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is:   8
ATA Standard is:  Exact ATA specification draft version not indicated
Local Time is:    Tue Jul 23 21:33:24 2013 EEST
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

Code: Select all

Ievice Model:     WDC WD10EARS-00Y5B1
  9 Power_On_Hours         100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       257
193 Load_Cycle_Count       192   192   000    Old_age   Always       -       24038
194 Temperature_Celsius    099   094   000    Old_age   Always       -       48

What can be done?

[Cheeseboy]

DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK ONLY!

Code: Select all

niklas@dell:~$ ssh b3
Linux b3 2.6.39.4-11 #1 Tue Apr 3 21:45:12 FET 2012 armv5tel

Last login: Tue Jul 23 21:18:38 2013 from dell.localdomain
niklas@b3:~$ mkdir temp
niklas@b3:~$ cd temp
niklas@b3:~/temp$ tar xvzf /usr/share/bubba-backend/wdtIdle3_ARM.tar.gz
wdSetIdle3To5Min_ARM/
wdSetIdle3To5Min_ARM/liblsiutil.so
wdSetIdle3To5Min_ARM/libtqpl-ata.so
wdSetIdle3To5Min_ARM/libtqpl-atacb.so
wdSetIdle3To5Min_ARM/libtqpl-cciss.so
wdSetIdle3To5Min_ARM/libtqpl-flexstar.so
wdSetIdle3To5Min_ARM/libtqpl-highpoint.so
wdSetIdle3To5Min_ARM/libtqpl-linux-ide.so
wdSetIdle3To5Min_ARM/libtqpl-local.so
wdSetIdle3To5Min_ARM/libtqpl-mpi.so
wdSetIdle3To5Min_ARM/libtqpl-os-devices.so
wdSetIdle3To5Min_ARM/libtqpl-pond.so
wdSetIdle3To5Min_ARM/libtqpl-sat.so
wdSetIdle3To5Min_ARM/libtqpl-scsi.so
wdSetIdle3To5Min_ARM/libtqpl-sio.so
wdSetIdle3To5Min_ARM/libtqpl-tcpip.so
wdSetIdle3To5Min_ARM/libtqpl-utopia.so
wdSetIdle3To5Min_ARM/libtqpl-wdpmc.so
wdSetIdle3To5Min_ARM/libturquoise.so
wdSetIdle3To5Min_ARM/libxrt-crt.so
wdSetIdle3To5Min_ARM/tq-bench
wdSetIdle3To5Min_ARM/tq-console
wdSetIdle3To5Min_ARM/wdSetIdle3To5Min
wdSetIdle3To5Min_ARM/wdSetIdle3To5Min.cfg
wdSetIdle3To5Min_ARM/wdSetIdle3To5Min.sh
wdSetIdle3To5Min_ARM/wdSetIdle3To5Min.txt
niklas@b3:~/temp$ cd wdSetIdle3To5Min_ARM/
niklas@b3:~/temp/wdSetIdle3To5Min_ARM$ sudo ./wdSetIdle3To5Min.sh
[sudo] password for niklas: 
wdSetIdle3To5Min Version 1.0.2
Set Idle3 Timer to 5 Minutes.
Copyright (C) 2005-2009 Western Digital Corporation


Model:    WDC WD30EZRX-00DC0B0
Serial:   WD-WMC1T0318952
Idle3 Timer is currently 5 minutes, 0 seconds.


Model:    Maxtor 6L250S0
Serial:   L60JSPLH
This is not a Western Digital disk drive.


Model:    WDC WD30EZRX-00DC0B0
Serial:   WD-WCC1T0443931
Idle3 Timer is currently 5 minutes, 0 seconds.


Model:    WDC WD30EZRX-00MMMB0
Serial:   WD-WCAWZ1797895
Idle3 Timer is currently 5 minutes, 0 seconds.
Idle3 Timer update Summary
  Successful updates =   3
  Failed updates   =   1

[vladi]

the drive still makes noises and the LCC still increases (10 under 1 minute).
It's very annoying