Hacking WD Greens (and Reds) with WDIDLE3.exe

ethereal

Guru
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Sep 10, 2012
Messages
762
i just tried ubuntu and installed idle3-tools. but i got permission denied when i ran
idle3ctl -g /dev/sda
but i'm not even sure where the drives are mounted. i'll try lubuntu.
 

elbarhoum

Cadet
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Apr 29, 2017
Messages
9
i just tried ubuntu and installed idle3-tools. but i got permission denied when i ran
idle3ctl -g /dev/sda
but i'm not even sure where the drives are mounted. i'll try lubuntu.
You must be root: try again with sudo idle3ctl -g105 /dev/sdx, where sdx is your drive. It has to be mounted : sudo blkid to find which one is your drive.
Lubuntu won't change anything, any linux will do.
 

Pitfrr

Wizard
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Feb 10, 2014
Messages
1,523
I used UBCD (Ultimate Boot CD) and it worked fine (DOS-like environment).
You just have to have only the one drive connected in the system.
 

elbarhoum

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Apr 29, 2017
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Someone on WD community said on a post from 2017 that he was not able to change the timer on his disk. This led me to believe that WD has changed the firmware on their recent disks.. Maybe ethereal coule tell us when were his disks manufactured.

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk
 

ethereal

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Sep 10, 2012
Messages
762
idle3-tools did not work for my blue drives - they were both manufactured in 2016.
 

ethereal

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Sep 10, 2012
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i'm very disappointed with western digital for disabling this. i have a Western Digital AV-GP - Hours 27461 - LCC 37 which is excellent.

the new drive - Western Digital Blue - Hours 270 - LCC 28287 which is mental. will not take me long to get to 300,000 (which is the load/unload from WD)
 

ethereal

Guru
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Sep 10, 2012
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762
i can't remember the exact error but i tested older wd drives and they worked. when i tried the two blue disks they both gave an error.
 

elbarhoum

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Apr 29, 2017
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I guess they want us to get the Red disks..
I'll be sticking with my local retailer for my future disks as all his stock is from 2015, even if that means paying a premium. You never know what you'll get when you buy online.
 

dmr

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May 16, 2017
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Hello guys. I have two green WD hdds in my desktop PC, not server one :). Don't have problems with drives but I saw this topic and checked park cycles on those two green WDs. First drive is wd20ears and have near 460.000 load/unload cycle count, power on time 28.000 hours, second one wd10ezrx 204.654 load/unload cycle count, power on time 14.144. So do you recomend me to disable parking totaly or to put on 300sec, or to do nothing? :) Thanks!!!

EDIT: I turned off totaly on these two hdd. I tried to turn off also on notebok hdd wd500BEVT which also have parking on 8sec. but heard sound like hdd periodically turn off and then spin on again, so I returned to 8 sec.
 
Last edited:

elbarhoum

Cadet
Joined
Apr 29, 2017
Messages
9
Hello guys. I have two green WD hdds in my desktop PC, not server one :). Don't have problems with drives but I saw this topic and checked park cycles on those two green WDs. First drive is wd20ears and have near 460.000 load/unload cycle count, power on time 28.000 hours, second one wd10ezrx 204.654 load/unload cycle count, power on time 14.144. So do you recomend me to disable parking totaly or to put on 300sec, or to do nothing? :) Thanks!!!

EDIT: I turned off totaly on these two hdd. I tried to turn off also on notebok hdd wd500BEVT which also have parking on 8sec. but heard sound like hdd periodically turn off and then spin on again, so I returned to 8 sec.
Personnally, I don't like the idea of my disks never parking their heads, as they won't be serving files all day long, so I set it to 300s.
I believe laptop disks are designed to spin down in order to save power, so maybe that's why you heard that noise.
 

dmr

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May 16, 2017
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I set in power management of windows for hdds to go to sleep every 5 minutes, so that is the same as parking heads every 5 minutes, right? :). Also have 640GB WD blue that is set to never park heads by WD.
 

Srandista

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May 23, 2017
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Hi guys.
Recently, I bought 3 new WD disks, so I want to give you information, how they are set regarding heads parking.

Two of my new disks are 4TB WD Reds (WD40EFRX), and right out of the box, parking is set to 300 seconds. So, you have to run WDidle only if you absolutely can't stand heads parking under any circumstances. Otherwise, you can leave it there, just like it is and start using disks right away (I've replace my old 2TB WD Blacks in my NAS with them).

So far so good. But it didn't last long...

My last new disk is 1TB WD Black Mobile (WD10JPLX). I know, it's a 7200 rpm, 2,5" disk, and there is quite little probability, that you would use it in NAS. Yes, that's true, also I've been using it for my PC as a secondary drive, but word of caution is in place. Disk heads parking is set to 8 seconds and it CANNOT be changed! Both WDidle 1.05 and 2.0.0.1 are not compatible with the disk, and can't change heads parking interval. During 3 months, my drive park it's heads almost 30000 times! Right now I'm in process of dealing with this situation with WD support, I will let you know guys, how it ends.
 

cyberjock

Inactive Account
Joined
Mar 25, 2012
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19,526
I set in power management of windows for hdds to go to sleep every 5 minutes, so that is the same as parking heads every 5 minutes, right? :). Also have 640GB WD blue that is set to never park heads by WD.

Maybe. Maybe not. Only you can really test this unfortunately. If you do know the answer please post back with what you saw.

If I had to guess, I'd say that it won't work that way because 'reasons'.
 

dmr

Cadet
Joined
May 16, 2017
Messages
3
Yes it works that way :D So when hdd goes to sleep heads go to parking :). Here is some statistics from when I changed for 2 hdd to never park heads but goes to sleep every 5 minutes. From may 21st till june 3rd 2TB WD green made 322 parkings (that's 24 parkings per day), and 1TB WD made 373 parkings (That's 28 per day). For that time hdd laptop with 8 sec parking timer made 1493 parking (that's 115 per day). I guess that is answer to your question :). I have to try laptop hdd set to 300 sec.
 

Sonik

Dabbler
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Sep 30, 2014
Messages
21
I've just bought another 2 WD Blue 2TB, both manufactured in March 2017. No issues changing these to 300 seconds either. I think it has something to do with WDIDLE3 and certain UEFI BIOS not being compatible somehow.

I change all my drives on an old Dell using traditional BIOS and it has no issues recognising and changing all the WD drives I've tried it with. I don't think WD has changed anything on the new drives to prevent the timer being altered. At least, not from my experience.
 

Netix

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Jul 18, 2017
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Wow.. I must have been hidden under some rock somewhere.. didn't knew that until today so I've checked all my WD Greens.. ouch..

1st one -> Power-on Time = 18 865 / LLC -> 386 897
2nd one -> Power-on Time = 32 261 / LLC -> 387 751
3rd one -> Power-on Time = 32 669 / LLC -> 416 626
4th one -> Power-on Time = 41 589 / LLC -> 354 406

I've put all on them on 300 seconds.. but am I already fucked ?

Also, bought a 6 TB Blue Drive some while ago.. wdidle3 doesn't work on it, gives me error :
VSCSendKey CMD Error 51 04 10 4F 00 00 00

The drive was manufactured Nov. 16th 2016. and it the current count is
Power-on time = 3905 / LLC -> 1903

Would I be fine ?
 

Spearfoot

He of the long foot
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May 13, 2015
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2,478
Wow.. I must have been hidden under some rock somewhere.. didn't knew that until today so I've checked all my WD Greens.. ouch..

1st one -> Power-on Time = 18 865 / LLC -> 386 897
2nd one -> Power-on Time = 32 261 / LLC -> 387 751
3rd one -> Power-on Time = 32 669 / LLC -> 416 626
4th one -> Power-on Time = 41 589 / LLC -> 354 406

I've put all on them on 300 seconds.. but am I already ****ed ?

Also, bought a 6 TB Blue Drive some while ago.. wdidle3 doesn't work on it, gives me error :
VSCSendKey CMD Error 51 04 10 4F 00 00 00

The drive was manufactured Nov. 16th 2016. and it the current count is
Power-on time = 3905 / LLC -> 1903

Would I be fine ?
The Western Digital Green drives were rated for 300,000 load/unload cycles, with a 2 year (=17,500 hour) warranty.

On the basis of specifications and warranty... you'd better start shopping for replacement drives! :p

On the other hand... I have some old 500GB WDC Green drives with over 24,000 power-on hours and >600,000 load/unload cycles that still work, so perhaps you don't need to rush out and buy replacements yesterday.

In any case, it's always a good idea to keep a well-tested spare (or two!) on hand for the inevitable: drives are electro-mechanical devices and will eventually fail.
 

Netix

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Joined
Jul 18, 2017
Messages
9
The Western Digital Green drives were rated for 300,000 load/unload cycles, with a 2 year (=17,500 hour) warranty.

On the basis of specifications and warranty... you'd better start shopping for replacement drives! :p

On the other hand... I have some old 500GB WDC Green drives with over 24,000 power-on hours and >600,000 load/unload cycles that still work, so perhaps you don't need to rush out and buy replacements yesterday.

In any case, it's always a good idea to keep a well-tested spare (or two!) on hand for the inevitable: drives are electro-mechanical devices and will eventually fail.

Thanks Spearfoot, I'll try to find some replacement soon..

Any idea why my blue drive is giving me trouble ? Some people on this thread were able to change the park time and mine have been manufactured before them :/ weird...

Anyway, 1903 LLC for 3905 hours is not that bad I guess :/
 

Spearfoot

He of the long foot
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May 13, 2015
Messages
2,478
Thanks Spearfoot, I'll try to find some replacement soon..

Any idea why my blue drive is giving me trouble ? Some people on this thread were able to change the park time and mine have been manufactured before them :/ weird...

Anyway, 1903 LLC for 3905 hours is not that bad I guess :/
The WDC 'Blue' drives are designed for desktop use, not for NAS systems. That's the root of the problem; the two environments simply have different requirements. You'd be better served using the WDC 'Red' drives, which are designed for NAS use.
 
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