WD Green load cycle question

[Ramboxman]

I would say for the 2013 models yes, from what I gather the models made early in 2012 the default timer was disabled. Better safe than sorry.

 

[cyberjock]

So is it safe to assume that the Red's need to be checked with wdidle a swell as the Greens?

Well, we have one single case. I don't think it's at the point of confirming this with just 1 data point, but people should be checking out their SMART parameters. And if they are, seeing 5 digit load cycle counts should be a "hey.. what is going on here" epiphany. I think that we're in a position to say that either (1) this is a fluke or (2) this is a data point to watch closely in the future and see what other people are reporting. I have been watching load cycle counts(because I always do) and this is the first case I've seen with non WD Greens to have this problem.

Contrary to popular belief I'm not quick to call fire on a single data point. But experience and history can often be just as good as having many data points. Peaks my interest, but isn't time to claim that Rome is on fire.

 

[joeschmuck]

So is it safe to assume that the Red's need to be checked with wdidle as well as the Greens?

Yes, that sounds like a fair statement. I have read that if you do use the wdidle3 utility and change the timer, you must power off the hard drive before it takes affect. This weekend I will be moving my NAS into another case and I will be checking each drive in my system to see what the timer is set to. I expect mine to be disabled since all my "Start_Stop_Count" = "Power-Off_Retract_Count"+"Load_Cycle_Count"+1.

Example:
Start_Stop_Count = 290
Power-Off_Retract_Count = 41
Load_Cycle_Count = 248

This means to me that my drive spun up 290 times, parked the heads for a sleep (spun down the drive but power still applied) 248 times, and spun down due to power off 41 times. Now I use to sleep my hard drives with FreeNAS 8.2 so this is why the count is high.

 

[Ramboxman]

Received 5 new 2tb Western Digital Red Drives and all had the 8 sec timer enabled. 3 drives where made in Malaysia Oct 29 2013 and 2 in Thailand Dec 03 2013. Disable all timers and will be replace my pool once the backup completes.

 

[Yatti420]

So it looks like newer red drives have the same timer? The reds could exhibit the same LCC as the Greens if not changed.. Can somebody else confirm if the Red's counter is at 8 seconds now?

 

[cyberjock]

Interesting!

 

[mute]

I purchased 6 4tb Reds this past week, and all of them were set to 8s.

Unrelated, but of those 6, one drive failed within an hour and had to be replaced. I was too impatient to wait for WD to cross ship me a new one, so I've now got a spare. :)

 

[cyberjock]

Well, looks like its pretty much confirmed.. WD Reds and Greens behave the same now. Anyone want to bet any money it's the same damn hardware with just a longer warranty? LOL

 

[Tomas Liumparas]

So as far as I understand it is necessary to run wdidle on WD Green Drives?

 

[cyberjock]

So as far as I understand it is necessary to run wdidle on WD Green Drives?

Yes.

 

[joeschmuck]

I would recommend not disabling the timers but rather setting it to 300 seconds.
Edit: I would NOT recommend having the timer set to anything but disabled unless you want to evaluate your head load count. See my followup posting a few posts down. The rationale is still valid in this posting but if your system doesn't allow your NAS to keep the heads parked, it's not going to give you much help.

Rationale: The heads float on an air stream above the platter. Even though it's air, it's still abrasive believe it or not and can cause some wearing of the platter surface if the heads are left in one location for a very long time. What I can't tell you is if the heads generally relocate to the outer track or not. If you set the timer for 300 seconds (5 minutes) then you vastly increase the amount of time for which a drive access can occur before the heads park and you will gain some head loading cycles but at 8 seconds that is just too frequently for a home NAS application. If you have your NAS very frequently accessing data then I can see disabling the timers.

Getting back to wearing the platters... On A/V hard drives they typically have firmware which will sweep the head across the entire disk surface periodically which promotes even wear, or more realistically ensure no area has a grove worn into it.

I have just moved my NAS over into a new case and I will be powering it up tomorrow. At that time I plan to check and set my timers. I'm certain they are all disabled but I will be setting them to 300 seconds just in order to preserve the wear on the drives.

I am curious why WD made this change in the Red series but I suspect they have some reason related to money to make the change but I doubt we will ever hear the rationale behind it.

 

[Ramboxman]

Thanks to all for the help. I changed my idle timer to 300 after reading joeschmuck post. Here is my new smart value with new drives.

Code:

smartctl 6.2 2013-07-26 r3841 [FreeBSD 9.2-RELEASE amd64] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-13, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org
 
=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family:    Western Digital VelociRaptor
Device Model:    WDC WD1500HLHX-01JJPV0
Serial Number:    WD-WX81E81XXXX
LU WWN Device Id: 5 0014ee 6579bd5ad
Firmware Version: 04.05G04
User Capacity:    150,039,945,216 bytes [150 GB]
Sector Size:      512 bytes logical/physical
Rotation Rate:    10000 rpm
Device is:        In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is:  ATA8-ACS (minor revision not indicated)
SATA Version is:  SATA 2.6, 6.0 Gb/s
Local Time is:    Tue Jan 14 16:32:31 2014 CST
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled
Power mode is:    ACTIVE or IDLE
 
=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
 
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    0x002f  200  200  051    Pre-fail  Always      -      0
3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0027  192  191  021    Pre-fail  Always      -      1400
4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032  100  100  000    Old_age  Always      -      135
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  093  093  000    Old_age  Always      -      5169
10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0032  100  100  000    Old_age  Always      -      0
11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0032  100  100  000    Old_age  Always      -      0
12 Power_Cycle_Count      0x0032  100  100  000    Old_age  Always      -      123
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032  200  200  000    Old_age  Always      -      68
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032  200  200  000    Old_age  Always      -      66
194 Temperature_Celsius    0x0022  113  107  000    Old_age  Always      -      30
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  168  000    Old_age  Always      -      548
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate  0x0008  200  200  000    Old_age  Offline      -      0
 
SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged
 
smartctl 6.2 2013-07-26 r3841 [FreeBSD 9.2-RELEASE amd64] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-13, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org
 
=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family:    Western Digital Red (AF)
Device Model:    WDC WD20EFRX-68EUZN0
Serial Number:    WD-WCC4M09XXXX
LU WWN Device Id: 5 0014ee 25edbaaff
Firmware Version: 80.00A80
User Capacity:    2,000,398,934,016 bytes [2.00 TB]
Sector Sizes:    512 bytes logical, 4096 bytes physical
Rotation Rate:    5400 rpm
Device is:        In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is:  ACS-2 (minor revision not indicated)
SATA Version is:  SATA 3.0, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 3.0 Gb/s)
Local Time is:    Tue Jan 14 16:32:31 2014 CST
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled
Power mode is:    ACTIVE or IDLE
 
=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
 
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    0x002f  100  253  051    Pre-fail  Always      -      0
3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0027  184  184  021    Pre-fail  Always      -      3775
4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032  100  100  000    Old_age  Always      -      6
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct  0x0033  200  200  140    Pre-fail  Always      -      0
7 Seek_Error_Rate        0x002e  100  253  000    Old_age  Always      -      0
9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032  100  100  000    Old_age  Always      -      0
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      -      6
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032  200  200  000    Old_age  Always      -      5
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032  200  200  000    Old_age  Always      -      2
194 Temperature_Celsius    0x0022  118  115  000    Old_age  Always      -      29
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  100  253  000    Old_age  Offline      -      0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x0032  200  200  000    Old_age  Always      -      0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate  0x0008  100  253  000    Old_age  Offline      -      0
 
SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged
 
smartctl 6.2 2013-07-26 r3841 [FreeBSD 9.2-RELEASE amd64] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-13, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org
 
=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family:    Western Digital Red (AF)
Device Model:    WDC WD20EFRX-68EUZN0
Serial Number:    WD-WCC4M097XXXX
LU WWN Device Id: 5 0014ee 2b4319f78
Firmware Version: 80.00A80
User Capacity:    2,000,398,934,016 bytes [2.00 TB]
Sector Sizes:    512 bytes logical, 4096 bytes physical
Rotation Rate:    5400 rpm
Device is:        In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is:  ACS-2 (minor revision not indicated)
SATA Version is:  SATA 3.0, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 3.0 Gb/s)
Local Time is:    Tue Jan 14 16:32:31 2014 CST
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled
Power mode is:    ACTIVE or IDLE
 
=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
 
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    0x002f  100  253  051    Pre-fail  Always      -      0
3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0027  100  253  021    Pre-fail  Always      -      0
4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032  100  100  000    Old_age  Always      -      4
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct  0x0033  200  200  140    Pre-fail  Always      -      0
7 Seek_Error_Rate        0x002e  100  253  000    Old_age  Always      -      0
9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032  100  100  000    Old_age  Always      -      0
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      -      4
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032  200  200  000    Old_age  Always      -      3
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032  200  200  000    Old_age  Always      -      1
194 Temperature_Celsius    0x0022  118  118  000    Old_age  Always      -      29
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  100  253  000    Old_age  Offline      -      0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x0032  200  200  000    Old_age  Always      -      0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate  0x0008  100  253  000    Old_age  Offline      -      0
 
SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged
 
smartctl 6.2 2013-07-26 r3841 [FreeBSD 9.2-RELEASE amd64] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-13, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org
 
=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family:    Western Digital Red (AF)
Device Model:    WDC WD20EFRX-68EUZN0
Serial Number:    WD-WMC4N081XXXX
LU WWN Device Id: 5 0014ee 6ae986a24
Firmware Version: 80.00A80
User Capacity:    2,000,398,934,016 bytes [2.00 TB]
Sector Sizes:    512 bytes logical, 4096 bytes physical
Rotation Rate:    5400 rpm
Device is:        In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is:  ACS-2 (minor revision not indicated)
SATA Version is:  SATA 3.0, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 3.0 Gb/s)
Local Time is:    Tue Jan 14 16:32:31 2014 CST
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled
Power mode is:    ACTIVE or IDLE
 
=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
 
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    0x002f  100  253  051    Pre-fail  Always      -      0
3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0027  199  199  021    Pre-fail  Always      -      5033
4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032  100  100  000    Old_age  Always      -      6
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct  0x0033  200  200  140    Pre-fail  Always      -      0
7 Seek_Error_Rate        0x002e  100  253  000    Old_age  Always      -      0
9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032  100  100  000    Old_age  Always      -      0
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      -      6
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032  200  200  000    Old_age  Always      -      5
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032  200  200  000    Old_age  Always      -      1
194 Temperature_Celsius    0x0022  121  121  000    Old_age  Always      -      29
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  100  253  000    Old_age  Offline      -      0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x0032  200  200  000    Old_age  Always      -      0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate  0x0008  100  253  000    Old_age  Offline      -      0
 
SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged
 
smartctl 6.2 2013-07-26 r3841 [FreeBSD 9.2-RELEASE amd64] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-13, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org
 
=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family:    Western Digital Red (AF)
Device Model:    WDC WD20EFRX-68EUZN0
Serial Number:    WD-WMC4M150XXXX
LU WWN Device Id: 5 0014ee 6ae9c7634
Firmware Version: 80.00A80
User Capacity:    2,000,398,934,016 bytes [2.00 TB]
Sector Sizes:    512 bytes logical, 4096 bytes physical
Rotation Rate:    5400 rpm
Device is:        In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is:  ACS-2 (minor revision not indicated)
SATA Version is:  SATA 3.0, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 3.0 Gb/s)
Local Time is:    Tue Jan 14 16:32:31 2014 CST
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled
Power mode is:    ACTIVE or IDLE
 
=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
 
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    0x002f  100  253  051    Pre-fail  Always      -      0
3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0027  216  191  021    Pre-fail  Always      -      2191
4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032  100  100  000    Old_age  Always      -      9
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct  0x0033  200  200  140    Pre-fail  Always      -      0
7 Seek_Error_Rate        0x002e  100  253  000    Old_age  Always      -      0
9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032  100  100  000    Old_age  Always      -      0
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      -      9
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032  200  200  000    Old_age  Always      -      8
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032  200  200  000    Old_age  Always      -      1
194 Temperature_Celsius    0x0022  120  118  000    Old_age  Always      -      27
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  100  253  000    Old_age  Offline      -      0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x0032  200  200  000    Old_age  Always      -      0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate  0x0008  100  253  000    Old_age  Offline      -      0
 
SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged
 
smartctl 6.2 2013-07-26 r3841 [FreeBSD 9.2-RELEASE amd64] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-13, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org
 
=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family:    Western Digital Red (AF)
Device Model:    WDC WD20EFRX-68EUZN0
Serial Number:    WD-WMC4M145XXXX
LU WWN Device Id: 5 0014ee 0ae5a1884
Firmware Version: 80.00A80
User Capacity:    2,000,398,934,016 bytes [2.00 TB]
Sector Sizes:    512 bytes logical, 4096 bytes physical
Rotation Rate:    5400 rpm
Device is:        In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is:  ACS-2 (minor revision not indicated)
SATA Version is:  SATA 3.0, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 3.0 Gb/s)
Local Time is:    Tue Jan 14 16:32:31 2014 CST
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled
Power mode is:    ACTIVE or IDLE
 
=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
 
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    0x002f  100  253  051    Pre-fail  Always      -      0
3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0027  203  192  021    Pre-fail  Always      -      2841
4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032  100  100  000    Old_age  Always      -      8
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct  0x0033  200  200  140    Pre-fail  Always      -      0
7 Seek_Error_Rate        0x002e  100  253  000    Old_age  Always      -      0
9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032  100  100  000    Old_age  Always      -      0
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      -      8
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032  200  200  000    Old_age  Always      -      7
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032  200  200  000    Old_age  Always      -      3
194 Temperature_Celsius    0x0022  119  118  000    Old_age  Always      -      28
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  100  253  000    Old_age  Offline      -      0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x0032  200  200  000    Old_age  Always      -      0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate  0x0008  100  253  000    Old_age  Offline      -      0
 
SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged
 
smartctl 6.2 2013-07-26 r3841 [FreeBSD 9.2-RELEASE amd64] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-13, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org
 
Use smartctl -h to get a usage summary

 

[joeschmuck]

@ Ramboxman,
Stupid question time... How did you change the values? Or in other words besides using wdidle3 version 1.05, who did you make it work. I'm having one hell of a time right now. Maybe it's the computer, too advanced maybe and I have to use something older.

 

[Ramboxman]

I used usbmemorykeyboot.zip to create the usb key with windows98boot then added wdidle3.exe to the usb key booted laptop off usb stick and used an esata dock for nas WD red harddrives turn off dock after each change. Here the link to the tutorial I used to make usb disk http://www.bay-wolf.com/usbmemstick.htm the command that work was wdidle3.exe /S300.

I borrowed my wife's laptop for doing this she has a Toshiba with Windows 7 if that helps.

 

[Yatti420]

It should also be included on Hiren's boot cd..

 

[joeschmuck]

I was able to set one timer using the UBCD. Maybe it was the port it was on that made the difference. I'll be trying a different computer, what a pain.

 

[joeschmuck]

@Ramboxman,
I'm curious how your LCC count is doing and what jails you may have running. At this time I'm trying to think about all situations for the drives in a FreeNAS environment. Jails can periodically be reading/writing to the hard drive. It would really suck if you had disk activity every 6 minutes and the timer was set to 5 minutes. You can see how this would park the heads and then they would load soon after. So right now I think it's up to what applications you are running to determin if you should disable the timer or set it to 5 minutes. Either one is better than 8 seconds.

So if your LCC count has dropped significantly or dropped to no change over a 24 hour period, that would be good to know. I'm evaluating my system right now to see how many parking events occur. I have two backups scheduled per day and then whenever I stream or look at data so I need to keep a log on what I do and compare it to the LCC to see if they match or of course if the value doesn't change at all then I can deduce that the jail is accessing the hard drive more frequently than what the timer is set to.

And I'm thinking that if you have an LCC count different of 50 or higher with the timer set to 5 minutes, disabling the timer all together might be a better thing. It's subjective but I thought I'd throw this out for thought.

 

[joeschmuck]

Update on my testing...

I am only running MiniDLNA in a jail for a plugin. I am sharing my NAS over SMB and I have two computers on my network plus three DVRs, a Bluray player and a streaming media player.

Over a 23 hour period my LCC count for the one drive I was able to change the timer to 5 minutes had changed from a value of 303 to 372. That is a total of 69 head unload/load cycles in just under a 24 hour period. In my option that is too excessive because I don't know if there is any period where the heads park and then 6 minutes later they load again, and then it happens frequently. That is an approximation of once every 20 minutes the heads park and them load. I don't like this answer at all. I was hoping the heads would stay parked for at least several hours, or more realistically only have less than 10 load cycles. I can account for 4 of those counts due to two backups, streaming one movie, and accessing the shares once.

So I will be changing my one drive timer back to Disabled.

My advice to others is to change one of their drives, or all if you really want to setting the timer to 5 minutes and then evaluate your LCC to see what happens. If you feel the LCC count is still too high (that is a subjective value right now) then I'd disable the timer. In my opinion over a 24 hour period if your LCC difference is greater than 24 then you might want to disable the timer because your head will be moving on average less than every hour. That is a huge assumption as your LCC could be happening in 2 to 3 hour span vice equally over the 24 hours. I'm not sure how that could be monitored although I have a script in mind to test, just not sure if it will keep the drive alive or not. I'd hope not.

Hope this helps... Cheers!

 

[cyberjock]

Here's my thought process... the lowest quoted number for designed LLC is 250k with some drives being 350k+. If you use that drive 24x7 for 10 years(overly conservative time frame) that averages out to a load count of about 69 per day.

So, the most conservatively quoted value with the overly conservative timeframe of 10 years of 24x7 use will yield the bottom of the quoted "designed life". All of today's drives are 350k+, virtually nobody uses a server disk for 10 years, and some users have had values over 700k for LLC without a problem.

So personally, I don't sweat a number like that. Even more realistic numbers of 350k over 5 years yields an allowed value of almost 200 cycles per day. To be honest, I took a 1 month measurement when I first setup my FreeNAS server and yawned at how slowly it changed and then never looked at it again.

But, it is very much a personal choice. I don't do minidlna(I hate dlna with a passion) but I remember people being upset because it does a scan every 15 minutes or something. All you need is 2 or 3 of those types of workloads to really mess up your load cycle cound and make spinning down a hard disk virtually impossible. I'm sure you remember all those threads we used to have regarding people trying to sleep their hard drives at night and the jails/plugins were making it impossible.

 

[joeschmuck]

I have the latest MiniDLNA plugin not yet released and it's been working properly for several weeks. There is one issue still but it doesn't impact my operations and it's off topic. I'm not even certain it's MiniDLNA causing the issue, it could be any device on my network polling the NAS.