WD Red vs WD Red Pro NASware 3.0 Firmware (NCQ)

[AltecBX]

Once you build a FreeNAS computer with WD Red drives with NASware 3.0, how do you update the firmware?
Are there any current firmware since release of the drives?
I hear the (WD Red Pro Nasware 3.0 drives) are basically (WD Red Nasware 3.0 drives) with NCQ enabled + 7200RPM, as oppose to the WD Red Nasware 3.0 drives who has NCQ disabled, even though the drive supports it. My question is can we change the firmware on the WD60EFRX to enable NCQ? This will improve the drives I/O performance without paying for the price of the Pro.

 

[Ericloewe]

???

That sounds awfully wrong. What kind of drive doesn't have NCQ?

For some reason, smartctl won't report the instructions supported by the drive, so I can't check my "NASware 2.0" 3TB Reds.

In any case, I highly doubt that any modern drive doesn't have NCQ. I also don't know of any firmware updates, but you'd have to ask WD.

 

[AltecBX]

Is there a way for users here who are using WD Red drives to see if NCQ is running on their drives?
Also, for WD Red Pro users, can you run a test to see if NCQ is running on your drives. I want to find out for both NASware 2.0 and 3.0 users.

 

[cyberjock]

Yes, this sounds very wrong. As for firmware, WD is the only one that would issue such firmware, so you should be asking them this question.

 

[Borja Marcos]

You can login as root to your box and use the commands "camcontrol identify adaX" and "camcontrol tags adaX -v".

I am using four 3 TB Reds, NASWare 2.0, under FreeBSD 10-STABLE and, assuming that camcontrol identify does tell the truth, they do indeed support NCQ. What makes you think NCQ is not supported?

Code:

root@micro1:~ # camcontrol identify ada0
pass0: <WDC WD30EFRX-68EUZN0 80.00A80> ATA-9 SATA 3.x device
pass0: 600.000MB/s transfers (SATA 3.x, UDMA6, PIO 8192bytes)

protocol              ATA/ATAPI-9 SATA 3.x
device model          WDC WD30EFRX-68EUZN0
firmware revision     80.00A80
serial number         WD-XXXXXXXXXXX
WWN                   50014XXXXXXXXX
cylinders             16383
heads                 16
sectors/track         63
sector size           logical 512, physical 4096, offset 0
LBA supported         268435455 sectors
LBA48 supported       5860533168 sectors
PIO supported         PIO4
DMA supported         WDMA2 UDMA6
media RPM             5400

Feature                      Support  Enabled   Value           Vendor
read ahead                     yes    yes
write cache                    yes    yes
flush cache                    yes    yes
overlap                        no
Tagged Command Queuing (TCQ)   no    no
Native Command Queuing (NCQ)   yes        32 tags
NCQ Queue Management           no
NCQ Streaming                  no

Camcontrol identify is available on FreeNAS as well, and at least a 7200 rpm black (this time connected to a FreeNAS) tells me that it supports NCQ.

Code:

[root@freenas] ~# camcontrol identify ada1
pass1: <WDC WD1001FALS-41Y6A0 05.03D06> ATA-8 SATA 2.x device
pass1: 300.000MB/s transfers (SATA 2.x, UDMA6, PIO 8192bytes)

protocol              ATA/ATAPI-8 SATA 2.x
device model          WDC WD1001FALS-41Y6A0
firmware revision     05.03D06
serial number         WD-XXXXXXXX
WWN                   50014XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
cylinders             16383
heads                 16
sectors/track         63
sector size           logical 512, physical 512, offset 0
LBA supported         268435455 sectors
LBA48 supported       1953525168 sectors
PIO supported         PIO4
DMA supported         WDMA2 UDMA6
media RPM             7200

Feature                      Support  Enabled   Value           Vendor
read ahead                     yes    yes
write cache                    yes    yes
flush cache                    yes    yes
overlap                        no
Tagged Command Queuing (TCQ)   no    no
Native Command Queuing (NCQ)   yes        32 tags
NCQ Queue Management           no
NCQ Streaming                  no
Receive & Send FPDMA Queued    no
SMART                          yes    yes
microcode download             yes    yes
security                       yes    no
power management               yes    yes
advanced power management      no    no
automatic acoustic management  yes    no    254/0xFE    128/0x80
media status notification      no    no
power-up in Standby            yes    no
write-read-verify              no    no
unload                         no    no
general purpose logging        yes    yes
free-fall                      no    no
Data Set Management (DSM/TRIM) no
Host Protected Area (HPA)      yes      no      1953525168/1953525168
HPA - Security                 no