"Western Digital admits 2TB-6TB WD Red NAS drives use shingled magnetic recording" from Blocks & Files

[colmconn]

They've released a list: https://blog.westerndigital.com/wd-red-nas-drives

 

[Yorick]

> Your concerns were heard loud and clear

Translation: PR tells us it's blowing up in the press and Seagate is eating our lunch, do something, damage control, now!

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

OK, I got the replacement drives: WD40EFRX and packed and sealed the bad ones: WD30EFAX.

Currently I have my backup/toy system at home connected to the production system via Gbit and replicating all my data. I intentionally offlined one drive of the target pool (WD) and intend to resilver tomorrow when I have some terabytes to swap around.

What was a real surprise and keeps me thinking hard at the moment: the WD EFRX are silent! Like in "no contest", specifically when compared to my Toshiba N300 I run in my production system. If the resilver tomorrow goes well I am really tempted to do the one-drive-at-a-time dance to get the WD ones into my home office and use the Toshiba ones for off-site backup.

OMG! What were they thinking? After a couple of hours I'd say, these drives (EFRX) are just great value. Whoever came up with the idea to ship an inferior product, not being transparent to customers, just to increase the margin ... deserves the fate of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation's marketing department.

I'll add the smartctl output for completeness but do not expect any surprises here:

Code:

root@freenas2-pmh[~]# smartctl -x /dev/ada0
smartctl 7.0 2018-12-30 r4883 [FreeBSD 11.3-RELEASE-p7 amd64] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-18, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family:     Western Digital Red
Device Model:     WDC WD40EFRX-68N32N0
Serial Number:    ***************
LU WWN Device Id: 5 0014ee 2bd12a574
Firmware Version: 82.00A82
User Capacity:    4,000,787,030,016 bytes [4.00 TB]
Sector Sizes:     512 bytes logical, 4096 bytes physical
Rotation Rate:    5400 rpm
Form Factor:      3.5 inches
Device is:        In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is:   ACS-3 T13/2161-D revision 5
SATA Version is:  SATA 3.1, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 6.0 Gb/s)
Local Time is:    Thu Apr 23 14:40:07 2020 PDT
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled
AAM feature is:   Unavailable
APM feature is:   Unavailable
Rd look-ahead is: Enabled
Write cache is:   Enabled
DSN feature is:   Unavailable
ATA Security is:  Disabled, NOT FROZEN [SEC1]
Wt Cache Reorder: Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status:  (0x00)    Offline data collection activity
                    was never started.
                    Auto Offline Data Collection: Disabled.
Self-test execution status:      (   0)    The previous self-test routine completed
                    without error or no self-test has ever
                    been run.
Total time to complete Offline
data collection:         (43560) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities:              (0x7b) SMART execute Offline immediate.
                    Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
                    Suspend Offline collection upon new
                    command.
                    Offline surface scan supported.
                    Self-test supported.
                    Conveyance Self-test supported.
                    Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities:            (0x0003)    Saves SMART data before entering
                    power-saving mode.
                    Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability:        (0x01)    Error logging supported.
                    General Purpose Logging supported.
Short self-test routine
recommended polling time:      (   2) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time:      ( 463) minutes.
Conveyance self-test routine
recommended polling time:      (   5) minutes.
SCT capabilities:            (0x303d)    SCT Status supported.
                    SCT Error Recovery Control supported.
                    SCT Feature Control supported.
                    SCT Data Table supported.

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAGS    VALUE WORST THRESH FAIL RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     POSR-K   100   253   051    -    0
  3 Spin_Up_Time            POS--K   246   243   021    -    2683
  4 Start_Stop_Count        -O--CK   100   100   000    -    12
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   PO--CK   200   200   140    -    0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         -OSR-K   100   253   000    -    0
  9 Power_On_Hours          -O--CK   100   100   000    -    6
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        -O--CK   100   253   000    -    0
 11 Calibration_Retry_Count -O--CK   100   253   000    -    0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       -O--CK   100   100   000    -    12
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count -O--CK   200   200   000    -    9
193 Load_Cycle_Count        -O--CK   200   200   000    -    4
194 Temperature_Celsius     -O---K   116   115   000    -    34
196 Reallocated_Event_Count -O--CK   200   200   000    -    0
197 Current_Pending_Sector  -O--CK   200   200   000    -    0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   ----CK   100   253   000    -    0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    -O--CK   200   200   000    -    0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   ---R--   100   253   000    -    0
                            ||||||_ K auto-keep
                            |||||__ C event count
                            ||||___ R error rate
                            |||____ S speed/performance
                            ||_____ O updated online
                            |______ P prefailure warning

General Purpose Log Directory Version 1
SMART           Log Directory Version 1 [multi-sector log support]
Address    Access  R/W   Size  Description
0x00       GPL,SL  R/O      1  Log Directory
0x01           SL  R/O      1  Summary SMART error log
0x02           SL  R/O      5  Comprehensive SMART error log
0x03       GPL     R/O      6  Ext. Comprehensive SMART error log
0x04       GPL,SL  R/O      8  Device Statistics log
0x06           SL  R/O      1  SMART self-test log
0x07       GPL     R/O      1  Extended self-test log
0x09           SL  R/W      1  Selective self-test log
0x10       GPL     R/O      1  NCQ Command Error log
0x11       GPL     R/O      1  SATA Phy Event Counters log
0x30       GPL,SL  R/O      9  IDENTIFY DEVICE data log
0x80-0x9f  GPL,SL  R/W     16  Host vendor specific log
0xa0-0xa7  GPL,SL  VS      16  Device vendor specific log
0xa8-0xb6  GPL,SL  VS       1  Device vendor specific log
0xb7       GPL,SL  VS      56  Device vendor specific log
0xbd       GPL,SL  VS       1  Device vendor specific log
0xc0       GPL,SL  VS       1  Device vendor specific log
0xc1       GPL     VS      93  Device vendor specific log
0xe0       GPL,SL  R/W      1  SCT Command/Status
0xe1       GPL,SL  R/W      1  SCT Data Transfer

SMART Extended Comprehensive Error Log Version: 1 (6 sectors)
No Errors Logged

SMART Extended Self-test Log Version: 1 (1 sectors)
No self-tests have been logged.  [To run self-tests, use: smartctl -t]

SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
 SPAN  MIN_LBA  MAX_LBA  CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
    1        0        0  Not_testing
    2        0        0  Not_testing
    3        0        0  Not_testing
    4        0        0  Not_testing
    5        0        0  Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
  After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.

SCT Status Version:                  3
SCT Version (vendor specific):       258 (0x0102)
Device State:                        Active (0)
Current Temperature:                    34 Celsius
Power Cycle Min/Max Temperature:     32/35 Celsius
Lifetime    Min/Max Temperature:     24/35 Celsius
Under/Over Temperature Limit Count:   0/0
Vendor specific:
01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

SCT Temperature History Version:     2
Temperature Sampling Period:         1 minute
Temperature Logging Interval:        1 minute
Min/Max recommended Temperature:      0/65 Celsius
Min/Max Temperature Limit:           -41/85 Celsius
Temperature History Size (Index):    478 (367)

Index    Estimated Time   Temperature Celsius
 368    2020-04-23 06:43     ?  -
 ...    ..(109 skipped).    ..  -
   0    2020-04-23 08:33     ?  -
   1    2020-04-23 08:34    24  *****
   2    2020-04-23 08:35    24  *****
   3    2020-04-23 08:36    25  ******
   4    2020-04-23 08:37    25  ******
   5    2020-04-23 08:38    25  ******
   6    2020-04-23 08:39    26  *******
   7    2020-04-23 08:40    26  *******
   8    2020-04-23 08:41    26  *******
   9    2020-04-23 08:42    27  ********
  10    2020-04-23 08:43     ?  -
  11    2020-04-23 08:44    28  *********
  12    2020-04-23 08:45    28  *********
  13    2020-04-23 08:46    28  *********
  14    2020-04-23 08:47     ?  -
  15    2020-04-23 08:48    29  **********
 ...    ..(  5 skipped).    ..  **********
  21    2020-04-23 08:54    29  **********
  22    2020-04-23 08:55    30  ***********
 ...    ..( 21 skipped).    ..  ***********
  44    2020-04-23 09:17    30  ***********
  45    2020-04-23 09:18    31  ************
 ...    ..(  8 skipped).    ..  ************
  54    2020-04-23 09:27    31  ************
  55    2020-04-23 09:28     ?  -
  56    2020-04-23 09:29    31  ************
 ...    ..(  4 skipped).    ..  ************
  61    2020-04-23 09:34    31  ************
  62    2020-04-23 09:35    32  *************
  63    2020-04-23 09:36    32  *************
  64    2020-04-23 09:37     ?  -
  65    2020-04-23 09:38    32  *************
  66    2020-04-23 09:39    32  *************
  67    2020-04-23 09:40     ?  -
  68    2020-04-23 09:41    32  *************
  69    2020-04-23 09:42    32  *************
  70    2020-04-23 09:43    32  *************
  71    2020-04-23 09:44     ?  -
  72    2020-04-23 09:45    32  *************
 ...    ..( 24 skipped).    ..  *************
  97    2020-04-23 10:10    32  *************
  98    2020-04-23 10:11    33  **************
 ...    ..( 35 skipped).    ..  **************
 134    2020-04-23 10:47    33  **************
 135    2020-04-23 10:48     ?  -
 136    2020-04-23 10:49    33  **************
 ...    ..(  3 skipped).    ..  **************
 140    2020-04-23 10:53    33  **************
 141    2020-04-23 10:54     ?  -
 142    2020-04-23 10:55    33  **************
 143    2020-04-23 10:56    32  *************
 ...    ..(  2 skipped).    ..  *************
 146    2020-04-23 10:59    32  *************
 147    2020-04-23 11:00     ?  -
 148    2020-04-23 11:01    33  **************
 149    2020-04-23 11:02    33  **************
 150    2020-04-23 11:03    32  *************
 ...    ..(  5 skipped).    ..  *************
 156    2020-04-23 11:09    32  *************
 157    2020-04-23 11:10     ?  -
 158    2020-04-23 11:11    33  **************
 159    2020-04-23 11:12    33  **************
 160    2020-04-23 11:13     ?  -
 161    2020-04-23 11:14    33  **************
 162    2020-04-23 11:15    32  *************
 ...    ..( 84 skipped).    ..  *************
 247    2020-04-23 12:40    32  *************
 248    2020-04-23 12:41    33  **************
 ...    ..( 46 skipped).    ..  **************
 295    2020-04-23 13:28    33  **************
 296    2020-04-23 13:29    34  ***************
 ...    ..( 19 skipped).    ..  ***************
 316    2020-04-23 13:49    34  ***************
 317    2020-04-23 13:50    35  ****************
 ...    ..( 17 skipped).    ..  ****************
 335    2020-04-23 14:08    35  ****************
 336    2020-04-23 14:09    34  ***************
 ...    ..( 30 skipped).    ..  ***************
 367    2020-04-23 14:40    34  ***************

SCT Error Recovery Control:
           Read:     70 (7.0 seconds)
          Write:     70 (7.0 seconds)

Device Statistics (GP Log 0x04)
Page  Offset Size        Value Flags Description
0x01  =====  =               =  ===  == General Statistics (rev 1) ==
0x01  0x008  4              12  ---  Lifetime Power-On Resets
0x01  0x010  4               6  ---  Power-on Hours
0x01  0x018  6       442135935  ---  Logical Sectors Written
0x01  0x020  6        10934246  ---  Number of Write Commands
0x01  0x028  6          941592  ---  Logical Sectors Read
0x01  0x030  6          146734  ---  Number of Read Commands
0x01  0x038  6        21600000  ---  Date and Time TimeStamp
0x03  =====  =               =  ===  == Rotating Media Statistics (rev 1) ==
0x03  0x008  4               5  ---  Spindle Motor Power-on Hours
0x03  0x010  4               5  ---  Head Flying Hours
0x03  0x018  4              14  ---  Head Load Events
0x03  0x020  4               0  ---  Number of Reallocated Logical Sectors
0x03  0x028  4               0  ---  Read Recovery Attempts
0x03  0x030  4               0  ---  Number of Mechanical Start Failures
0x03  0x038  4               0  ---  Number of Realloc. Candidate Logical Sectors
0x03  0x040  4               9  ---  Number of High Priority Unload Events
0x04  =====  =               =  ===  == General Errors Statistics (rev 1) ==
0x04  0x008  4               0  ---  Number of Reported Uncorrectable Errors
0x04  0x010  4               0  ---  Resets Between Cmd Acceptance and Completion
0x05  =====  =               =  ===  == Temperature Statistics (rev 1) ==
0x05  0x008  1              34  ---  Current Temperature
0x05  0x010  1               -  ---  Average Short Term Temperature
0x05  0x018  1               -  ---  Average Long Term Temperature
0x05  0x020  1              35  ---  Highest Temperature
0x05  0x028  1              30  ---  Lowest Temperature
0x05  0x030  1               -  ---  Highest Average Short Term Temperature
0x05  0x038  1               -  ---  Lowest Average Short Term Temperature
0x05  0x040  1               -  ---  Highest Average Long Term Temperature
0x05  0x048  1               -  ---  Lowest Average Long Term Temperature
0x05  0x050  4               0  ---  Time in Over-Temperature
0x05  0x058  1              65  ---  Specified Maximum Operating Temperature
0x05  0x060  4               0  ---  Time in Under-Temperature
0x05  0x068  1               0  ---  Specified Minimum Operating Temperature
0x06  =====  =               =  ===  == Transport Statistics (rev 1) ==
0x06  0x008  4              39  ---  Number of Hardware Resets
0x06  0x010  4              14  ---  Number of ASR Events
0x06  0x018  4               0  ---  Number of Interface CRC Errors
                                |||_ C monitored condition met
                                ||__ D supports DSN
                                |___ N normalized value

Pending Defects log (GP Log 0x0c) not supported

SATA Phy Event Counters (GP Log 0x11)
ID      Size     Value  Description
0x0001  2            0  Command failed due to ICRC error
0x0002  2            0  R_ERR response for data FIS
0x0003  2            0  R_ERR response for device-to-host data FIS
0x0004  2            0  R_ERR response for host-to-device data FIS
0x0005  2            0  R_ERR response for non-data FIS
0x0006  2            0  R_ERR response for device-to-host non-data FIS
0x0007  2            0  R_ERR response for host-to-device non-data FIS
0x0008  2            0  Device-to-host non-data FIS retries
0x0009  2            2  Transition from drive PhyRdy to drive PhyNRdy
0x000a  2            3  Device-to-host register FISes sent due to a COMRESET
0x000b  2            0  CRC errors within host-to-device FIS
0x000d  2            0  Non-CRC errors within host-to-device FIS
0x000f  2            0  R_ERR response for host-to-device data FIS, CRC
0x0012  2            0  R_ERR response for host-to-device non-data FIS, CRC
0x8000  4        12449  Vendor specific

 

[Yorick]

the WD EFRX are silent! Like in "no contest", specifically when compared to my Toshiba N300

I think rotational speed has a lot to do with that, 5400 vs 7200. I'm a big fan of the "slower" WD NAS drives at 5400, I like quiet and cool.

deserves the fate of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation's marketing department.

Froody, man!

 

[elorimer]

Plus, the EFRX use less power: about 8 watts to spin up and 4 at idle. A Barracuda is more like 16 watts to spin up and 10 at idle.

No small thing because my FreeNAS is on a pico-psu 80.

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

I think rotational speed has a lot to do with that, 5400 vs 7200.

Honestly, I had no idea about the rotational speed. At the time I bought the Toshiba drives our company's default supplier (ALSO) did not offer anything I found attractively priced (for a hobby setup) and at Amazon the most frequent problem with disk drives seemed to be inadequate packaging of OEM products according to the reviews. I picked the N300 because they were reasonably priced and sold as a "retail product" with a complete shiny package around each single disk. No kidding, that was my main motivation. They have not failed me since, but they do make themselves noticed ;)

Patrick

 

[danb35]

deserves the fate of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation's marketing department.

Pity we'll have to wait for the revolution before that happens...

 

[gpsguy]

Got Newegg's promo email this aftertoon and immediatedly ordered a pair.

Newegg has the 4TB EFRX for $90 shipped today. On Amazon you can get a certified refurbished one for $145!

 

[elorimer]

Just noting, I got a 4TB EFRX a month ago from Amazon for $80. From the WD blog posts, it looks like these are no longer in production. So I was happy to get one to slot into my pool, to replace a drive that failed at 4 years, at $107.

 

[CraigD]

I have a WD Red 8TB with EFAX in the model number

I've read this only effects 2-6TB drives...

Luckily the rest of my 8TB are Ironwolfs

I paid a lot more for the WD Red drive to possibly get an inferior not fit for purpose SMR drive

Code:

Model Family:     Western Digital Red
Device Model:     WDC WD80EFAX-68KNBN0
Serial Number:    XXXXXXXXXXX
LU WWN Device Id: 5 000cca 099c5257c
Firmware Version: 81.00A81
User Capacity:    8,001,563,222,016 bytes [8.00 TB]
Sector Sizes:     512 bytes logical, 4096 bytes physical
Rotation Rate:    5400 rpm
Form Factor:      3.5 inches
Device is:        In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is:   ACS-2, ATA8-ACS T13/1699-D revision 4
SATA Version is:  SATA 3.2, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 3.0 Gb/s)
Local Time is:    Fri Apr 24 12:17:48 2020 NZST
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

Have Fun

 

[Yorick]

I have a WD Red 8TB with EFAX in the model number

I paid a lot more for the WD Red drive to possibly get an inferior not fit for purpose SMR drive

There's no reason to believe the WD80EFAX is SMR. From the platter DB:

WD80EFAX-xxKNBNx 8TB (5/10)*

*Note: Rebadged HGST Ultrastar 7K8 / DC HC320 model, given the identical "US7SAN8T0" R/N on the label and obvious exterior similarities. The official datasheet claims "5400 RPM Class", but the amperage ratings on the label (5V 0.7A, 12V 0.9A) are the same as found on the higher-RPM WD8003FFBX below, arousing one's curiosity.

Check the R/N! If it's still US7SAN8T0, then that's still a HGST DC HC320. Platter size is well below 2TB. If this was SMR, we'd expect 4 platters, 8 heads. The platter size DB is really helpful, when trusting manufacturers is hard. It's here: https://rml527.blogspot.com/2010/10/hdd-platter-database-western-digital-35_9883.html

 

[CraigD]

There's no reason to believe the WD80EFAX is SMR.

To a normal person there is every reason to believe drives with EFAX drive are SMR, 2-6TB drive like this are larger drives with the same naming are CMR, this is confusing, you have convinced me I'm fine

NAS drives should be able to support a rebuild in a timely manner, I imagine a vdev with many Archive drives or WD Red so called "NAS" drives could fail completely if the inferior drives are dropped from the vdev resulting in data loss, or a rebuild time is so long you data is at risk for months

WD need to be punished, but not destroyed

I only see Exos, Ironwolf and NVME drives in my immediate future

Have Fun

 

[Yorick]

Note that the exos 5e8 is dm-smr, which seagate calls out prominently in the data sheet, though.

 

[Cantrepeat]

They've released a list: https://blog.westerndigital.com/wd-red-nas-drives

Is there a reason why they would not list Gold drives in that doc?

 

[Yorick]

Is there a reason why they would not list Gold drives

If I were to guess: That post was aimed at consumers, and talked about consumer / prosumer drive lines.

WD likely didn’t want their data center drives - Gold and Ultrastar DC - anywhere near this mess.
Data center customers will buy SMR - see HGST’s HM-SMR line that you can’t even buy unless you are web scale - but they’d never touch a DM-SMR drive. Predictable performance is the name of that game.

 

[maclark7029]

@maclark7029 You are resilvering? You are seeing the dreaded IDNF errors, the firmware bug that WD insists is not a firmware bug. With other DM-SMR drives, resilver would eventually finish, after 5 days or so. This one, it’ll fail out of the vdev.

There might be ways around this - turn off write cache, a couple other tweaks, and waiting for even longer - and, you want no part of this. If you can, return the drive, and get something else.

It completed resilvering no prob in reasonable amount of time, but it just failed during a long test. Replacing with a Seagate.