I did this on my ReadyNAS Ultra 4. I installed the RootSSH Access addon to get shell access and got the idle3-tools download link from http://idle3-tools.sourceforge.net/# Install packages needed to compile idle3-toolsapt-get updateapt-get install libc6-dev gcc gdb libtag1-dev uuid-dev make automake# Do all work on /c (don't want to take any more space on the flash than we have to)cd /c# Download & Extract idle3-toolswget "http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/idle3-tools/idle3-tools-0.9.1.tgz?r=http%3A%2F%2Fsourceforge.net%2Fprojects%2Fidle3-tools%2F&ts=1324565985&use_mirror=superb-sea2"mv idle3-tools-0.9.1.tgz\?r\=http\:%2F%2Fsourceforge.net%2Fprojects%2Fidle3-tools%2F\&ts\=1324565985\&use_mirror\=superb-sea2 idle3-tools-0.9.1.tgztar -xzvf idle3-tools-0.9.1.tgz # Compile idle3-toolscd idle3-tools-0.9.1make# Disable the idle timer on each drive./idle3ctl -d /dev/sda./idle3ctl -d /dev/sdb./idle3ctl -d /dev/sdc./idle3ctl -d /dev/sddThe last step is to shutdown (NOT REBOOT) the ReadyNAS, unplug it, then plug it back in and boot. The IDLE timer should now be disabled.

Edalquist,you truly made my day :-]]]I just tried this on a Duo v2 and it simply worked like a charm. I got two WD20EARX disks inside the unit, running for four months now - and stumbled across the LCC issue just two weeks ago. I realized that one of the disks had already reached 100K, so I was desperately seeking for a way to get rid of this.I had no way of finding a current desktop machine that I could hook up the drives to, so this was my last hope.Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!!!

Damn, i did this recently on my disk, had to do all the complicated stuff with my desktop. If only i had found this thread...

Thanks for this tip. I just tried this remotely on my DuoV2 and it seems to work great. I have 2 WD30EZRX in there and they were factory set to 80 (8 seconds). After almost a month set at 80 they are both over 54,000 on LCC. I set them both to 250 (25 seconds ¿or maybe 61 minutes?) and will see how it goes over the next few days. I scheduled the power timer to shut it off for an hour to see if that will let the new setting take effect. If not I'll power cycle it when I get home.EDIT: If what I read is correct, this will hopefully also make the drives less noisy since they won't be parking the heads so much.UPDATE: This seems to of fixed my LCC issue. In 4 days my LCC count has increased by only 3 on both disks. The disks are quieter since the heads aren't parking all the time. Also remotely setting the power timer settings to power off the nas for just an hour let the new idle3 setting take effect, so this could be done completely remotely.

Hi,I would be glad if someone gives me a hand here. I did as instructed (using drives WD30EZRX), however i could not decide on the correct parameter.Some people say that they changed it to 300sSome disable using the /d optionHowever, when looking at the description and the table below, I am totally lost. Should I use -s300, -s254 or what? How do I know which version of the wdidle?Regards.Meaning of the returned raw value depending on the wdidle3 versionThe value 0 is used when the timer is disabled.The values 1 to 128 are reported in .1s by all wdidle3.exe versions.The values 129 to 255 are in .1s for version 1.00, but in 30s for versions 1.03 and 1.05The difference only affects the output, the stored timer is identical between versions. Maybe different WD drives have different beheviour.wdidle3 v1.00 v1.03 v1.050 disabled disabled disabled1 100ms 100ms 100ms100 10s 10s 10s128 12.8s 12.8s 12.8s129 12.9s 30s 30s130 13s 60s 60s254 25.4s 3780s 3780s255 25.5s 3810s 3810s

I didn't want to disable it all together because parking the heads is suppose to increase power savings. That's one of the reasons I got a NAS and green drives in the 1st place.I am guessing to set 300 seconds (5min) you'd want to use "-s 138" on each drive.138-128=1010x30=300 secondsI set mine to 250 which I think is 61 minutes, but I hear my drives working all the time and the LCC does go up a digit every couple of days, so maybe it is really 25 seconds, in which case you'd want to use "-s 3000" but it looks like you can only use up to "-s 255" (25.5 seconds).If you can afford to do it twice, I'd try "-s 138" on each drive first for a few days and see if the LCC count stops growing so fast. If not try "-s 255".

HOWTO: Disable WD IDLE3 via ReadyNAS

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Bob_K
Tutor
Mar 28, 2013
Linux code and procedures look like Greek to me. I'd love to start down the road of learning how to use it. Can this code be run from a Win7 machine? Is a Linux emulator required?

Can someone point me to a tutorial?
Bob_K
Tutor
Apr 06, 2013
I ended up using the advice here (http://blog.vacs.fr/?post/2009/03/21/Co ... ing-SSH%3A) and here (http://readynasxtras.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=27) to get started. I used the free telnet client program called PuTTY (http://www.putty.org) to make the interface between my Win7 x64 computer and the ReadyNAS Ultra 4.

SYNTAX (from the idle3 Sourcefourge page http://idle3-tools.sourceforge.net/)

idle3ctl [options] /dev/device
•-h : display help
•-l : show license and exit immediately
•-V : show version and exit immediately
•-v : verbose output
•--force : force even if no Western Digital HDD are detected
•-g : get raw idle3 timer value (default action)
•-g100 : get idle3 timer value as wdidle3 v1.00 would display it
•-g103 : get idle3 timer value as wdidle3 v1.03/v1.05 would display it
•-d : disable idle3 timer
•-s<value> : set idle3 timer raw value (1-255)

I used the command ./idle3ctl -s145 /dev/sda which resulted in a 510 second timer. I confirmed that with the command ./idle3ctl -g103 /dev/sda.

I'm really not sure yet how the different version of wdidle3 affect the timer raw value, but at least I'm getting started on understanding. One of my drives had a LCC of 286,000, so I needed to do something quick.
pugilares
Aspirant
Jun 11, 2013
Any solution for a SPARC machine? I have Duo v1 and two WD10EARS disks inside. LCC count for one of disks is already 501 458 and going up steadily. Second disk has 308 207 cycles counted so far. I don't have a PC with 3,5 bay here - only laptops.
wmsteele
Aspirant
Jun 30, 2013
Post 1 worked perfectly on a NV+ V2 with four WD30EZRX drives (RAID5), the constant noise was driving me mad. My NAS box is only 3 days old so no permanent damage done.

In that short time, roughly 68 hours, the drives all reported Load Cycle Counts of around 1800.

The chirping/ticking of the drives alerted me that something wasn't right, I have a couple of other green WD drives in Windows PC's that dont make a sound, guess its Linux they don't like.
mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired
Jun 30, 2013
wmsteele it's being used in a RAID array that is the problem. The Green disks want to do things to themselves to conserve power which the NAS needs to control to maintain the integrity of the RAID array as well as possible.

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HOWTO: Disable WD IDLE3 via ReadyNAS

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