NETGEAR is aware of a growing number of phone and online scams. To learn how to stay safe click here.
Forum Discussion
Should WD20EARS be removed from the HW Compatibility Lists
Am not impressed with my wasted disks purchase from the HW Compatibility List. After checking the list, I went for 2 x Western Digital 2TB WD20EARS hard drives for my Duo. http://kb.netgear.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/20641.
These have been running OK for 11 months but one drive started getting bad blocks and failed to resync. It failed Western Digital extended diags and also failed to re-allocate the bad blocks. When I was initially investigating the problem the SMART Stats showed a very high value for Load Cycle Count. (in the thousands), further research showed that these green drives have a default 8 second inactivity setting for parking the heads and this was the reason for the high count. I wonder if the bad blocks might be caused by a head crash due to the frequent park / reload of the heads.
I saw that one contributer here has used the Western Digital supplied diagnostic program called WDIDLE3 /S0 to disable the head park (http://www.readynas.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=44686)
I spoke to WD support in the USA to sort out the warranty replacement and in discussion he said that their Green drives such as this model are NOT suitable for NAS drives. The low power and head parking features make them unsuitable and their performance speed is generally poor. I mentioned running WDIDLE3 on the drive to disable head parking which he replied that it should NOT be run on this model and it may trash the drive, he recommended not using WD Green drives in the NAS.
It looks like these two disks will be heading for ebay and I will have to fork out a fistful of dollars for 2 better supported drives.
These WD20EARS drives really need removing of the HW compatibility lists! :evil:
***EDIT****
I have just come across this interesting opposing post so i include a link here for completeness
http://www.readynas.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=39737&hilit=site%3Areadynas.com+readynas+wd20ears&start=45#p229030
What i find particularly interesting is the use of WDIDLE3 didn't trash the drive, but does it affect warranty I wonder because the WD site is explicit as to the drives supported by WDIDLE3 and these are not in the list.
These have been running OK for 11 months but one drive started getting bad blocks and failed to resync. It failed Western Digital extended diags and also failed to re-allocate the bad blocks. When I was initially investigating the problem the SMART Stats showed a very high value for Load Cycle Count. (in the thousands), further research showed that these green drives have a default 8 second inactivity setting for parking the heads and this was the reason for the high count. I wonder if the bad blocks might be caused by a head crash due to the frequent park / reload of the heads.
I saw that one contributer here has used the Western Digital supplied diagnostic program called WDIDLE3 /S0 to disable the head park (http://www.readynas.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=44686)
I spoke to WD support in the USA to sort out the warranty replacement and in discussion he said that their Green drives such as this model are NOT suitable for NAS drives. The low power and head parking features make them unsuitable and their performance speed is generally poor. I mentioned running WDIDLE3 on the drive to disable head parking which he replied that it should NOT be run on this model and it may trash the drive, he recommended not using WD Green drives in the NAS.
It looks like these two disks will be heading for ebay and I will have to fork out a fistful of dollars for 2 better supported drives.
These WD20EARS drives really need removing of the HW compatibility lists! :evil:
***EDIT****
I have just come across this interesting opposing post so i include a link here for completeness
http://www.readynas.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=39737&hilit=site%3Areadynas.com+readynas+wd20ears&start=45#p229030
What i find particularly interesting is the use of WDIDLE3 didn't trash the drive, but does it affect warranty I wonder because the WD site is explicit as to the drives supported by WDIDLE3 and these are not in the list.
8 Replies
Replies have been turned off for this discussion
- Yes, the WDIDLE3 utility will work on at least older generation EARS drives, used it to disable it on a WD15EARS just the other day. I saw somewhere that it didn't work on newer generation green drives though but that might have been my imagination. A problem remains with the green drives though, they lack TLER and I don't know how the nas will handle that internally (the timeout used by mdraid).
- Do your drives match the extended p/n (WD20EARS-00S8B1 and with firmware 80.00A80)?
It is interesting in that WD has just come out with their red label drive series specifically designed for desktop RAID units such as the Duo. The WD10EFRX, WD20EFRX and WD30EFRX are approved by both Netgear and WD on all of the ARM and x-86 desktop units.
The WD10EFRX is approved for use on the NV+ but not the Duo (which has virtually the same hardware). The WD20EFRX is being tested at this point. WD definitely did their homework on this drive testing it and working with the manufacturers BEFORE they released it to the retail supply chain. Of course the sparc based units will not support the WD30EFRX because it requires the new file formatting method. - Hi Papa,
I have a DUO v1 (SPARC) and need to buy drives. I am very interested in the WD Red.
Is there any news yet on the results of Netgear testing the Reds on the older DUOs?
Many thanks, John. - i see they are still not on the list. I am not sure if they have finished testing or not. Netgear doesn't usually comment on testing progress unless the testing is complete and they pass in which case they are simply added to the list.
- I think the OP is correct - the WD Green drives, both the 2TB and the 3TB models have the well known LCC issue when run on NAS units such as the Readynas, and it has very much surprised me that the drives remained on the HCL lists for so long. I and many others have posted on the forum about this issue before, and Readynas has never responded. It looks like Readynas is now removing the Green drives and listing the red ones, but they should have done this sooner.
Sorry readynas, but I think you could have done better on this issue. - I have some WD20EARS drives and altought they are not on teh list of compatablity I am sure they where when i installed them. They are now reporting ATA 42 errors and the nas is locking up.
Wizball wrote: I have some WD20EARS drives and altought they are not on teh list of compatablity I am sure they where when i installed them. They are now reporting ATA 42 errors and the nas is locking up.
That's bad. :( Not all is lost though, it's possible to recover data from them -- but not from within the NAS itself.- What version of RAIDiator are you running Wizball. Those 42 ATA Errors could be due to running 4.1.6 or earlier with those drives installed at some point. There was an issue where the ATA error count would increase by 6.
Most likely one or more of the disks is failing/dead. Best to power down, remove the disks, connect them to an internal SATA port in your PC and check them using WD LifeGuard Diagnostics: http://www.readynas.com/kb/faq/hardware/how_can_i_verify_that_my_disk_is_bad
NETGEAR Academy
Boost your skills with the Netgear Academy - Get trained, certified and stay ahead with the latest Netgear technology!
Join Us!
