Hi,could ze jedis give their opinion on the following situation:While checking my smart values after a forth drive expansion (4x1TB) I found that my three other drives that are 7 months old have +200 000 Load Cycle Count Raw Read Error Rate 0Spin Up Time 7725Start Stop Count 834Reallocated Sector Count 0Seek Error Rate 0Power On Hours 4995Spin Retry Count 0Calibration Retry Count 0Power Cycle Count 9Power-Off Retract Count 7Load Cycle Count 218854Temperature Celsius 34Reallocated Event Count 0Current Pending Sector 0Offline Uncorrectable 0UDMA CRC Error Count 0Multi Zone Error Rate 0 ATA Error Count 0While checking some forums, I find that this situation is somehow disturbing, at least confusing...It is stated that :1) This kind (wd gp) of drives is designed for 300k-500k Load cycle count2) Many Linux environments generate very high Load cycle count and are worried about such counts growth (76+ / hour)3) WD has issued a WDIDLE3 DOS only, SATA only, tool that can enable/change timer/disable the current default 8s timer for Intellipark.4) This could also somehow be achieved with hdparm5) Some Unix HD flushing mecanism must also be consideredPlease, please, please, as you now that many of us are happy (even with spin down off) Users of such disk, could you create an add-on or fix or statement on how to avoid this situation.I'm more than ready to disable "intellipark" and run WDIDLE3 on many, many, many drives.....or to run away from these drives (although $$$$ losses will hurt)...To all wd10eacs and other wd gp drive users please post your Load Cycle Counts (LCC) here to help asses the situation.Thank you.

Obviously there are two wd10eacs references...WDC WD10EACS-00ZJB0 (old) and WDC WD10EACS-00D6B0 (new)Disk 1,2,3 of 4 show same kind of numbers and increase rate. They are 7 months older than Disk 4. And disk4 doesn't increase its count at all as opposed to disk1.2.3.SMART Information for Disk 1Model: WDC WD10EACS-00ZJB0Firmware: 01.01B01SMART Attribute Raw Read Error Rate 0Spin Up Time 7725Start Stop Count 834Reallocated Sector Count 0Seek Error Rate 0Power On Hours 4996Spin Retry Count 0Calibration Retry Count 0Power Cycle Count 9Power-Off Retract Count 7Load Cycle Count 218907Temperature Celsius 33Reallocated Event Count 0Current Pending Sector 0Offline Uncorrectable 0UDMA CRC Error Count 0Multi Zone Error Rate 0 ATA Error Count 0Extended Attribute Hot-add events 0Hot-remove events 0Lp stat events 0Power glitches 0Hard disk resets 0Retries 0Repaired sectors 0*************************************SMART Information for Disk 2Model: WDC WD10EACS-00ZJB0Firmware: 01.01B01SMART Attribute Raw Read Error Rate 0Spin Up Time 5408Start Stop Count 945Reallocated Sector Count 0Seek Error Rate 0Power On Hours 3804Spin Retry Count 0Calibration Retry Count 0Power Cycle Count 9Power-Off Retract Count 7Load Cycle Count 245819Temperature Celsius 37Reallocated Event Count 0Current Pending Sector 0Offline Uncorrectable 0UDMA CRC Error Count 0Multi Zone Error Rate 0 ATA Error Count 0Extended Attribute Hot-add events 0Hot-remove events 0Lp stat events 0Power glitches 0Hard disk resets 0Retries 0Repaired sectors 0*************************************SMART Information for Disk 3Model: WDC WD10EACS-00ZJB0Firmware: 01.01B01SMART Attribute Raw Read Error Rate 0Spin Up Time 6283Start Stop Count 952Reallocated Sector Count 0Seek Error Rate 0Power On Hours 6217Spin Retry Count 0Calibration Retry Count 0Power Cycle Count 13Power-Off Retract Count 9Load Cycle Count 207421Temperature Celsius 38Reallocated Event Count 0Current Pending Sector 0Offline Uncorrectable 0UDMA CRC Error Count 1Multi Zone Error Rate 0 ATA Error Count 0Extended Attribute Hot-add events 0Hot-remove events 0Lp stat events 0Power glitches 0Hard disk resets 0Retries 0Repaired sectors 0*************************************SMART Information for Disk 4Model: WDC WD10EACS-00D6B0Firmware: 01.01A01SMART Attribute Raw Read Error Rate 0Spin Up Time 0Start Stop Count 2Reallocated Sector Count 0Seek Error Rate 0Power On Hours 8Spin Retry Count 0Calibration Retry Count 0Power Cycle Count 2Power-Off Retract Count 1Load Cycle Count 2Temperature Celsius 34Reallocated Event Count 0Current Pending Sector 0Offline Uncorrectable 0UDMA CRC Error Count 0Multi Zone Error Rate 0 ATA Error Count 0Extended Attribute Hot-add events 0Hot-remove events 0Lp stat events 0Power glitches 0Hard disk resets 0Retries 0Repaired sectors 0

Relevant Info from my 3 drives:Model: WDC WD10EACS-00ZJB0Firmware: 01.01B01Spin Up Time 7441 7525 0Start Stop Count 98 112 5Power On Hours 4458 3266 3213Power Cycle Count 11 10 5Power-Off Retract Count 9 9 4Load Cycle Count 247217 252210 196367

FWIW...The new drive count is not increasing at all.So I checked with WDIDLE3 and both old and new drives use the same 8000ms timer...I guess WD did fix something on the drive/firmware. Maybe just the way SMART reports the Load cycle count... :lol: Please provide your own feedback.Thank you.

HD 1: Load Cycle Count 113371HD 2: Load Cycle Count 129139HD 3: Load Cycle Count 22678HD 4: Load Cycle Count 21784All are WD10EACS drives (WDC WD10EACS-00ZJB0), the last two were added two months agoshould I worry?

ReadyNAS NV+ with 4x 1TB WD1000FYPS installed 27 February 2008 SMART Data 27/9/2008SMART AttributeDisk 1 2 3 4Raw Read Error Rate 0 9356 0 0Spin Up Time 7616 7616 7616 7616Start Stop Count 187 186 186 186Reallocated Sector Count 0 0 0 0Seek Error Rate 0 0 0 0Power On Hours 2193 2192 2192 2192Spin Retry Count 0 0 0 0Calibration Retry Count 0 0 0 0Power Cycle Count 187 186 186 186Power-Off Retract Count 187 185 185 185Load Cycle Count 105947 113924 133689 133689Temperature Celsius 29 33 33 33Reallocated Event Count 0 0 0 0Current Pending Sector 0 0 0 0Offline Uncorrectable 0 0 0 0UDMA CRC Error Count 0 0 0 0Multi Zone Error Rate 0 0 0 0ATA Error Count 2 4 4 4Extended AttributeHot-add events 0 0 0 0Hot-remove events 0 0 0 0Lp stat events 0 0 0 0Power glitches 0 0 0 0Hard disk resets 0 0 0 0Retries 0 0 0 0Repaired sectors 0 0 0 0

WD10EACS: Huge Load cycle count [ NOT SOLVED] in 4.2.9

Raw Read Error Rate 0
Spin Up Time 7725
Start Stop Count 834
Reallocated Sector Count 0
Seek Error Rate 0
Power On Hours 4995
Spin Retry Count 0
Calibration Retry Count 0
Power Cycle Count 9
Power-Off Retract Count 7
Load Cycle Count 218854
Temperature Celsius 34
Reallocated Event Count 0
Current Pending Sector 0
Offline Uncorrectable 0
UDMA CRC Error Count 0
Multi Zone Error Rate 0

ATA Error Count 0

29 Replies

Replies have been turned off for this discussion

snipes
Aspirant
Nov 09, 2008
They still climbed by ~30 in an hour. Since the LCC count was already so high I decided to just disable and stop it where it currently is.
rstone
Aspirant
Nov 09, 2008
snipes wrote:
I tried using the max timer value of 25.5 seconds with wdidle3

For those of you who don't have the software mentioned by snipes and others...I found a site that has the dos utility

ftp://76.17.197.241/public/software/dos/utilities/

Good Luck!
snahl
Guide
Dec 18, 2009
Fixed the high LC count (LCC) on four of my WD10EACS-00ZJB0 by using 'wdidle3 /D'.

LCC counts are now stable.

As of today one can download 'WDidle3.exe' from the URL below:

http://home.arcor.de/ghostadmin/wdidle3_1_00.zip

Hope this helps someone.
snahl
Guide
Dec 18, 2009
Forgot to mention that after disabling the idle timer (option /D) the temperature of all 4 disks averaged lower at 33°C / 91°F.

This temparature reading was taken immediately after copying 6.3GB of data onto the drives of my NV+.

Before the temperature averaged around 39°C /102.2°F
DrieStone
Aspirant
Jan 27, 2010
I too have a WDC WD10EADS-00M2B0 with high Load Cycle Count. I don't even know where I'd get ahold of a PC with SATA as I'm a Mac guy and only have laptops here. I don't suppose I can run the WD util on a drive over USB?
Bigbearf
Aspirant
Jan 27, 2010
@DrieStone

I am a Mac guy also but it is so much easier to use an old Windoze machine and IDE to SATA adapter to perform the Dos fix. Kind of like using a flat head screwdriver on a phillips head screw. :D

Hope this helps.
bigbearf
atz6975
Guide
Jan 30, 2010
Hi,
As far as I'm concerned issue is solved in 4.2.9.
As of yesterday my load cycle count is stable (just under 500k !!!) for older WDC WD10EACS-00ZJB0 drive. Drives WDC WD10EACS-00D6B0 were never affected and continue to be stable.
So much for accurate release notes...
...but thanks anyway.

ps: when is this available for NV+?
atz6975
Guide
Feb 09, 2010
Back to not solved.
My fault, I had activity (almost invisible) but as soon as that activity stopped the count went up again...
zvunks
Aspirant
Jul 18, 2011
Hi, you can download an ISO image with bootable FreeDOS and wdidle3.exe tool on it

http://tibi78.dyndns.org/wordpress/2011/07/wd-load-cycle-count-issue/

... follow the instructions.

I needed to deactivate this future due fact that i'm using several WD Green hard drives on Network Attached Storage, and LCC incresead dramaticaly.
I've tried Blue, Green and Black, 2,5 or 3,5 inch drives, all of them had this problem on linux, and fixed with wdidle3 tool.
If i used the hard drive in an external closer for backups porposes, i used the deafult timer setting.

Backup important data prior using wdidle3 tool!and use it on your own risk.

Forum Discussion

WD10EACS: Huge Load cycle count [ NOT SOLVED] in 4.2.9

29 Replies

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