NETGEAR is aware of a growing number of phone and online scams. To learn how to stay safe click here.
Forum Discussion
WD20EARS just added on the official HCL - mistake and issues
The official HCL has (quietly !) been updated for Sparc based machines with a 2TB WD desktop class drive: the WD20EARS (http://www.readynas.com/?page_id=82). This is in principle good news as the WD20EADS which might have been a candidate (if not discontinued in a near future) seems to have a lot a quality and compatibility issues.
But ... :
1) The HCL mentions the exact version to be used: WD20EARS-00R6B0. Googling the reference does not provide any answer (but the WD20EADS-00R6B0 which is well known). AFAIK, the current available version of the drive is the WD20EARS-00S8B1.
There should be an error in the HCL or the new entry is useless !
2) No restriction appears on the RAIDiator version to be used meaning by the way that the new 4K sector size, which implementation starts in high capacity drives such as the EARS, is fully supported since the beginning. It's amazing as other vendors have delivered updated firmwares for that specific purpose (and keep partitions aligned or performance may degrade significantly).
Or will the 4K sector size be supported by RAIDiator 4.1.7 as current beta "adds support for WD drives that don’t support TLER" (= WD desktop drives) ?
And does this new entry in the offical HCL mean that LCC issues are now fully tackled by RAIDiator 4.1.7 (since the EARS has the same green features as the EADS and WDIDLE is not supported by WD on newer drives), even though some users report recent WD firmwares do not count any more Intellipark related LCC in the Smart infos ?
Please Jedis clarify and thanks to still supporting early (Infrant ...) adopters !
Regards.
But ... :
1) The HCL mentions the exact version to be used: WD20EARS-00R6B0. Googling the reference does not provide any answer (but the WD20EADS-00R6B0 which is well known). AFAIK, the current available version of the drive is the WD20EARS-00S8B1.
There should be an error in the HCL or the new entry is useless !
2) No restriction appears on the RAIDiator version to be used meaning by the way that the new 4K sector size, which implementation starts in high capacity drives such as the EARS, is fully supported since the beginning. It's amazing as other vendors have delivered updated firmwares for that specific purpose (and keep partitions aligned or performance may degrade significantly).
Or will the 4K sector size be supported by RAIDiator 4.1.7 as current beta "adds support for WD drives that don’t support TLER" (= WD desktop drives) ?
And does this new entry in the offical HCL mean that LCC issues are now fully tackled by RAIDiator 4.1.7 (since the EARS has the same green features as the EADS and WDIDLE is not supported by WD on newer drives), even though some users report recent WD firmwares do not count any more Intellipark related LCC in the Smart infos ?
Please Jedis clarify and thanks to still supporting early (Infrant ...) adopters !
Regards.
124 Replies
Replies have been turned off for this discussion
- Almost 2 weeks constant use. 4x2TB WD discs. LCC only 13 on 3 of the discs, but at 991 on the 4th. Maybe I didn't do WDIDLE3 properly on it!? I'll check back in about 2 more weeks. Everything else looks good.
- I'm glad things are working out! :-) The new firmware releases certainly help a good bit, too. :-)
- I have a disc spin down on my other NAS drives, (DNS 323, three of them) of 10 mins. I want to do the same to the NV+ but I want to be sure all is ok first. Any thoughts if this will cause problems with the WD20EARS discs?
ensign_ricky wrote: I have a disc spin down on my other NAS drives, (DNS 323, three of them) of 10 mins. I want to do the same to the NV+ but I want to be sure all is ok first. Any thoughts if this will cause problems with the WD20EARS discs?
I've had my drives set to spin-down since I first got my NV+ a few years back - I've never encountered any issue. I've usually set my drives to 5 or 10 minutes. There were no issues before the WD20EARS upgrade and I've not seen any problem since the WD20EARS drives were installed. I see no reason not to - the system is much cooler and happier when it's not in-use. :D As is the UPS that displays the power consumption for it. :D- LCC on disc 4 gone up by 300 overnight, others no change. Guess I screwed up somewhere, oops. I'll recheck at the weekend and set the spin down too.
- I'm Happy! 5 mins work. WDIDLE3 was set to 30 instead of 300. Problem now solved. Spin down set to 10mins, quieter and cooler (I'll probably get around to putting a less noisy fan soon) looking forward to filling this NAS up. Thanks for all the help.
- Has anyone tried installing the SSH add-on for an Intel-based ReadyNAS and fiddled with the logging setup and other runtime parameters, as described in the WD article, to reduce the "idle time" hits on the disks? Did it make any difference in how quickly the LCC increases?
adamwilt wrote: Has anyone tried installing the SSH add-on for an Intel-based ReadyNAS and fiddled with the logging setup and other runtime parameters, as described in the WD article, to reduce the "idle time" hits on the disks? Did it make any difference in how quickly the LCC increases?
I answered my own question: the disk-sync disabling is already in place in the syslog.conf setup, and a --MARK-- every 20 minutes couldn't account for the LCC increases folks see.
So I took CommanderQ's ISO image for a WDIDLE3 utility (at viewtopic.php?f=24&t=39737&start=95) and set differing idle timeouts on WD20EARS disks in my new Ultra 6. Over a 15-minute period (with about a 20% duty cycle of accessing vs leaving the NAS idle), here's what I saw in terms of LCC increases:
Idle setting, seconds: LCC increase, count/15 min
8.0 (default): 31
10.0: 23
12.5: 15
30.0: 0
60.0: 0
WDIDLE3 version 1.05 only allows settings from 8.0-12.7 seconds and from 30.0 - 300.0 seconds; just looking at the trends I wonder if 15 or 20 seconds would have been fine... but 30 works, so I wound up setting all my disks to 30.0, and they've been happy ever since. And if by some chance they do get left alone, they will unload and save power.
An odd thing: we've been using WD20EADS (prior generation) drives in our two existing ReadyNAS Pros for the past year, and in a couple of our Macs. The WD20EADS *also* has an idle time of 8.0 seconds according to WDIDLE3, yet the LCC on these drives hasn't been climbing excessively; it's roughly in line with the start/stop count. Why aren't the EADS drives showing the same LCC behavior? The EARS has 4k sectors and twice the cache of the EADS, but should those alone result in such a radically different load cycle count?MrCyberdude wrote: There is a new version of the WD20EARS-00MVWB0 and its a 2TB with 3 x 666GB platters.
viewtopic.php?f=24&t=43030
Another victim here. I just bought 4x WD20EARS drives after checking the compatibility list. And no, I didn't read the notes. It's on a hardware compatibility list.
Yep. Compatibility. And just in case I don't understand what compatibility means, Netgear helpfully explain at the top....we take it upon ourselves to list ONLY drives that have passed our stringent disk qualification test.
So why is WD20EARS in the list at all? And why is it at the top? Only means only.
I'm not a readynas expert and none of my retailers list any more than WD20EARS in their product listing. It had the biggest cache number, it's at the very top of a HCL, got to be a good buy.
The note says:Firmware 80.00A80, Model # WD20EARS-00S8B1, See Tech Bulletin http://www.readynas.com/?p=3690
Which is a non-warning. :slap: What it SHOULD say is:ONLY Firmware 80.00A80, Model # WD20EARS-00S8B1 has been tested, caution should be exercised with all other models. See Tech Bulletin http://www.readynas.com/?p=3690
On better HCLs I've seen this type of info on a separate heading.
It could have been clearer and so I feel misled. Now I feel pretty stupid. I have 4x WD20EARS-00MVWB0 sitting here and I put them in one by one and they all come up as dead. :( And I don't have the time to go through endless workaround.- I have 2 of these and a shiney new Readynas Duo. But I don't dare take the WD20EARSs out of their bags yet in case I have to sell them and buy an alternative.
I am getting mixed messages from helpful forum members and so it is confusing.
A clarrified official line would be good. Are these WD20EARS-00S8B1s fully compatible or are they not?
NETGEAR Academy
Boost your skills with the Netgear Academy - Get trained, certified and stay ahead with the latest Netgear technology!
Join Us!
