WD20EARS just added on the official HCL - mistake and issues

OzzyJim wrote:
the factory reset worked on the second attempt. Currently sync'n the 2nd drive. Not sure whether the problem was WDTLER or possibly putting the drives back in the wrong bay. (What does happen if you swap the drives after shutdown?)

It's best to put drives back in the correct bay. Putting them in the wrong bay after shutdown may work with recent firmware, but why take a risk if you don't have to.

Hi All,

I think I found this topic just like most of you: Because of problems.
Below the story of my ReadyNAS NV+ in combination with the WD20EARS-00S8B1 drives:

Initial Setup:
1 * ReadyNAS NV+
1 * 1GB Memory
4 * Seagate ST31500341AS 1.5TB Drives (X-RAID)
RAIDator version 4.1.6
Used space about 98%

Checked the HCL for larger disks and found the WD20EARS drives.
Large, not to expensive and altrough not the fastest disk I thought the 64MB memory would help more than a higher rotating speed. So I ordered 4 of those disks to replace the currect 1.5TB disks.

I received for identical disks:
Model - WDC WD20EARS-00S8B1
Firmware - 80.00A80

Replaced one of the current disks with a brand new 2TB drive and... nothing. Removed the drive and then, searing the internet, I found this topic and made the decision to install the lastest beta firmware 4.1.7-T29. Reinstalled the disk again and it was recognized correctly. Waited about 7,5 hours to let the disk initialize and an additional 6,5 hour for the RAID Sync to compleet. I Repeated the steps for all four disks and restarted the system for the Volume Expansion to take place.

Now I got into throuble as the system don't start correctly. for several hour I only saw a blue flashing power button and on the display "Booting, please wait ...". I waited for at least 48 hour but still no result. In the end I just pulled the power cord and restarted the complete system again. Now it started up without problems and gave a message that a reboor was required to start to Volume expansion. With the third restart the expansion started I now I looking at the system with 5.4TB of storage.

BUT, the Load Cycle Count is high and still raising. Depending on the disk I'm looking at its between 200 and 400.
Disk1 - Power on hours: 80 - Load Cycle Count - 377 (two minutes later 385)
Disk2 - Power on hours: 73 - Load Cycle Count - 360
Disk3 - Power on hours: 49 - Load Cycle Count - 214
Disk4 - Power on hours: 37 - Load Cycle Count - 184

I think I will shut down the system for now and turn int on only when required until there is a real solution.

Kind regards,
Webaccess

OK, I'm officially worried about the life expectancy of my WD20EARS. Here are the SMART readings:

DISK 1
Raw Read Error Rate 0
Spin Up Time 8550
Start Stop Count 12
Reallocated Sector Count 0
Seek Error Rate 0
Power On Hours 106
Spin Retry Count 0
Calibration Retry Count 0
Power Cycle Count 10
Power-Off Retract Count 9
Load Cycle Count 1978
Temperature Celsius 43
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

DISK2
Raw Read Error Rate 0
Spin Up Time 9108
Start Stop Count 14
Reallocated Sector Count 0
Seek Error Rate 0
Power On Hours 117
Spin Retry Count 0
Calibration Retry Count 0
Power Cycle Count 12
Power-Off Retract Count 11
Load Cycle Count 2255
Temperature Celsius 43
Reallocated Event Count 0
Current Pending Sector 0
Offline Uncorrectable 0
UDMA CRC Error Count 0
Multi Zone Error Rate 0
ATA Error Count 36


Load Cycle Count seems a touch higher than I would expect. If the general rule of thumb for LCC is ~300,00 before the hard drive begins to fail, and I have my ReadyNAS DUO on 24 hours a day, then according to my calculations, the WD20EARS would last about 1.7 years. I'm not sure if I want to use wdidle3.exe to disable the timer as others have tried with mixed results. Should I start looking for new drives now? Hopefully RAIDiator updates could fix this problem.

I really hope 4.1.7 adopts a method to reduce the LCC before it goes final. These are one of the more accessible drives and with it on the HCL (though with a different suffix than almost any of us seem to have) more and more customers are going to get burned.

roadfun wrote:
I really hope 4.1.7 adopts a method to reduce the LCC before it goes final.

Fixing the LCC issue would probably require help from WD. It would be nice to have a fix in place though.

roadfun wrote:
These are one of the more accessible drives and with it on the HCL (though with a different suffix than almost any of us seem to have) more and more customers are going to get burned.

You can be "burned", but the onus is on you to check to make sure you get the compatible version of a drive mentioned on the HCL. The information is provided for a reason.

Webaccess wrote:

Hi All, I received for identical disks: Model - WDC WD20EARS-00S8B1 Firmware - 80.00A80 BUT, the Load Cycle Count is high and still raising. Depending on the disk I'm looking at its between 200 and 400. Disk1 - Power on hours: 80 - Load Cycle Count - 377 (two minutes later 385) Disk2 - Power on hours: 73 - Load Cycle Count - 360 Disk3 - Power on hours: 49 - Load Cycle Count - 214 Disk4 - Power on hours: 37 - Load Cycle Count - 184

Right now my LCCs are 200-250 but haven''t moved since I've been copying files for the last 24-48 hours. One thing that worried me were the ATA Error counts.

Disk 1:
Previous count: 36
Current count: 42
ATA error count has increased in the last day.

Disk 2:
Previous count: 18
Current count: 24
ATA error count has increased in the last day.

Disk 3:
Previous count: 6
Current count: 12
ATA error count has increased in the last day.

These also haven't moved for the last 24-48 hours. I will be adding my fourth 20EARS within 24 hours and report my findings, but hopefully everything is A-OK.

FWIW I have one of those drives installed. ATA error count was 24 and has stayed there vs 0 for my WD10EADS which has been running for nearly a year. From post in the Beta forum it appears either WD will have to do a firmware patch to deal with LCC or we have to get lucky and Netgear finds they can set the timer in 4.1.7 (apparently the x86 firmware can do this for some models of WD drives).

g17ss wrote:
These also haven't moved for the last 24-48 hours. I will be adding my fourth 20EARS within 24 hours and report my findings, but hopefully everything is A-OK.

^^ any news here??

I've found a German article about the LCC problem but some users posted here wdidle3 isn't supported by the EARS - is that true?
http://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/Baustelle/WDIntelliPower

I detailed my experience with the WD20EARS on this thread:
viewtopic.php?f=66&t=40222

Thank you for the link, I already read it.

I wrote WD and they answered the following:

Leider ist es wirklich so.Ich kann Ihnen nicht garantieren , dass der Workaround mit der WD20EARS zum Erfolg fuehrt. Sie koennen es selbst testen , aber vielleicht ist es empfehlenswerter eine andere Platte aus unserem Sortiment zu waehlen.

Translated it says:
Unfortunately, it's really that way. I can't guarantee you that the (WDidle3) workaround with the WD20EARS leads to success.
You can test it yourself, but maybe it is good to choose another hard drive from our product line.