[mythtv-users] warning for anyone with western digital green drives

Tim Draper veehexx at gmail.com
Fri Jan 6 10:18:56 UTC 2012


i had this issue on a 1tb WD drive, on a Netgear ReadyNAS Duo.
the drive was actually clicking in and out alot, and was only a
problem on earlier firmware drives iirc.

i do know WD use a different head unload mechanism than some
manufacturers do/used to, so weather or not the unloading count figure
is something to be seriously concerned about, i dont know. WD use a
safe method where it removes the heads from the disk surface. other
manufactures leave the heads still intact with the surface, so load
cycle count does have a consequence.

however since my issue with the RND-Duo was the fact the drive kept
dropping in and out of low power mode, causing a 3second delay while
the drive span up again, i cant say if this is detrimental to drive
lifespan. SMART data only tells half the story really.
anyway, ran wdidle3, extended the timer in question, and everything was ok.

i suspect in a mythtv environment, drive spindown is not desired.

with that said, where does the HDD cache stand in all of this? some of
the newer drives are coming with 32 and 64mb cache now - would this
overcome the 3sec drive spinup period upon access, when using
aggressive power saving features?


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