[Bug 969165] [NEW] hdparm: excessive Load_Cycle_Count with some WD "Intelli-Park" HDDs

[Colin King]

Public bug reported:

On a Dell E5420 I noticed the HDD is constantly spinning up/down.  The
drive is a WDC2500BEVT-7 which is apparently a "green" WD HDD which has
firmware magic called "Intelli-Park" to park the HDD to save power..
Apparently the default settings it parks the heads after 8 seconds of
inactivity and with a lifetime of ~1,000,000 Load_Cycle_Counts we may
see these drives fail sooner than expected.

I was easily able to get the HDD to bump the Load_Cycle_Count by at
least ~4 in 60 seconds, which equates to ~700,000 in a year assuming we
use the HDD for 8 hours a day. The lifetime is ~1,000,000
Load_Cycle_Counts, so this is a bit alarming to say the least.  This
happens even with hdparm -B 128 /dev/sda; I was under the impression
that  values > 127 *should* not permit spin down, but looks like this
drive needs -B 255 for stop this.  So I think we have a green drive that
tries too hard and will end up shortening its life.

There is some discussion of this here:

http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=51401

And some explanation from WD about the issue here:

http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5357

This may affect the following models:

WD20EADS, WD20EARS, WD15EADS, WD15EARS, WD10EADS, WD10EARS, WD8000AARS,
WD7500AADS, WD7500AARS, WD6400AADS, WD6400AARS, WD5000AADS, WD5000AARS

Can we quirk on these drives to select a more appropriate default hdparm
setting?

** Affects: hdparm (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
     Assignee: Steve Langasek (vorlon)
         Status: New

** Changed in: hdparm (Ubuntu)
     Assignee: (unassigned) => Steve Langasek (vorlon)

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/969165

Title:
  hdparm: excessive Load_Cycle_Count with some WD "Intelli-Park" HDDs

Status in “hdparm” package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  On a Dell E5420 I noticed the HDD is constantly spinning up/down.  The
  drive is a WDC2500BEVT-7 which is apparently a "green" WD HDD which
  has firmware magic called "Intelli-Park" to park the HDD to save
  power.. Apparently the default settings it parks the heads after 8
  seconds of inactivity and with a lifetime of ~1,000,000
  Load_Cycle_Counts we may see these drives fail sooner than expected.

  I was easily able to get the HDD to bump the Load_Cycle_Count by at
  least ~4 in 60 seconds, which equates to ~700,000 in a year assuming
  we use the HDD for 8 hours a day. The lifetime is ~1,000,000
  Load_Cycle_Counts, so this is a bit alarming to say the least.  This
  happens even with hdparm -B 128 /dev/sda; I was under the impression
  that  values > 127 *should* not permit spin down, but looks like this
  drive needs -B 255 for stop this.  So I think we have a green drive
  that tries too hard and will end up shortening its life.

  There is some discussion of this here:

  http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=51401

  And some explanation from WD about the issue here:

  http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5357

  This may affect the following models:

  WD20EADS, WD20EARS, WD15EADS, WD15EARS, WD10EADS, WD10EARS,
  WD8000AARS, WD7500AADS, WD7500AARS, WD6400AADS, WD6400AARS,
  WD5000AADS, WD5000AARS

  Can we quirk on these drives to select a more appropriate default
  hdparm setting?

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