Re: Western Digital GreenPower drives and Linux

["Mike Snitzer" <snitzer@gmail.com>]

On Sat, Apr 12, 2008 at 11:20 AM, Mike Snitzer <snitzer@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Sat, Apr 12, 2008 at 3:11 AM, Tvrtko A. Ursulin <tvrtko@ursulin.net> wrote:
>  > On Saturday 12 April 2008 04:19:33 Mike Snitzer wrote:
>  >  > Any chance you could make your iso available for the freedos w/
>  >  > wdidle3.exe bootable cd?
>  >  >
>  >  > I can't track down wdidle3.exe on wdc.com; they have "Data Lifeguard"
>  >  > and such but I have no idea if the wdidle3.exe is buried in those
>  >  > downloads.
>  >
>  >  According to the licence which comes with that thing distribution is not
>  >  allowed. Also it wouldn't be bad if more people contacted WD about it so that
>  >  they figure out they at least need to make it available as a download, if not
>  >  something better.
>
>  Just an FYI, I had a look at my counters for a 1TB GP I've had in
>  always-on service (expansion drive for my tivo; which runs Linux) for
>  6 months.  I'm not seeing any issues, Load_Cycle_Count is quite low.
>
>  Device Model:     WDC WD10EACS-32ZJB0
>  Firmware Version: 01.01B01
>
>    9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   094   094   000    Old_age
>  Always       -       4763
>   12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age
>  Always       -       7
>  193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age
>  Always       -       9
>
>  Given the Tivo is constantly doing IO it must've prevented the disk
>  from ever spinning down.

Turns out 'wdidle3 /R' on my drive reported:
"Idle3 Timer is disabled"

I took no explicit action to disable it 6 months ago. It strikes me as
odd that WD would disable the Idle3 timer in firmware given the whole
"GreenPower" campaign but I was pleasantly surprised; others may be
too...