forum.excito.org

Posted: **23 Feb 2009, 01:45**

Hi Johannes,
The hard-disk was actually included in the B2 1TB package as I purchased it at the official local Bubba dealer.
Today my load count is 144640 (B2 in use for almost 5 months now).
Rob

Posted: **23 Feb 2009, 01:49**

Yes, thats almost one offload per minute. Strange, I haven't seen that before. Perhaps the -FYPS drives are even more agressive in their offload timer.

Thanks for this information. We'll take it into account.

Posted: **23 Feb 2009, 05:14**

Hello Johannes, Robv

I have exactly the same disk as RobV.
The proposed script does not work for me either.
I managed to stop the Load Cycle Count increase with the script below.
Just run it as 'normal' user (su is not needed).

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh
while [ 1 ]; do
    ls -l $HOME/. > $HOME/wd.prevent.unload.txt
    sleep 5
done

Here are my figures:

Code: Select all

Mon Feb 23 10:56:01 CET 2009
Device Model:     WDC WD1000FYPS-01ZKB0
Serial Number:    WD-WCASJ1909169

  9 Power_On_Hours       0x0032   098   098   000    Old_age  Always  -    2137
193 Load_Cycle_Count     0x0032   136   136   000    Old_age  Always  -  193803
194 Temperature_Celsius  0x0022   123   111   000    Old_age  Always  -      29

Posted: **23 Feb 2009, 17:59**

Hi Johannes,

YES the cycle stopped after your last change yesterday.

it is stopped by 257.233 (with torrents at work but that didn't help much before so it must be the script.)

Thanks for now.

I contacted WD and they take no responsibility for linux systems. I do not expect much from them.

Thanks

Puma

Posted: **26 Feb 2009, 14:14**

Dear Johannes,
I can confirm that Peter's solution (using the $HOME instead of the /tmp directory) works for me as well; even with a sleep of 5 seconds!!!
It appears that Linux deals with the /tmp directory in a different way than it does with other directories. Please take notice of that when trying to find a solution.
You might even consider moving the Linux log files to /tmp???
Kind regards, Rob

Posted: **03 Mar 2009, 05:47**

RobV wrote:Dear Johannes,
I can confirm that Peter's solution (using the $HOME instead of the /tmp directory) works for me as well; even with a sleep of 5 seconds!!!
It appears that Linux deals with the /tmp directory in a different way than it does with other directories. Please take notice of that when trying to find a solution.
You might even consider moving the Linux log files to /tmp???
Kind regards, Rob

Some linux systems have /tmp mounted as a RAM-drive, but I'm fairly sure that this isn't the case with Bubba, and hence the /tmp would work as any other folder. I suspect that that the simple touch command can be handled by the cache while the more data shoveling ls -l has to be handled directly, and thus preventing spin-down.

Posted: **03 Mar 2009, 05:52**

Here are my numbers:

Code: Select all

tis mar  3 11:26:04 CET 2009
Device Model:     WDC WD10EACS-65D6B0
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   096   096   000    Old_age   Always       -       3227
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       30
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   123   102   000    Old_age   Always       -       27

I ordered the Bubba August/September sometime. Seems like I'm on the lucky side of the line.

Posted: **03 Mar 2009, 16:25**

Hummm, no luck for me!

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Tue Mar  3 21:22:29 WET 2009
Device Model:     WDC WD5000AACS-00ZUB0
Serial Number:    WD-WCASU4833413
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   097   097   000    Old_age   Always       -       2837
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   126   126   000    Old_age   Always       -       223664
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   108   102   000    Old_age   Always       -       39

It would be nice to have an answer from WD...

On the bright side the script on this thread worked as advertised.

Helder

Posted: **05 Mar 2009, 16:40**

Any progress made by Excito for solving this problem?, may be another disk that isn't affected by this problem?

I don't think we should wait on WD.

Greetz. Rewien

Posted: **13 Mar 2009, 16:49**

I have added the proposed 5s script to start at boot time, but now the Bubba cannot reboot unless I kill the 5s process!
And when it gets back from a reboot, the LED is blinking all the time... The Apache and ntp process are not started.

This is what I did:

I put the script in /etc/init.d/ directory and made it executable: chmod +x stopHDread.sh

Then I issued the command:

Code: Select all

update-rc.d stopHDread.sh defaults

The script itself:

Code: Select all

cat /etc/init.d/stopHDcycles.sh
#!/bin/sh

case "$1" in
  start)
    echo "Starting stopHDcycles.sh script...!"
    PID=`ps ax | grep 'stopHD'| awk '{print $1}'| sed 2d`
    echo $PID > /var/run/stopHDcycles.pid
    echo "Started"
    ;;

  stop)
    echo "Stopping stopHDcycles.sh..."
    start-stop-daemon --stop --pidfile /var/run/stopHDcycles.pid
    echo "Stopped"
    exit 0
    ;;

  *)
    echo "Usage: /etc/init.d/stopHDcycles.sh {start|stop}"
    exit 1
esac


while [ 1 ]; do
    ls -l $HOME/. > $HOME/wd.prevent.unload.txt
    sleep 5
done

As I said, the script starts at boot time, but is not letting the server into going into reboot or shutdown unless I kill the process manually!
How do I make it to stop automatically?! (OR start it properly in the first place?!)

Posted: **14 Mar 2009, 05:34**

I haven't examined how Debian call its start-up scripts so correct me if I'm wrong, but having an infinite loop in a start-up script is a bad thing. It will probably prevent other scripts from running.

You should consider moving the infinite while loop to a separate script that you call from your start-up script using start-stop-daemon with the -b option to make it run in the background.

/Johan

Posted: **14 Mar 2009, 07:11**

I guess there's no news on the situation from WD/Excito themselves?

I dl torrents 24/7 just to try to stop this, but still the Load_Cycle_Count creeps up. :(

Posted: **14 Mar 2009, 16:29**

6feet5: makes sense...!

Posted: **15 Mar 2009, 11:47**

joost wrote:I guess there's no news on the situation from WD/Excito themselves?

I dl torrents 24/7 just to try to stop this, but still the Load_Cycle_Count creeps up.

I'm wondering the samething, if Excito have found any solotion to this problem?

Posted: **21 Mar 2009, 10:58**

Today I took out my harddisk out of the Bubba and attached it to a PC.
Started the PC in DOS mode and flashed my harddisk with the WD firmware update (RE2IdleModeUpd.zip). After that I used the spinup tool of WD (wdspinup.zip) and set the drive to "super low current spinup mode".
After that I put the harddisk back into the Bubba again and rebooted.

Note: The firmware update only works for the WD-RE2 Drives (See model number below).

Everything looks fine upto now. I don't need any script to keep the drive busy.
A side-effect of the firmware update is that the smartctl data is reset.

Code: Select all

Sat Mar 21 15:50:01 CET 2009
Device Model:     WDC WD1000FYPS-01ZKB1
Serial Number:    WD-WCASJ1909169
Firmware Version: 02.01B02
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       5
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       1
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       5
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   122   122   000    Old_age   Always       -       30

It should be possible for WD to deliver a firmware update which can be started from a linux device (Bubba). I don't understand why this still has to be DOS.
Can't excito put some pressure on WD to achieve this?

forum.excito.org

[SOLVED] [Old] WD Green Power drives may kill themselves !!

Load cycle script works