I found this that I saved in a text file. I think it's yours, Arno:
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Ok, I have now changed the load cycle timeout on my WD5000AADS
to never without any problem.
A quick web-serach for the tool used (WDIDLE3) revealed
that this problem is not limited to this particular drive
and happens Under Windows, Linux and OSX. My conclusion
is that HDD manufacturers in general and here WD in particular
should be assumed to be lying scum that are far more interested
in hiding a problem than fixing it and helping their customers
to keep their data safe.
The problem:
A WD disk can run through up to 4 load-unload cycles per
minute. This can be seen with a SMART tool in attribute 193
"Load_Cycle_Count". I have personally observed 2 load cycles
per minute under Linux and Windows 7. The problem is that
these drives do a head unload after an idle time of 8 seconds,
which is an universally bad choice.
Apparently these drives are rated for a maximum number of
300k load cycles (or 600k for the RE drives), which can mean
death within just about 2 months operating time. In my case it
would have come down to 9 months real-time as the disk is
in a not always running desktop PC.
Scope:
This problem seems to affect some GP drive models and some RE
drives from WD. These drives do not allow APM settings, so the
usual way to fix this in notebook drives (which practically all
have the same issue) is not possible. Mine is a 500GB drive,
and I have seen reports of thos problem in 640GB and 1.5TB
drives. Unless you know better, assume you are affected and
check.
Fix:
Usual disclaimer applies, i.e. if anything goes wrong, I am
not to blame.
Get the WDIDLE3 tool, e.g. from WD or find it via Google:
http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=609&sid=113&lang=en
Ignore the warnings on the WD site, they are direct lies. This
tool does not mess with the firmware, it just sets one drive
operation parameter via a vendor method. It is also not limited
to the drives they state.
Make a DOS boot-medium with the method of your choice and
put the uncompressed contents of the archive with the
WDIDLE3 tool on it. I made a bootable DOS USB stick with
the tools from
http://www.flazh.de/en/bios-boot-usb-stick.htm
Making a backup of the affected WD disk is highly recommended
at this point, even if this seems to be a low-risk operation.
Shut down your computer and unplug all drives except the WD drive
in question. Boot to DOS. Run wdidle3.exe without options. If
it detects your drive and displays its unload timeout, proceed
to change it. I used the /d option to wdidle3, which completely
disables unloads on idle. You can instead just increase it to
300 sec, which should also avoid most load cycles. Note that
setting it to anything below 30 seconds may _not_ fix the problem
at all, as for example Linux flushes to disk every 30 seconds
when mostly idle.
The setting is persistent. Shut down computer, re-plug the other
disks (if any), reboot and use a SMART tool of your choice to
check whether the load cycles have indeed stopped increasing
at their previous insane rate.
Arno
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