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Western Digital Green HDD in a T2

Matthew

Matthew

Active Member
I`ve been handed a 2TB Western Digital Green wd20eads and wasn't intending on changing the 500Gb I have in my T2 but was wondering if this would work OK in it?

Looking through the forum it appears some have fitted the WD Greens so I'm hoping some that have can say if they had any problems or if it works just as well as a AV HDD long term.
 
I have now decided to give the drive a go, copied the old recordings etc over and swapped the drives, I'll report here how things go, initial notes below.

Specifically this is a Western Digital Caviar Green WDC WD20EADS which SMART shows has had 5 years use but is showing zero errors, SMART states 2 years life left.

Drive spin noise is less than the Seagate pipeline I`ve taken out but head 'chatter' is more, the Seagate ran at about 50°C (though occasionally reaching 55°C) the WDC is peaking at 54°C, so I`ve increased minimum fan speed by 10% which has reduced that to 52°C.

I`ve run tests and the drive has been fine so far. I`m considering adding an additional fan but advice seems to indicate direct cooling of the drive is unwise as an even high temperature throughout is better than an uneven cooler one.
 
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What are you running as minspeed. Mine runs MUCH cooler than that. Max is 38 at 55% fan.
Once it has reached that temp, it just stays there.
 
Would have thought that the HDD would have been cooler at that setting. I'l just crank mine down to 46% and see what happens.
Start temp now = 37 and has been since 17:53 after warm up.
 
The disk in question is not strictly an 'AV' drive. It may have intellipark activated (see here). If it does, it will be trying to park the head every 8 seconds. I believe that you can check this with smartmontools on the HDR-FOX. Based on the age of the drive, if intellipark is active, you should be able to turn it if with a utility called 'wdidle3'. You may need to attach the disk to a Windows PC to run wdidle3, but the setting should then stick once it is back in the HDR-FOX.
 
Trev said:
Seems to have settled at 41 degrees now (after 40 mins)
Click to expand...
Thanks, I`ve turned mine up to 55% now and idle temp reduced to 48°C after 75mins but then it started recording so rising again, I was avoiding higher figures as when I first got the unit without CF the fan would turn on and was noisy, but at 55% its actually OK (the pipeline smart is reporting an over-temp event)
 
MontysEvilTwin said:
The disk in question is not strictly an 'AV' drive. It may have intellipark activated (see here). If it does, it will be trying to park the head every 8 seconds. I believe that you can check this with smartmontools on the HDR-FOX. Based on the age of the drive, if intellipark is active, you should be able to turn it if with a utility called 'wdidle3'. You may need to attach the disk to a Windows PC to run wdidle3, but the setting should then stick once it is back in the HDR-FOX.
Click to expand...

Thanks, that's very useful, yes I realised its not really an AV drive but I found a number using it as a media drive so created this thread, I could use it for archiving but its just easier if I can keep it in the PVR.

I cant find any reference to smartmontools, could you give some links? hdinfo gives:

Capabilities:
LBA, IORDY(can be disabled)
Queue depth: 32
Standby timer values: spec'd by Standard, with device specific minimum
R/W multiple sector transfer: Max = 16 Current = 0
Recommended acoustic management value: 128, current value: 254
DMA: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5 *udma6
Cycle time: min=120ns recommended=120ns
PIO: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
Cycle time: no flow control=120ns IORDY flow control=120ns

I`ll try wdidle3 when I`ve time and its not in use.
 
If you look in Webif>Diagnostics>Disk you will see a summary of disk SMART statistics. The parameter to keep an eye on is Load_Cycle_Count (see here). If this low (hundreds) then intellipark is not a problem. If the value is in the thousands and increasing rapidly then you probably should use 'wdidle 3' to disable the feature.
 
Thanks, I`ve checked and it is high:

ID | Name | Flags |Raw Value |Value | Worst | Threshold | Life Left | Notes
193 | Load_Cycle_Count | -O--CK | 11278 | 197 | 197 | 000 | | -

I`ve had 2 crashes reporting encrypted file then no pause live Tv and new recordings fail, OK after reboot.

I`ll take the drive out tomorrow and use widdle 3 and see how it is then.
 
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If you have not found it yet, the official link to wdidle3 is here. I've not used it myself but there are instructions in a text file within the zip.
 
Matthew said:
Thanks, I`ve turned mine up to 55% now and idle temp reduced to 48°C...
Click to expand...
AAMOI is your HDR the original version with the horizontal RF connections, or the later one with the vertical ones? I ask as the later ones have the fan blowing inwards which will be better at cooling the drive.
 
af123 said:
I did not know that..!
Click to expand...
Think I first mentioned it in the Commissioning, Disassembly & Repair thread back in January and somewhere else since. Both my HDR V2 (aka REV) and a Humax DTR-T1000 (£3 in a charity shop - rude not to have bought it) have the fan blowing inwards.

Has the advantage of blowing air over the HDD and the slight positive pressure in the HDD cradle means you can cut a slot in the side to direct a bit of airflow over the main chip's heat spreader. Here's a picture:

HDD_slot_mod.JPG
 
everthewatcher said:
Think I first mentioned it in the Commissioning, Disassembly & Repair thread back in January and somewhere else since. Both my HDR V2 (aka REV) and a Humax DTR-T1000 (£3 in a charity shop - rude not to have bought it) have the fan blowing inwards.

Has the advantage of blowing air over the HDD and the slight positive pressure in the HDD cradle means you can cut a slot in the side to direct a bit of airflow over the main chip's heat spreader. Here's a picture:

View attachment 3503
Click to expand...

Thanks for this and sorry for not getting back for ages!! I reversed my fan and it definitely is a improvement, the HD stays significantly cooler.

I should also state I never used wdidle 3 to disable the intellipark feature, I was not certain the process was risk free and my Load_Cycle_Count has not changed since I read it months ago, it seems its figure is more to do with its previous use. The drive has behaved fine, I`ve had 2 Current_Pending_Sector instances, but they both resolved themselves and nothing for the last few months.
 
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