WD Gold 16TB Spindown

daren_k · 2021-03-06 15:34:29

Hi,

I purchased 2 WD Gold 16TB WD161KRYZ that I both encrypted with dm-crypt, on top of that a btrfs RAID0.

Performance is all good, but the drives spin down after like 10-15 minutes or so and waking up on access doing loud head movements as they restart. I don't want these to wear out more due to this.
I can't seem to find a setting that prevents this behavior.

The settings I tried in gnome-disks (I don't know what they set under the hood) but didn't help:
Highlighting Disk -> [...] menu top right -> Drive Settings... -> Apply Standard Timeout Settings -> Never
Highlighting Disk -> [...] menu top right -> Drive Settings... -> Advanced Power Management (APM) -> 255 (Disabled)

$ sudo fdisk -l | grep WD -B1
Disk /dev/sdb: 14.55 TiB, 16000900661248 bytes, 31251759104 sectors
Disk model: WDC WD161KRYZ-01
--
Disk /dev/sdc: 14.55 TiB, 16000900661248 bytes, 31251759104 sectors
Disk model: WDC WD161KRYZ-01

$ sudo hdparm -I /dev/sd{b,c} | grep level
	Advanced power management level: disabled
	Advanced power management level: disabled

What else can I try? Could it maybe be a default btrfs feature as well that spins them down?

d_fajardo · 2021-03-06 16:50:58

If you explore further hdparm, you have all you need to control your disk including creating a udev rule to make things persistent on reboot.

paulkerry · 2021-03-06 21:42:42

I've never come across a WD Gold spinning down as they are enterprise level drives - are you sure that your WD161KRYZ is really spinning down?

daren_k · 2021-03-06 23:40:22

Like, I don't know if it's really spinning down as I don't hear the disk accelerating up as I remember from older drives.

When I access files after 10+ minutes or so, quickly after, I hear the heads go crazy for like 1s on one drive, then the same happens with the second drive. During this the file accesses are stalled for a couple seconds until the drives are ready.

This happened as well with factory settings before I tried the settings in gnome-disks, purchased these drives new.

Edit:
I'll try setting udev rule to apply hdparm with these settings on reboot and see if something changes:

$ cat /etc/udev/rules.d/69-disk.rules 
ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="block", KERNEL=="sd[a-z]", ENV{ID_SERIAL_SHORT}=="XXHDD0XX", RUN+="/usr/bin/hdparm -B 254 -S 0 /dev/%k"
ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="block", KERNEL=="sd[a-z]", ENV{ID_SERIAL_SHORT}=="XXHDD1XX", RUN+="/usr/bin/hdparm -B 254 -S 0 /dev/%k"

I had to disable the gnome-disks drive settings as they interfered with the udev rule.

Last edited by daren_k (2021-03-07 00:15:13)

daren_k · 2021-03-07 12:26:27

That did the trick.
I guess my mistake was setting APM to 255, disabling it. For some reason that defaulted to spinning down or parking the heads on this enterprise drive, weird.

agapito · 2021-03-07 13:24:45

A better solution is idle3-tools from comnunity repo.

http://idle3-tools.sourceforge.net/

It's a must have tool for WD users. I just totally disabled Intellipark "feature" to avoid insane Load Cycle Count values on my Blue hard drive.

daren_k · 2021-03-07 13:40:34

That tool doesn't seem to work on my two WD Gold drives:

# idle3ctl -g /dev/sdb
sg16(VSC_ENABLE) failed: Invalid exchange
# idle3ctl -g /dev/sdc
sg16(VSC_ENABLE) failed: Invalid exchange

agapito · 2021-03-07 14:38:55

daren_k wrote:

That tool doesn't seem to work on my two WD Gold drives:
# idle3ctl -g /dev/sdb
sg16(VSC_ENABLE) failed: Invalid exchange
# idle3ctl -g /dev/sdc
sg16(VSC_ENABLE) failed: Invalid exchange

Oh well, stick with the hdparm solution then. It seems WD blocked that tool on some drives, you can find more info using your favourite web search engine.

frostschutz · 2021-03-07 15:00:50

hdparm also supports idle3 (hdparm -J) but no idea regarding WD Golds... this used to be a hack for old WD Greens.

paulkerry · 2021-03-07 17:14:33

We have several WD Gold drives of various ages and capacities, and for all of the recently purchased drives this is how they came...

hdparm -B /dev/sdx
 APM_level      = off
(or)
 APM_level      = 254

but for an older WD Gold 2TB (WD2005FBYZ), that was reporting...

hdparm -B /dev/sdx
 APM_level      = 96

So I stand corrected: as that comes in the 1-127 range, this was permitting spin down to some degree.
I can use "-B 255 -S0" but have decided to go for a "-B 254 -S0" udev rule for just this one drive and that is working fine. It might be an age/revision of drive firmware/model-subcode/other manufacturer setting?

I've never tried wdidle on a WD Gold disk, only on the WD Green Intellipower drives to prevent the frequent head parking.

@frostschutz: this is on the same WD Gold 2TB (WD2005FBYZ)...

hdparm -J /dev/sdx
SG_IO: bad/missing sense data...<snipped>
 wdidle3      = disabled

Last edited by paulkerry (2021-03-07 17:41:11)

Arch Linux

#1 2021-03-06 15:34:29

WD Gold 16TB Spindown

#2 2021-03-06 16:50:58

Re: WD Gold 16TB Spindown

#3 2021-03-06 21:42:42

Re: WD Gold 16TB Spindown

#4 2021-03-06 23:40:22

Re: WD Gold 16TB Spindown

#5 2021-03-07 12:26:27

Re: WD Gold 16TB Spindown

#6 2021-03-07 13:24:45

Re: WD Gold 16TB Spindown

#7 2021-03-07 13:40:34

Re: WD Gold 16TB Spindown

#8 2021-03-07 14:38:55

Re: WD Gold 16TB Spindown

#9 2021-03-07 15:00:50

Re: WD Gold 16TB Spindown

#10 2021-03-07 17:14:33

Re: WD Gold 16TB Spindown

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