Notebook HDD (WD Blue Mobile) spins down too early (after 3-4s instead of 20mins)

root2 · 8. März 2015

Hi there,

I just noticed that my 1TB 2.5" HDD (WD Blue Mobile) always spins down after 1-2s instead of 20min as I set up in the "Physical disks" section.

After reading through this Thread: HDD's always Spinning down after 1 second instead of 30 minutes and trying a hdparm -S 120 /dev/sda it states

Code

/dev/sda:
 setting standby to 120 (10 minutes)

but the disk spins down after 1-2s again.

I tried different combinations of APM, AAM and Spindown time without success... Every APM value >= 128 seems to keep the disk spinned up all the time (regardless of the Spindown time) and every APM value <= 127 makes the disk spin down after 3-4 seconds after the head reached parking position).

If anyone can help me out I'd be very greatful.

My actual values in the OMV settings are:
APM: 255 - Disabled
AMM: Disabled
Spindown time: 20 min

The hdparm.conf looks like this:

Code

quiet
/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_WDC_WD10JPVX-22_WD-WX31E945WDXP {
    apm = 255
    spindown_time = 240
    write_cache = on
}

This is a bit strange, as hdparm reports this settings for the disk:

Code

Standby timer values: spec'd by Standard, with device specific minimum
Advanced power management level: 96

It seems the settings made in OMV don't reflect back to the "real" disk?!

My complete disk infos look like this:

Code

root@OMV:~# hdparm -I /dev/sda


/dev/sda:


ATA device, with non-removable media
    Model Number:       WDC WD10JPVX-22JC3T0                    
    Serial Number:      WD-WX31E945WDXP
    Firmware Revision:  01.01A01
    Transport:          Serial, SATA 1.0a, SATA II Extensions, SATA Rev 2.5, SATA Rev 2.6, SATA Rev 3.0
Standards:
    Supported: 9 8 7 6 5 
    Likely used: 9
Configuration:
    Logical        max    current
    cylinders    16383    16383
    heads        16    16
    sectors/track    63    63
    --
    CHS current addressable sectors:   16514064
    LBA    user addressable sectors:  268435455
    LBA48  user addressable sectors: 1953525168
    Logical  Sector size:                   512 bytes
    Physical Sector size:                  4096 bytes
    Logical Sector-0 offset:                  0 bytes
    device size with M = 1024*1024:      953869 MBytes
    device size with M = 1000*1000:     1000204 MBytes (1000 GB)
    cache/buffer size  = 8192 KBytes
    Nominal Media Rotation Rate: 5400
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
    Advanced power management level: 96
    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
Commands/features:
    Enabled    Supported:
       *    SMART feature set
            Security Mode feature set
       *    Power Management feature set
       *    Write cache
       *    Look-ahead
       *    Host Protected Area feature set
       *    WRITE_BUFFER command
       *    READ_BUFFER command
       *    NOP cmd
       *    DOWNLOAD_MICROCODE
       *    Advanced Power Management feature set
            Power-Up In Standby feature set
       *    SET_FEATURES required to spinup after power up
            SET_MAX security extension
       *    48-bit Address feature set
       *    Device Configuration Overlay feature set
       *    Mandatory FLUSH_CACHE
       *    FLUSH_CACHE_EXT
       *    SMART error logging
       *    SMART self-test
       *    General Purpose Logging feature set
       *    64-bit World wide name
       *    IDLE_IMMEDIATE with UNLOAD
       *    {READ,WRITE}_DMA_EXT_GPL commands
       *    Segmented DOWNLOAD_MICROCODE
       *    Gen1 signaling speed (1.5Gb/s)
       *    Gen2 signaling speed (3.0Gb/s)
       *    Gen3 signaling speed (6.0Gb/s)
       *    Native Command Queueing (NCQ)
       *    Host-initiated interface power management
       *    Phy event counters
       *    Idle-Unload when NCQ is active
       *    NCQ priority information
       *    unknown 76[13]
       *    unknown 76[14]
       *    unknown 76[15]
            DMA Setup Auto-Activate optimization
            Device-initiated interface power management
       *    Software settings preservation
       *    SMART Command Transport (SCT) feature set
       *    SCT LBA Segment Access (AC2)
       *    SCT Features Control (AC4)
       *    SCT Data Tables (AC5)
            unknown 206[12] (vendor specific)
            unknown 206[13] (vendor specific)
            unknown 206[14] (vendor specific)
Security: 
    Master password revision code = ...
        supported
    not    enabled
    not    locked
    not    frozen
    not    expired: security count
        supported: enhanced erase
    210min for SECURITY ERASE UNIT. 210min for ENHANCED SECURITY ERASE UNIT. 
Logical Unit WWN Device Identifier: ...
    NAA        : 5
    IEEE OUI    : ...
    Unique ID    : ...
Checksum: correct

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glenngould · 16. März 2015

Hi root2,

I'm facing the same problem, that my discs are spinning down too often regardless what spindown time/APM setting I'm gonna set.
And even by turning of SMART or any service that could wake up the discs, they spin up and down a couple of time per hour without any action required by any PC.

I'm really worring about my discs that they gonna fail pretty soon due to this up and down.

Have you solved or found your problem so far?

Thanks for your update - regards,
Roland

root2 · 18. März 2015

Hi Roland,

I phoned the WD support regarding the issue and I'm still waiting for an answer how to move on.

Intentionally I wanted to use my BananaPi with the drive attached as a backup and data storage system (including a audio streaming server). But this would have meant that the disk gets accesses every now and then - several times an hour - and thus gets spinned up/down very often.

In the meanwhile I only used it as a pure backup system. So it gets waked up very rarely (maybe 5 times a day) to do incremental backups. So I reduced the reads/writes to the disk and it stays spun down most of the time (I'm getting a spindup/down vs. working hours ratio < 1 at the moment which is OK for me).

Nonetheless I'm a bit frustrated because the system could do so much more than just pure backups if the disk would behave properly

Another option could be to keep the disk spinned up all the time at low energy levels using an APM value > 128. But as I wanted an economical, cool and quiet system this clashes a bit with this intention

I also had this spinup/down issue when using my ASUS Notebook. Here I set the APM to 200, so the disk keeps spinning all the time at reasonable energy and sound levels. In this scenario it's OK for me if there's a bit noise when I'm sitting in front of the Notebook. But as my BananaPi backup system is powered all the time and sitting in my working room I want it to be as quiet as possible which means no spinning disks if possible.

Let's see what WD will do in my case (as I'm not the only one facing this issues if you look through the WD Community forums). I will keep this thread updated.

Best regards.

P.S.: It's also a bit strange in my eyes that WD states that "Linux is not officially supported" by their disks. I'm wondering how many (Enterprise) Linux servers run on WD disks...

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