LLC issue on WD10EARS

[e_l_p_i_s]

I have a DS-210j with 2 WD10EARS drives. Having now just read all the issues with using this drive I wish I had not just used the compatibility table and searched on the forum/wiki first.

However I have the strangest results, one of the drives (hdb) is showing the problem more than the other.

/dev/hda drive is:
Device Model: WDC WD10EARS-22Y5B1
Serial Number: WD-WCAV5F565761
Firmware Version: 80.00A80

/dev/hdb drive is:
Device Model: WDC WD10EARS-22Y5B1
Serial Number: WD-WCAV5F550489
Firmware Version: 80.00A80

If I run the following:

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh

while [ true ]
do
  smartctl -a /dev/hda | grep Load_
  smartctl -a /dev/hdb | grep Load_
  sleep 60
done


The hdb count increases faster than hda (hdb is around 3 in a minute while hda is 1 in a minute). The actual act of smartctl results in the drive not parking since if I change the sleep to 5 seconds the counter does not increase. I suspect the act of running smartctl will make the heads reset so the hda count of 1 could be due to the actual act of reading the value.

I have tried a number of things like using /proc/sys/vm/block_dump to monitor reads/writes to the drives. Tried other settings in /proc/sys/vm/ to change the flushing to disk. Tried remounting with noatime but not sure if /etc/rc.local was actually running. I have even used fdisk to reset the drive and reinstall DSM 3 to make sure all disks are using ext4.

I am now getting to the point of installing a SATA PCI card into a PC and running wdidle3 to remove the Intellipark feature. I saw that hdparm has commented out code to do the same as wdidle3 on recent versions on sourceforge so I might compile a new version of hdparm to try the experimental feature.

Anyway I thought this might enlighten a few people. I would love to explain why hdb is increasing faster than hda.

Tom

[e_l_p_i_s]

UPDATE

Having investigated further I have managed to stop one hard drive increasing faster than the other. I think it was some hdparm setting which I used. I now have a fairly well behaving system. The actual setting got lost in a whole of changes I tried, however I think its down to either making sure both drives had the same settings (like -B even though it reported the same in hdparm -I) or using hdparm -F. Other than that I cant remember doing much else, maybe turning off every service from the GUI to start from scratch - I was just desperate not to have to spend a couple of nights messing around with boot disks and PCI cards.

Tom