WD Caviar Green (WD20EARX), DSM 4.0 and APM

[PascalZ]

Hello,

I'm new to the Synology world. They are nice systems but I'm afraid I made a mistake when picking WD Caviar Green drives.

After I installed my first system (a DS212+), I noticed that the disk was clicking every 20 or so seconds when idle and the drives LEDs were flashing. It was doing that even if I disconnected it from the network.

Hours of Google, Forums etc...later, I have been able to determine that:

1) This is a long known problem due to APM
2) This behavior also increases the S.M.A.R.T. LCC count
3) The APM can be disabled and is systematically disabled by the DSM since Version 3.xxx

Problem: all this literature was referring to WD20EARS. I have WD20EARX drives and I'm running the DSM Version 4.0-2219 and everything is different.

The LCC is NOT increasing abnormally but the clicking is clearly here every 20 seconds and I'm afraid this will eventually and shortly kill my disks. I already lost one disk today (I'm now running 4 systems, all DS212+ with 2 x WD20EARX).

I opened a ticket with Synology support and send the "debug.dat" file. I'm now waiting for their response and in the meantime all my systems are turned down.

Am I the only one here having this WD20EARX situation ? Any idea on how to fix this ?
Again, with this model, the LCC is not increasing BUT I do have the regular clicking and LED flashing (and one prematurely dead drive).

Any help or feedback is welcome,
Pascal

[Radar_Lover]

Unfortunately I cannot offer any solution to your problem but I would be interested to know the outcome of your discussions with Synology support as the drives appear on the official compatibility list and I was thinking of using them in my DS710+.
Thank you.

[ivoltage]

I am using a WD30EZRX in a DS212 (DSM 4.0). I have the same problem. The drive is making a regular clicking sound similar to the one you describe. Very annoying.

[maxdido]

I have a 207+ with DSM 3.1-1613
bought a 2TB WD20EARX

it works fine, no increase in SMART LCC COUNT, that's good.
but I do have this clicking sound every 1 second.

trying to figure out what to do. perhaps this wdidle.exe utility from western digital works when setting the timer to disable.

[maxdido]

I used the wdidle3.exe from western digital.
changed the timer from 8 seconds to 300 seconds (in dos environment type: wdidle3.exe/s300)
no more clicking sound

[lightminer]

I saw this, confirming the above.

http://www.synology.com/support/faq_sho ... 407gmail.c


Have you guys reconciled using a consumer drive with RAID? Does the Synology RAID have intelligence about this and can deal with these drives properly?

http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/det ... ion-drives

[bluedust]

I have a similar problem, but I have a 4 bay DS411 2 WD20EARX; before I try and implement this solutions should I:

a) power off the disk station and update the settings via my PC to both disks

b) power off the disk station and update the settings via my PC to only one of the disks, and see what difference is made

c) buy a third disk, and then fix each disk one by one