Western Digital Gold appears to go to sleep minutes after last use

[c627627]

They reviewed my data.

Maybe some of you can help me decipher their reply. Here's what WD said:


Please allow me to inform you that the case was under review by our team and After checking the drive model based on the serial number provided, the hard drive itself does not spin down when not in use on its own.

The drive will enter idle_a after 2 seconds of idle time (no host activity). The drive will enter idle_b after 10 minutes of idle time (no host activity).


idle_a = Drive Ready, but not performing IO, drive may power down selected electronics to reduce power without increasing response time

idle_b = Spindle rotation at 7200 RPM with heads unloaded.

We would recommend checking in your system BIOS to see if there is any spin down or power down option that maybe set. Otherwise, if your drive is installed in a Windows machine, you may want to check your power management settings since this could be set to spin down after x number of minutes of no activity.

IF you are still having issues after checking those areas, let us know the outcome and we can go from there.


Yup, from start to finish, that's what WD said.

 

[EarthDog]

Both idle states fail to mention a spin down of the platters... the second one specifically says the spindles are running at 7200 rpm but the heads are 'unloaded' (not ready to R/W, they are parked).

After hitting the google machine, check out Page 22 (from here - a WD 8TB Gold's manual) that details the expectations of these states. Now, your model may differ in the times (maybe?) but hopefully gives you a better idea of what's happening (according to WD, lol)...these definitions (not transition times) seem to go across brands as well, FYI.



Assuming you're hearing correctly, it sounds to me like it's going into an Idle_C/Standby_Y state (or possibly Standby_Z, but the transition time for the latter sounds much longer than you explained) and coming out of it. Does your drive have that is my question (for WD)....and if so, what conditions make it go into that state are questions I would ask after you humor them with checking the BIOS out (I can't think of any options enabled by default to do this...). Another question for them, why does this seem to trump what Windows asks the drive to do (is that the nature of a Gold/Enterprise drive)? Do other WD drives behave this way? Which ones?

PS - My first PC was that same Tandy Whitehawk posted (but beige)... TRS-80 64K. I played flight simulator game on it, lol, I was young....C64 was awesome... LOAD "*",8 ,1 ...

 

[WhitehawkEQ]

The model 4 was the white or beige color, the model 4 and 4p both had 64K ram but the model 4 also had the Level 2 Basic roms sames as the model 3.

 

[c627627]

All right let's star from the beginning. It seems to me that the crucial piece of info that guarantees that BIOS is not to blame is the fact that WD Black HD is present on the system which NEVER spins down.
That guarantees that BIOS cannot be telling just one drive to spin down, correct? Intel Skylake Asus Z170-A motherboard.

Z170-A - Support

www.asus.com

There isn't anything in BIOS that could possibly tell just that one WD Gold to sleep X minutes after last activity, correct?



Next, let's go over the nature of the problem again.
If I double click on a link to WD Black folder, or try anything on WD Black - it is instantaneous. Always. Every time.
If I double click on a link to WD Gold folder, or try anything on WD Gold - it takes good couple of seconds AFTER WHICH everything is instantaneous on WD Gold.

This tells me that WD Gold had entered some sort of a spin down / sleep state, only X minutes after last operation and ignored




EDIT: Theoretical Explanation is that WD Gold enters IDLE A mode minutes after last operation.


Idle_A = Drive Ready, but not performing IO, drive may power down selected electronics to reduce power without increasing response time.

 

[freakdiablo]

Well, the one flaw with that explanation is that you hear the drive spinning down.

While yeah the drive motor is probably a big power draw, relatively speaking, it spinning back up increases response time.

So either it's going into a deeper idle state or there's a lead engineer over at WD that doesn't know the definition of "response time".

I'll agree that there really isn't much in the BIOS that controls the power state of SATA devices. Something is flaky with the drive's onboard idle states.

 

[c627627]

Plus look at the end of the definition of IDLE_A: "...without increasing response time."


I escalated with:
HD-OFF.jpg attachment of this case shows Windows is set to Turn off hard disk after: NEVER


Are you saying that if Windows is set to Turn off hard disk after: NEVER

even then, Western Digital 16TB Gold Drive may spin down to save energy?


So again, are you saying that WD Gold has Firmware that may tell the drive to spin down, overriding Windows settings telling the drive to NEVER spin down?


Do other WD drives spin down, ignoring Windows power settings set to Turn off hard disk after: NEVER?


Does WD Black do that?

 

[freakdiablo]

There's something going on, and not only is it model dependent, but you've checked with models from the same manufacturer.

I've only had mild to moderate experience with their CS but this worries me a little.

 

[EarthDog]

Well, the one flaw with that explanation is that you hear the drive spinning down.

Exactly. Which, according to the document, looks like idle_c or standby_y....that also matches what the OP said (maybe it is idle_a and he's hearing servos?) and the transition times from the manual of that 8tb gold referenced earlier.

This may not be flaky... it may be part of what makes a gold a gold... ... I think we touched the surface on this at the end of the OPs 16tb gold thread last year too.

 

[c627627]

After all these days, the Extended Test is still running, it's at 90% today.

I believe, only now is my ticket in que, waiting to be addressed by real tech support.
I believe Level 2 WD Support is "read the script from the computer" or below expertise level of support.


I aim to stick to the central question: does WD firmware OVERRIDE Windows setting to NEVER spin down.
And if I get a Yes, I am going to shoot for details.

 

[freakdiablo]

I think it's the level 1 reps who are usually stuck with the script. Getting in touch with a level 2 rep, should in theory, mean you're talking to someone with at least a passing knowledge of the topic, someone whose been doing this long enough they can start recognizing what works and what doesn't.

Level 3 being an actual engineer/analyst/technician, someone who has worked directly with the product and systems it's installed in.

But either way it's not a good look. Seems like they're looking for a reason to blame the system, when this isn't an unheard of problem.

 

[c627627]

We'll figure this out together because I will channel questions from this thread to Western Digital once I get sufficiently high up enough to someone familiar with WD Gold specs.

My case has been taken up 24 hours ago by another Level 2 Technician, but it sounds like this person is in the US, a native English speaker. So they have Level 2 escalation overseas, then they escalate, not to Level 3 - but to Level 2 in the US, it sounds like.

It also sounds like they're actually looking into the data I sent, judging by the absence of 'did you format the drive' type of questions.
"We appreciate your patience as your case is undergoing further review by myself and other resources on my team. We will respond to you soon."

 

[Niku-Sama]

...snip...

I described the problem to Western Digital as I did in my original post.
WD also told me that "WD Gold drive does not have sleep setting ON out of the box."

Since my system has a WD Black which is always instantaneously accessible, we have a control HD in my case, which proves that Windows is not putting the HDs to sleep.

Since WD Gold waits a few seconds [I hear it start to spin] after which everything is accessible instantaneously, we clearly have a situation where ONLY WD GOLD is affected.
I did try different SATA cable/ports of course.


This is not normal, correct? This has NOTHING to do with this drive being "enterprise class SATA HDD, specifically designed for use in enterprise-class storage systems and data centers" - correct?

So i was skimming posts and this stuck out to me on one of you earlier posts, the part in bold mainly and i trimmed the stuff before it as clutter control.
manufacturers screw up, more often than they think they do. the statement of gold drives have no sleep setting ON out of the box leads me to believe that there is a way to turn it on. if there is a way to turn it on, there must be a way to turn it off right?

i'm not saying you turned it on at all by the way, just thinking they might have shipped some with that toggle enabled for some reason. With that previous statement from WD i'd be asking for the tool to change the power save (sleep) settings on the drive. any thing in the firmware would override the setting outside of the drive, like windows or even a mainboard setting.

i ran into this sort of thing with an old green drive, thought i would change its power plan because it would cause whole system hangs when windows decided it wanted to randomly access it and it had to wait for it to spin up... not good for games

 

[c627627]

Well it's day four with no reply from escalation dept.
Should I tell them I'm on to them!?


I think your post gets us to the basics of confusion on this topic. Windows has a setting that tells mechanical hard drives to NEVER go to sleep.
Now, when you do a search, you come across people talking about a TOGGLE, like you just did.


First and foremost, that concept of a toggle: Is there a toggle, my interaction with official Western Digital says there is no toggle that overrides Windows setting set to NEVER sleep.

My first and most important question to the escalation dept four days ago was is there a frickin' TOGGLE!?
Because if there is, that's the main culprit/suspect in most cases of drives behaving like my 16TB WD Gold.

 

[Niku-Sama]

thats what i am getting at though, on WD green drives in the past no matter what power profile and/or settings you have made to prevent the drive from spinning down it would still spin down because of the firmware. also it wasnt "people" talking about a toggle, it was quoted from your post that was, i assume, WD's own support saying there was a setting that isnt enabled but could be from how it sounds.

when i had my WD greens this was a new issue, shortly after i gave up i went to SSDs but some things came out to change this:
you might ask WD support about Intellipark or a program called wdidle3 or maybe do a bit of research on your own about it because it sounds like they are going to be as helpful as a mossy rock about this.
there appears to be a linux alternative to this that is mentioned here:

WD Gold 16TB Spindown / Kernel & Hardware / Arch Linux Forums

bbs.archlinux.org

and linked to a project page here:

idle3-tools

i've not used any of these so do your research to see if they are right for you.
if you can find wdidle3, it seems fairly simple. i think its on some boot disk tool compilations as well

 

[c627627]

Yes, when I did a search before, Linux came up.
The thing is, none of these are official WD software and nowhere do we have official WD saying anything about this... correct?


I already have WD offering to send me a new drive BEFORE I ship them back my old one. But I would rather learn, is it Firmware doing this, is there a way to modify it?

Or is this a factory f up?


It is Day 5 since they told me they are looking into this, and for me to wait. I may wait into next week, then push them again.
My goal is to climb the ladder until a real engineer tells me what's up here. I don't think I want to go down the path of third party software just yet, before I completely exhaust help from official channels.

 

[Niku-Sama]

actually wdidle3 is from WD them selves, problem is it seems they have kind of swept it under the rug and cut a bunch of ties to it
i found a forum post here where some one has run into the same issue i was having. i do remember it being available from WD them selves through their support channels, i just didnt need it because as i said before, i gave up on the greens and went SSDs

but the kicker is does it still work with newer drives? it might, or it just might not even see the gold as a drive so i would think its worth a shot.
you'll need a tool like this to get it to stop parking like it is, no setting outside of the drive firmware will over ride hard baked settings in its own firmware.
if you manage to get support to get you a new tool to change it, document the crap out of it and post it up some where because it seems to be a major problem... still many years later

 

[c627627]

That's the goal.

I thank you for the links and your post.

 

[c627627]

After a 6 (six) day wait - the very same person who initially handled my case now takes over again. Not the escalation person, the same person who initially handled the case.

Despite the extraordinarily detailed data, scans, screenshots of EVERYTHING clearly being attached to my Western Digital case portal, she goes:
"Kindly share the computer operating system."

wuuuuuut I mean seriously.

...and then she asks if my computer is set to "never go to sleep"?

[I told them all this several times PLUS my screenshot below is right there clearly attached to my case.]

F$#%^!ng space cadets.

 

[freakdiablo]

Back to the script

Is it the same case number? They didn't refresh it and send you back through?

 

[c627627]

Yes, yes. Same case number, everything clearly visible.
I politely pointed to the fact that all the information is attached to the case [I can see all case attachments just as they can] before giving them the basic info again.

I started and ended the message with a request to escalate.

I then wrote in a separate additional message:


In addition to my previous post, let's go over the nature of the problem again: I have another WD drive on my system, a WD Black 2TB drive, which allows for control observations:
If I double click on a link to WD Black folder, or try anything on WD Black - it is instantaneous. Always. Every time.
If I double click on a link to WD Gold folder, or try anything on WD Gold - it takes good couple of seconds, I hear it SPIN UP, only AFTER WHICH everything is instantaneous on WD Gold as well.

This tells me that WD Gold had entered some sort of a spin down / sleep state, only X minutes after last operation.