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

[unsafesteagle]

Are there any Network Drives/Folders that connect automatically at boot time?

Have you reviewed the SATA Device Drivers and also SATA BIOS Configuration is solid?

Does your local network push any services that may contribute to the delay?

Again, does this issue replicate at stock bus speed and memory kit mhz "sweet spot" for the system?

 

[c627627]

Thanks for posting.
1. No network drives.
2. Tried different cables and SATA ports, both. WD Black on the same system does not park, ever.
3. Nothing else is running, no software utilizing any other machines on the network is running.
4. The system is not overclocked. It is running at stock speed.

I am of course willing to try/test any suggestions.

There is a visible delay, in the initial access to WD Gold files/folder.
There is no such delay thereafter - *everything* is instantaneous.

This is what leads me to believe that the drive itself overrides Windows, and tells itself to park.
Not sure how long after last operation, but it isn't too long. It isn't many hours.

 

[unsafesteagle]

My socket 2066 system had a similar persistent problem.
I cant remember when I noticed the issue was no longer occuring.

 

[c627627]

Well, if we suspect the motherboard, then this question needs to be addressed:

Why is WD Black on the same system not affected, even on same SATA cable/port?
Only WD Gold is affected.

 

[unsafesteagle]

My symptoms were with file explorer delays , not a specific drive.

I believe I migrated all the components to socket 1700 , 12600k , and ddr5 6000 mhz.
The issue was gone.

If I remember right.

 

[c627627]

Yeah, valid but completely different issue.
This case is about individual hard drive behavior.

 

[c627627]

WD: "I have forwarded case to our internal team as requested by you. Our team has responded by saying they will need some time to look into the case and they should be able to get back in contact with you by the beginning of next week if not sooner."


c627627: As tomorrow will be one full month since I opened my case with Western Digital, I would be grateful if my case would now be finally escalated.

 

[Janus67]

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

Getting caught up on the thread now and that same though occurred to me as well. I remember folks building NAS raids with greens then losing data because drives would spin down when the array would be looking for them. That led to folks basically editing the on-drive firmware/software to avoid it. TLER maybe was the terminology? Been quite a while.

 

[EarthDog]

Not sure on TLER... thought that was just error correcting...though the drive is unresponsive in that time if I understand how it works on WD drives....

There's a utility (WDTLER.EXE), you can run (in DOS w/commands] that allows you to enable/disable TLER on WD drives. If that's the culprit, it's an easy test.

Edit: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Error_recovery_control

...towards the bottom are the commands, etc.

 

[c627627]

1+ month since opening a ticket:

"Thank you for contacting Western Digital Customer Service and Support.
Please be assured, the case is under review with our higher level team. I have been communicating the notes shared by the team with you. Our team is working on the case and should contact with you by the beginning of next week if not sooner."


Nothing has happened, no solid reply was given in over a month by them - but they don't know who they're dealing with, I will take this into next year..


Back in the day, yes, Western Digital had official apps for this, however they no longer host / list any apps for modifying the Firmware.
The goal is not to mess with the drive using any third party apps before finishing with WD.


I'd like to get an acknowledgement that internal instructions on my drive are OVERRIDING Windows. [Windows is telling *ALL* hard drives to NEVER spin down. We have WD Black obeying Windows instructions ; WD Gold is not.]

I'd like to get details if I get a conformation that there are instructions out of the factory telling WD Gold to override Windows commands.
I'd like to use official WD software to modify it, if any.

In other words I'd like to push for official confirmation of what we suspect is going on.
Now I may need help with wording, so far I've been nothing but polite, didn't tell them not to play with me ; didn't tell them I was hurt before...


After I'm done with WD, then I can test third party software, of course.

 

[c627627]

Ticket opened Feb 14, 2023.
Today is March 20th.

It is 1 month and 1 week later.
Currently still crickets from Western Digital.

I can't find evidence on anyone pushing WD on this with large capacity drives, mine is 16TB. All posts I found talk about third-party solutions.
Really old posts mention WD having an app to modify Firmware, which today, is not available officially.

For the amount of money they charge per drive, you would think they could finance a support center with reply time quicker than couple of months.

 

[c627627]

I asked to escalate the case again today.

Here's what they are saying now:


We received the response from our team today and teams response is as follows:

"From the description you provided, you mention “a couple of seconds” this sounds like it’s in Idle_C and not actually spun down or in Sleep/Standby. Coming out of this idle state only takes a few seconds to get back to full speed and then load the heads. If the drive was spun down or in sleep/standby it could take up to 30 seconds to get to speed. Black does not support Idle_C which is why you see the difference. Unfortunately we do not provide a way of preventing the drive from going into this idle state."


P. S. That was their response, and I just wanted to remind you all, that the time the drive enters this idle state is measured in X minutes, not X hours.
Therefore every time I initially need to access it, there is a delay, because it enters this Idle C state fairly quickly (in X minutes).

P. P. S. I want to run this by you all before replying, draft 1 three questions for WD:

1. After how many minutes does WD Gold enter Idle C mode?

2. I understand that WD Black never enters Idle C mode, but WD Gold does, can you tell me if WD Red also enters Idle C mode and after how long?

3. I understand that you are saying that Windows setting telling all Hard Drives to NEVER turn OFF is irrelevant, as WD Gold entering Idle C mode after X minutes is mandatory, regardless of Windows settings - is this correct?

========================

Back to discussion:

P. P. P. S. Yes Typical time is 4 seconds according to the relevant manual page [that part was clear], but now we know that this 4 second wait is after WD Gold enters a MANDATORY Idle C state after only X minutes.
I mean, they said they do not have a way to disable the drive entering IDLE C state so this opens the theoretical door to 3rd party solutions, where new questions arise.

Even if possible, how will disabling Idle C state affect WD Gold. Reliability? Time before failure?
Maybe disabling it is not the way to go, maybe increasing time to IDLE C?

They do not even make WD Black in 16TB capacities.
This means WD Red is the only alternative but does it also enter IDLE C?


After all this is done, we will reach out to Seagate to see if their large TB drives enter IDLE C as well, and all this would then be knowledge gained the Hard (drive) way...


P. P. P. P. S. How the f@$% did no one on the entire internet not notice this before!? That IDLE C happens so quickly.

I mean we found out the hard way that not even their initial levels of support knew. This basic fundamental operational behavior of an entire series of Western Digital drives.

 

[Niku-Sama]

why is that even an option?
also 4 to 30 seconds? good bye raid data integrity

this seems shady to me, i would imagine this information would be a little easier to come by but its almost as if they are trying to bury it even within their own archives... its like the National Treasure of poor power management decisions.

i wouldnt expect it to be front and center information but for the advanced user to be on the product support page or easily accessible by level 1 support

 

[EarthDog]

I asked to escalate the case again today.

Here's what they are saying now:


We received the response from our team today and teams response is as follows:

"From the description you provided, you mention “a couple of seconds” this sounds like it’s in Idle_C and not actually spun down or in Sleep/Standby. Coming out of this idle state only takes a few seconds to get back to full speed and then load the heads. If the drive was spun down or in sleep/standby it could take up to 30 seconds to get to speed. Black does not support Idle_C which is why you see the difference. Unfortunately we do not provide a way of preventing the drive from going into this idle state."


P. S. That was their response, and I just wanted to remind you all, that the time the drive enters this idle state is measured in X minutes, not X hours.
Therefore every time I initially need to access it, there is a delay, because it enters this Idle C state fairly quickly (in X minutes).

P. P. S. I want to run this by you all before replying, draft 1 three questions for WD:

1. After how many minutes does WD Gold enter Idle C mode?

2. I understand that WD Black never enters Idle C mode, but WD Gold does, can you tell me if WD Red also enters Idle C mode and after how long?

3. I understand that you are saying that Windows setting telling all Hard Drives to NEVER turn OFF is irrelevant, as WD Gold entering Idle C mode after X minutes is mandatory, regardless of Windows settings - is this correct?

========================

Back to discussion:

P. P. P. S. Yes Typical time is 4 seconds according to the relevant manual page [that part was clear], but now we know that this 4 second wait is after WD Gold enters a MANDATORY Idle C state after only X minutes.
I mean, they said they do not have a way to disable the drive entering IDLE C state so this opens the theoretical door to 3rd party solutions, where new questions arise.

Even if possible, how will disabling Idle C state affect WD Gold. Reliability? Time before failure?
Maybe disabling it is not the way to go, maybe increasing time to IDLE C?

They do not even make WD Black in 16TB capacities.
This means WD Red is the only alternative but does it also enter IDLE C?


After all this is done, we will reach out to Seagate to see if their large TB drives enter IDLE C as well, and all this would then be knowledge gained the Hard (drive) way...


P. P. P. P. S. How the f@$% did no one on the entire internet not notice this before!? That IDLE C happens so quickly.

I mean we found out the hard way that not even their initial levels of support knew. This basic fundamental operational behavior of an entire series of Western Digital drives.


View attachment 361251

1. I think we asked you that question initially, lol. You can also check and find out. I say that not to be a smarty pants, but that will likely be quicker than waiting on WD support, lol.

2.

3. That's what I walked away with from it, yes. But it can't hurt to confirm.

why is that even an option?
also 4 to 30 seconds? good bye raid data integrity

....how would that affect RAID integrity? The entire array would 'idle' (and at the same time), no? RAID drives do spin down like the others AFAIK.

i wouldnt expect it to be front and center information but for the advanced user to be on the product support page or easily accessible by level 1 support

Agree!

 

[ATMINSIDE]

1. After how many minutes does WD Gold enter Idle C mode?

2. I understand that WD Black never enters Idle C mode, but WD Gold does, can you tell me if WD Red also enters Idle C mode and after how long?

3. I understand that you are saying that Windows setting telling all Hard Drives to NEVER turn OFF is irrelevant, as WD Gold entering Idle C mode after X minutes is mandatory, regardless of Windows settings - is this correct?

This seems like a reasonable set of questions. FWIW I have some old (2014) WD RED that I don't notice this idle state on, but I also haven't specifically looked for it.

Post magically merged: Mar 22, 2023

Edit to add: I also have my 4x on a PERC6i RAID 5 configuration. So, not certain how much that impacts idle states.

 

[Zerileous]

In terms of why nobody has notices, I think probably few people at the consumer level buy 16tb drives. Those that do just assume, well its a HDD so it must be slow. I think at the enterprise level people either don't notice because of the scale or just don't care.

 

[ATMINSIDE]

I feel like people aren't buying WD Gold at an enterprise level. At least not massive. To me, the Gold seems like a replacement for the old Green product line. Usually, enterprise falls into the Ultrastar line as far as I'm aware.

 

[EarthDog]

Da...Ultrastars are the Enterprise AFAIK.

That said, I've seen a wide variety of drive types in use in Data Centers, specifically at AWS....from enterprise to consumer-level, I've seen it in a server. Depends on their use-case and/or contracts with the hardware from my experience.

On that point, I'm not sure many people care that their HDD is going to sleep (as most do by default). Even on my Green, from clicking to availability is only a few of seconds. Hell, my phone via fast USB-C is WAY slower trying to access it's folders (DCIM folder for pictures) than a HDD spinning up (and even indexing). To me, a 16TB device is designed for cold storage so I can't say I'm disappointed in it spinning down... however, I would like to see all drives respond to Windows settings... THAT is offputting.

 

[Zerileous]

You guys definitely know more about this than me, I was simply going off of what the OP was told

I tried WD official support who told me that WD Gold drives are enterprise class SATA HDD, specifically designed for use in enterprise-class storage systems and data centers and optimize your storage for your business with a full portfolio in capacities up to 22TB

Sounds a lot more like a cop out if they are not actually enterprise level hardware.

 

[EarthDog]

Ultrastars are listed as Enterprise for sure. That line you quoted, the CSR pulled from the Gold's product page...calling it enterprise. From the page, seems like it is. The closest thing to a green are the blue drives at the consumer level.

The prior discussion on this drive was TLER, but apparently, there's more than meets the eye on these enterprise drives. I guess it comes down to using the right tool for the job at hand.