SATA reset + ATA errors

[devster1]

I have a new Duo and have installed 2x new WD15EADS drives. It is exhibiting some strange behaviour.

Scenario.
---------

On bootup a RAID sync starts on Volume C (is this normal?)
then a SATA reset takes place approx 90secs later
Then 6.5hrs later the RAID sync reports as finished but drive1 shows as 'DEAD' under the health screen.

SMART results.
--------------

Drive 1 reports 96 ATA errors (increased with every reboot)
Drive 2 reports 0 ATA errors

Drive 1 also has 2 re-allocated sectors (not increased since install 5days ago)
Drive 2 also has 0 re-allocated sectors

Temp resolution.
----------------

I have managed to get drive 1 working by hot removing the drive and then hot inserting it, then the resync takes place without a SATA reset. This has been stable for 24hrs but I have NOT rebooted the Duo yet.

Questions.
----------

Could the SATA reset be due to the ATA errors?
How can I find out what are the ATA errors?
Would this indicate a failing drive in pos.1 or could something else be causing these errors (config, faulty duo, jumper settings on HDD's etc?)

There is no data on the drives yet, please help!

[devster1]

ok just found this on the HCL

Western Digital GP drives - The WD GP (Green Power) drives are known to generate ATA errors when disk spin down is enabled with the ReadyNAS 600, Duo, NV+ and 1100. RAIDiator 4.1.5 when released will allow these drives to work with these models. ReadyNAS Pro and Pro Pioneer are not effected by this issue and WD GP drives can be used with these systems. Please use the list above to see which GP drives have been qualified.

I am using RAIDiator 4.1.6 and I havent enabled disk spin down.

This potentially sounds like a compatibility issue with the WD15EADS drives, but wierd how it is only affecting drive 1 and NOT drive 2?

Can a Jedi please comment?

[mdgm]

Drives are not on HCL from what I can see. NetGear may deny support.

There are reports of this drive working so you could have a bad disk. Can you check it using Western Digital's Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for Windows. See
faq.php#How_can_I_verify_that_my_disk_is_bad%3F

See here for entries to do with this drive in the Community HCL: viewtopic.php?f=84&t=30886

[devster1]

thanks, I will have to try this WD diags tool tonight. What a pain tho, means dismantling my PC

[mdgm]

thanks, I will have to try this WD diags tool tonight. What a pain tho, means dismantling my PC

It's likely that the drive is dead but use the tools just to make sure. It helps when doing a RMA to be able to say you have run the diags tool on the drive.

[devster1]

ok update time.

Since reseating the drive, I have had no problems. Unit now reboots ok both manually and using a scheduled reboot. No more ATA errors or SATA resets. Everything seems stable.

The only thing I can think of is a dodgy connection on the backplane from when I initially inserted the drive?

[devster1]

ok a month down the line and the same drive has done the same thing. When the ReadyNAS booted up in the morning, drive 1 had a sata reset, then a resync took place. 4 hours later the resync finished but the drive reported as dead in frontview.

This time the ATA error count did not increase.

I have reseated the drive and now all is ok again. If this happens once more then I will get the drive RMA'd.

[shanaclan4]

Did you use the WDTLER utility to enable Time-Limited-Error-Recovery for those particular drives? In a RAID configuration those drives need to have TLER enabled so the internal error handling does not conflict with the RAID controllers view on the integrity of the disk. Symptom of not enabling TLER is that the drive can be flagged by the device controller as bad and gets kicked from the array. Sounds sort of like what is happening here. There is discussion on this board and elsewhere if you are not already up on this. Here's a link for the basics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-Limited_Error_Recovery.

[devster1]

sounds interesting, this is not something I have tried but definitely something I will look into. Do you experience the high LCC?

Disk 1

Model: WDC WD15EADS-00P8B0
Serial: WD-WMAVU0027514
Firmware: 01.00A01
SMART Attribute
Raw Read Error Rate 0
Spin Up Time 5883
Start Stop Count 45
Reallocated Sector Count 2
Seek Error Rate 0
Power On Hours 740
Spin Retry Count 0
Calibration Retry Count 0
Power Cycle Count 43
Power-Off Retract Count 42
Load Cycle Count 22963
Temperature Celsius 35
Reallocated Event Count 1
Current Pending Sector 0
Offline Uncorrectable 0
UDMA CRC Error Count 0
Multi Zone Error Rate 0
ATA Error Count 96

Extended Attribute
Hot-add events 0
Hot-remove events 0
Lp stat events 13
Power glitches 0
Hard disk resets 0
Retries 0
Repaired sectors 0


Disk 2

Model: WDC WD15EADS-00P8B0
Serial: WD-WMAVU0025222
Firmware: 01.00A01
SMART Attribute
Raw Read Error Rate 0
Spin Up Time 5883
Start Stop Count 42
Reallocated Sector Count 0
Seek Error Rate 0
Power On Hours 787
Spin Retry Count 0
Calibration Retry Count 0
Power Cycle Count 40
Power-Off Retract Count 39
Load Cycle Count 22107
Temperature Celsius 37
Reallocated Event Count 0
Current Pending Sector 0
Offline Uncorrectable 0
UDMA CRC Error Count 0
Multi Zone Error Rate 0
ATA Error Count 0

Extended Attribute
Hot-add events 0
Hot-remove events 0
Lp stat events 3
Power glitches 0
Hard disk resets 0
Retries 0
Repaired sectors 0

[shanaclan4]

I am just getting up with the Western Digital 1.5 TB WD15EADS drives, upgrading from Seagate 1TBs. I did a lot of research for issues involving these drives. There is quite a bit of info available, but I did not recognize a definitive pattern with a proven resolution. My own experience - being a new install - does not add any new clarity as my time with the configuration is limited. I've made configuration changes to the drives on a pro-active basis and not in response to any negative events.

Two main issues appear to be in play with these drives in a READYNAS RAID device
1) RAID stability due to disk-based error-correction features and
2) High Load Cycle Counts (LLCs).

I believe issue 1) to be serious and 2) as not so serious.

Two legacy WD utilities can be used to adjust the drive configurations to address these areas. My conclusion to use these WD utilities - WDTLER and WDIDLE3, respectively - was simply that "it couldn't hurt." They can be found in the nooks and crannies of the web.

WDTLER usage is meant to avoid conflict between the on-disk error handling and the RAID controller's understanding of the disk response/integrity. Not having WDTLER-enabled has been linked with the possibility of having a drive drop out of the array due to "unresponsiveness" when the disk was undertaking it's own error correction. This seems to be a very real issue. Your own experience might bolster this case. These drives have NOT been explicitly engineered (or perhaps marketed) to be used in a RAID configuration. As such their default operating configuration is "stand-alone - desktop" as opposed to "enterprise" drives (which command a premium price.) But that does not necessarily mean they should be precluded in a RAID configuration. The WDTLER utility will allow tweaking the drive for better participation in a RAID situation. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-Limited_Error_Recovery for more background.

The IntelliPark feature of the drives has been linked with high Load Cycle Counts being reported in the drives SMART data. Whether the high counts are meaningful and degrade the life of the drive is not clear. Using the WDIDLE3, the idle park time can be adjusted to be longer or be defeated altogether. Defeating it would, presumably, undercut the IntelliPark feature. As a result, the drive might not be as "green", however. Personally, that is not my main criteria when selecting a disk. I bought on capacity and price (the "I" in RAID) primarily. Here is a link with much back-and-forth on the high LLC count issue: http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=457909&sid=151f78a17e4944374adc112c558a98b1. Keep in mind that the EXACT sub-model of your WD15EADS may impact high LLC reporting.

Both utilities are DOS-based. To run them you will need a bootable floppy or CD. Creating a bootable CD can be more involved than building a bootable floppy and require specific CD burning s/w. I suggest the floppy if you have a PC with a floppy drive and can round up a floppy disk.

I'm going to make some assumptions about what is available to you and others in order to make the adjustments to the drives
1) PC with Windows
2) PC with SATA support and a floppy drive configured to boot from the floppy when present (configured in the BIOS)
3) WDTLER.EXE and WDIDLE3.EXE utilities.

Building the floppy:
1) Scrounge a floppy
2) Get into Windows
3) Place floppy in floppy drive
4) Go to "My Computer"
5) Right-click on Floppy drive (probably Drive A or B)
6) Select "Format..." from the short-cut menu
7) On the Format dialog, check the option for "Bootable MS-DOS Start-Up Disk" (or similar)
8 ) Once format is complete, copy your WD utility files to the diskette

Preping the Hardware:
1) Connect your WD15EADS disks to the SATA controller and power supply of your PC
If you can connect both at the same time, then great. If not, you'll repeat this process for each drive
2) Disconnect any WD drives already installed in the PC. Any WD disks in the PC will be affected by running the utilities - so if you don't want them tweaked unplug them.

Running the Utilities:
NOTE: Running these utilities should not be destructive to disk content. But be wise and make sure you have backups in case things so sideways.

1) Put boot floppy with utilities in your floppy drive of the PC. Assume this is A: drive.
2) PC will boot to DOS and drop at the prompt of the floppy "A:>"
3) Type "TLERSCAN.BAT" to get the current TLER values for the drive(s)
4) Run "WDTLER -r7 -w7" to enable Time Limited Error Recovery of 7 seconds for Read and Write for all WD drives. Alternately, you could run "TLER-ON.BAT"
5) You'll see adjustments made reported for drive(s)
6) Run "TLERSCAN.BAT" again to confirm settings. Mine kept the 7 seconds on Reads and had 0 seconds for Writes. No worries, this is the recommendation anyway.
7) Run "WDIDLE3 /R" to view current IDLE configuration
8 ) Run "WDIDLE3 /D" to disable IDLE time parking
9) Run "WDIDLE3 /R" to review adjustments made. Should see IDLE "disabled" now.
10) If you have to do multiple drives, restart PC and repeat steps for each drive

That's pretty much the whole story. I will update with any specific performance issues I have with these drives in this configuration. I will also report success in the Community HCL if things go well for a while.

=============
Edited to fix command for WDTLER inquiry command. Previously misspecified as "WDTLER /R"

[devster1]

wicked, that is a great guide and extremely helpful. I am sure many many people will find this helpful.

Can you post your SMART stats or say what your LCC is on both drives?

I had read that the designed limit of LCC on these drives is 300,000 and I am at 20,000 in a month so I am keen to get this resolved. I will try what you have stated above and report on here my findings.

Once again thanks!

[devster1]

tried disabling wdidle3 and couldnt set it to disabled, it would default to 6300milliseconds

Reading elsewhere on the web it sounds like I need a sata controller to be able to change these values? Is this what you used to change yours? At the moment I just have my disks connected direct to the SATA ports on my motherboard.

Also when running WDTLER /R the utility displayed the values i.e. disabled, but then displayed a critical error.

Do the WDTLER files need to be on the root of the floppy? At the moment I have them in sub directories on the disk and then cd into them and then run the utility

i.e.

a:\>cd wdtler
a:\wdtler\>wdtler /r

please help!

[shanaclan4]

devster1,

Sorry to hear things didn't go off smoothly.

I didn't have a problem disabling WDIDLE. I too connected to the integrated SATA controller of my PC. It might have something to do with the SATA chipset on the motherboard. I read the same thread you mentioned re someone else having trouble with the default idle not taking properly.

Regarding WDTLER problem, I don't think the location would matter unless you put the path in with the call (i.e. "WDTLER\WDTLER /R"). What you did should be fine. What exactly was the error displayed? I am thinking everything is OK, but this too might have something to do with your SATA controller.

I can understand you being unsettled with the results. Who knows whether they took or what effect (good/bad) they had based on the difference from expectation.

My guess is that the difference in our experience is environmental based on the PC you are using. Our drives and firmware are the same, so that is where I'd place my bet. Maybe you could take it around to a friends or local shop and hook it up and see how she goes on there.

I'd be interested to hear how you get on or if you throw in the towel. I don't think there are many options in this drive size at a reasonable price point. There seem to be gotchas down many paths. Pain in the @rse, but I'd press on if you have the will.

[devster1]

dont worry I am not going to give up that easily

I am going to try a friends pc, I have an MSI motherboard in mine and he is using an ASUS motherboard, so fingers crossed. What motherboard did you use? I could possibly compare the specs for the SATA chipsets...

I changed the WDIDLE to the maximum value of 25.5secs so hopefully this will slow down my climbing LCC for the time being...

[devster1]

ok well I did a bit of research on the chipset side of things and my motherboard (MSI P35 Neo-FR) has an ICH9R SATA controller which is Intel and reading across the web other people have had success using the Intel chipsets more than any others.

So I thought I would have another play around

So seeing as I could not disable the IDLE3 timer, I set it to its maximum of 255 milliseconds and in 38hours LCC has only increased by 20 whereas drive2 which I did not change has increased by 1232. A reasonable success. I have also read elsewhere on the web that some WD drives CANNOT have the IDLE3 timer disabled all together so increasing the timer is the best that can be done. Perhaps I have these drives...

So I have now changed both drives to have a WDIDLE3 value of 255 milliseconds.

I also gave enabling TLER another go, and when using the command WDTLER -r7 -w7 the command reported successfull as changing both values. However when reading the values using WDTLER /R, Read was still disabled and Write was set to 7 seconds. (this is the opposite to what you reported?)

One thing to note - when using the WDTLER utility, every command seemed to work, but it would always display the Critical error I mentioned before afterwards. Strange.

I will run this config for a few weeks and report back on here my findings