Western Digital WD1002FBYS head click noise (#10987106)

[ONESIMUS]

Thanks for the info guys. I was wondering if any WD drives had the same issues (head clicking caused by drive arm recalibration) that some Seagate drives had. Guess this is one of them.

Please keep everyone posted. I am interested in seeing a fix for this as well.
Thanks.

[dhl]

Happy New Year All,

Hope 2010 is treating everyone well so far. I have a window of time to follow up on this problem so here's where things are now.

I just got off the phone with Anthony in advanced support at WD. He thinks the ReadyNAS is sending arbitrary commands to the drives which is causing the drive heads to park and re-park. It is definitely NOT normal behavior and it is not a good thing.

Jedis - I have a WD case# that can be referenced if you want to talk directly with WD advanced support and get their assessment.

The Western Digital case number is: 081309-6585542

I have a new Netgear case number as well, noted in the new subject line for this thread.

I'm in touch with Netgear support with this case as well.

Please, let's work on fixing this. I'm happy to do whatever's needed to facilitate.

thanks,
--dhl

[Pogo!]

Hi all,
I own 2 WD1002FBYS drives. They are used in a Windows 2008 server, with an Adaptec Raid 1430SA Controller.
I have the same noise.

Also found this post:
http://macperformanceguide.com/Storage-Drive-WesternDigitalRE3.html
where a Mac user is complaining about this sound.

So, it seems it's not just a Netgear problem.

[dhl]

@Pogo!

I got in touch with Lloyd Chambers, the author of that post in August and sent him the sound to listen to. Here's what he wrote back to me:

From: DIGLLOYD INC <info@diglloyd.com>
Date: August 19, 2009 8:50:39 PM PDT
To: David Lawrence <dhl@well.com>
Subject: Re: diglloyd inquiry: Western Digital 1TB RE-3

David,

I don't like the sound. Sounds like a failing drive.

Lloyd

.....
Lloyd L Chambers
info@diglloyd.com
http://diglloyd.com and http://MacPerformanceGuide.com/

Also note, in his article, he states:

"...It might do this for 30 seconds or more, then it settles down to its normal quiet self...."

This is not the same behavior as with the ReadyNAS. On the ReadyNAS the noise begins immediately after the device boots and never stops.

Is this what you're seeing with your Windows 2008 server? If so, maybe the RAID controller or firmware are a factor.

In any event, WD engineers confirm this is *not* normal for the RE3 drive.

[Pogo!]

@dhl:

> This is not the same behavior as with the ReadyNAS.

Maybe it isn't, but i wanted to confirm that this isn't (only) a problem of the ReadyNAS, but a problem of these particular WD disks with ReadyNAS or other controllers.

When having disk activity, i don't hear the clicksound. When server is not busy for a while, the clicking starts. It doesn't stop after 30 secs.

> If so, maybe the RAID controller or firmware are a factor.

I think that is true... problem is where to complain, WD or the manufacturer of the controller.
Or maybe the drives can be configured in a way not to respond to a specific command ("park yourself") they receive?

BTW: i want to contact WD about this. Do you have a call-number i can refer to?

[pipo]

@dhl:

I have similar problems with ReadyNAS duo...

The Seagate LP 1tb drive that I bought starts to make some random clicking noise while on idle and the noise it makes is very loud, at least twice the noise as normal write/read operation.

I have also tested with Seagate 500GB ES.2, it has similar behavior and googled to see if anyone has this problem and it seems that a lot of people are having problems with clicking noise and eventually the drive fails.

some references:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/252416-14-seagate-barracuda-st31500541as-loud-random-clicking-noise
http://forums.seagate.com/stx/board/message?board.id=ata_drives&thread.id=17541

so maybe it has to do with the firmware.

regards

[dhl]

@dhl:

> This is not the same behavior as with the ReadyNAS.

Maybe it isn't, but i wanted to confirm that this isn't (only) a problem of the ReadyNAS, but a problem of these particular WD disks with ReadyNAS or other controllers.

When having disk activity, i don't hear the clicksound. When server is not busy for a while, the clicking starts. It doesn't stop after 30 secs.

> If so, maybe the RAID controller or firmware are a factor.

I think that is true... problem is where to complain, WD or the manufacturer of the controller.
Or maybe the drives can be configured in a way not to respond to a specific command ("park yourself") they receive?

BTW: i want to contact WD about this. Do you have a call-number i can refer to?

@Pogo! - I spoke to WD technical support. the number is: 1 (800) 275-4932
They'll set up a case for you then you'll want to escalate this to a level 2 or 3 engineer as the people who first answer the phones mostly deal with simpler issues. Please report back what you find out.

[Pogo!]

@dhl:
Thanks, but i live in europe, and don't want to call. Just send them an email. This has been confirmed and filed, now lets hope to get a good answer. I'll keep you informed...

[Pogo!]

@dhl:
i managed to record my clicksound. Compared to yours, it is definitely the same sound. Please let me know if you are interested, so i can let you download this sound in Mp3 format.

[dhl]

@dhl:
i managed to record my clicksound. Compared to yours, it is definitely the same sound. Please let me know if you are interested, so i can let you download this sound in Mp3 format.

@Pogo! - yes, I would definitely be interested in hearing your recording. Please post the sound and let us know the URL.

I'm in San Francisco and just got back from the MacWorld 2010 expo. Western Digital had a booth there and I talked to one of the reps explaining the problem. I then had him listen to the sound which I had loaded on my iPhone. Here's his exact words to me:

"I've never heard *any* of our drives make that sound before. That is definitely not right."

His theory is that the SATA controller or firmware is sending a repeating "wake-up" signal to the drives, or that the drives are not getting stable power from the power supply.

In either case, it's a problem caused by the host device, i.e. the ReadyNAS, not the drives.

[Pogo!]

@dhl:

yes, I would definitely be interested in hearing your recording. Please post the sound and let us know the URL.

Here it is: http://www.zshare.net/audio/724901124203f6fe/
Sorry for the advertisements. Maybe you can download it and host it yourself.

... His theory is that the SATA controller or firmware is sending a repeating "wake-up" signal to the drives, or that the drives are not getting stable power from the power supply. In either case, it's a problem caused by the host device, i.e. the ReadyNAS, not the drives.

Maybe you are right and the problem is caused by the controller or host device. But i think it is also the drive that has to react the right way to wrong signals: if it already woke up, why can't it ignore the signal? So it must be a combination of the controller and drives.

I did some investigation today: when you search for WD and clicks, you'll find a lot of people complaining about Intellipark, that is enabled by default on the WD Green series and parking every 8 secs. Our drives are not green drives, but what if.. There is a utility called "WDIDLE3.EXE" to view or change the timeout for Intellipark. I succeeded in booting DOS and viewing the status. Too bad, my drives had Intellipark disabled, i even wonder if they have that feature, but it was worth the try.

O, another thing i discovered: when i reboot my server, clicking starts when Windows is loading, probably just after driver of the controller has loaded. Before that, no clicksound. I also booted up with the Ultimate Bootdisk, which doesn't have the driver for the controller. No clicksound, even after some idletime. In my opinion, this indicates that there is a problem with the combination of the Adaptec Controller and these drives.

Lets hope WD will respond to my email with some clue.

[dhl]

@Pogo!

Thank you for the link. This sound is exactly the same as the sound coming from my ReadyNAS.

So I just want to confirm: This is a Win 2008 server with and Adaptec RAID controller?

And yes, if you've found that Intellipark is disabled, than that's not the problem.

It certainly looks like a bad interaction between the Adaptec RAID controller - either hardware or firmware - and the WD drives.

I'll add this info to my case. I'm also curious what kind of RAID controller the Pro Pioneer uses. The answer to that question could point to the problem source and solution.

--dhl

[Pogo!]

@dhl:

So I just want to confirm: This is a Win 2008 server with and Adaptec RAID controller?

Yes. To be more specific: Intel motherboard, Adaptec 1430SA Raid Controller, 2 WD1002FBYS connected to the Adaptec controller, in RAID 1 (only 1 volume). Drives have 2 NTFS partitions, first partition is drive C: with Windows 2008 Server SP1, second partition (D:) contains my data.

I wrote in an earlier post that the clicking starts after being idle for some time. That's not true: i noticed that the clicking starts after booting up, before the login screen appears. I think it is starting just after the driver for the RAID controller is loaded.

What i tried until now:
- booting with another OS on boot CD, so the drivers of the controller are not loaded: no clicking
- attached the drives to the internal SATA connector of the mainboard, to check SMART: no SMART errors.
- ran WD Diagnostics to check the drives: no errors, drives are healthy
- looked at the Intellipark settings (not sure if these drives have Intellipark) but it is disabled, that what i want.
- updated Raid controller drivers in Windows 2008, this didn't solve the problem.

What i want to try next week:
- try another powersupply, just to be sure (because you mentioned this in an earlier post as suggested by WD)
- Install Windows 2008 R2.

I have send an email to WD, no answer until now.

I have send an email to Adaptec, they responded within one day:

During normal operation the drives really shouldn't make too much noise other than when the system is powered on or rebooted.
You may want to contact Western Digital to see if they have any suggestions as you are already running the most recent driver and firmware for the Adaptec 1430SA.

[Pogo!]

More information found about the clicking sound of the WD1002FBYS:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=22-136-313&SortField=0&SummaryType=0&Pagesize=10&SelectedRating=-1&PurchaseMark=&VideoOnlyMark=False&VendorMark=&Keywords=clicking&Page=1

...Makes neat clicking noise.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=22-136-313&SortField=0&SummaryType=0&Pagesize=10&SelectedRating=-1&PurchaseMark=&VideoOnlyMark=False&VendorMark=&Keywords=ticking&Page=1

...and sometimes has a tedious repetitive ticking...

The 'ticking' really annoys me. My ears perk up and I feel doom coming on when I hear a drive making an unusual noise. Reading the reviews here it appears it is normal for this drive. I guess I'll get used to it.

The ticking is pretty quiet if your computer is on the floor and away from your ear (still ticking).

[dhl]

@Pogo!

I've read those reviews but I'm pretty sure they refer to something else. The first quote says:

Pros: Makes neat clicking noise.

Cons: DoA.

Other Thoughts: Highest-End Drive WD makes and it was DoA... Does not restore confidence.

So clearly, he had a different problem. The other review says:

Cons: The drive is a bit loud for my tastes, and sometimes has a tedious repetitive ticking...

which implies that it happens but not all the time. We don't know the hardware configuration of the other couple reviews, but the bottom line is that it is handful compare to the vast number of positive reviews that don't mention this problem.

This again suggests a hardware/firmware incompatibility.

I've emailed Netgear support and PMed the Jedis. I did hear back from Dooku and am awaiting more info. Have you learned any more on your end?