Mark Knecht <markkne...@gmail.com> [10-04-18 17:44]: > On Sun, Apr 18, 2010 at 4:16 AM, <meino.cra...@gmx.de> wrote: > > Hi, > > > > b > > the Winchester Digital WD10EARS S-ATA II 300MB/s GreenPower WD Caviar Green > > 1TByte Harddiscs offers something which WD calls "Advanced Format" > > which turns out to be sectors of 4096 bytes size instead of 512 bytes. > > > > To use it, one needs a tool made by WD which only runs under windows. > > > > Or? > > > > Is this "new sector size" is something, which I can activate > > be using fdisk/mkfs or something included in the linux kernel > > since stone age and is only new to the guys at Microsoft/Winchester > > Digital? > > > > Can I take any advantage of that? > > > > Thank you very much for any help and advice in advance! > > Have a nice sunday! > > mcc > > Sort of none of the above. > > 4K sectors are 4K sectors. It isn't something you activate. It's the > way the drive is made. However the drive responds to 512 byte sector > addresses. You can use it as you would any other drive, however... > > 1) If you put your partitions on 4K boundaries the drive will be fast > > 2) If you put your sectors on 512 byte boundaries the drive will work > but be very slow > > Either way it will work. I think #1 is better, but that's up to you. > > Simple answer about what to do? Make sure the starting address of all > partitions is divisible by 8, or for simplicity have every partition > starting address end with 3 zeros which is what some of the newer > Windows setup tools are doing. I know the 3 zero thing sounds like > you're wasting space, and you would be, but it's very small compared > to the size of the drive so it's what I did. > > Now, if you have NOT already purchased the drive, my suggestion is > that you do not, or if you insist on buying some get in touch with me. > I have 6 sitting right here at home that I'll happily sell to you at > reduced prices. ;-) > > These drives are saving power by parking the heads very quickly and my > experience over the last few months is that they are likely going to > wear out in about 18 months according to WD's spec of 300K park > cycles. (Check SMART data yourself) Additionally they are completely > unusable for any sort of RAID environment as WD removed all the TLER > functions from the firmware. Linux is racking up 1 cycles every 2 > minutes. (41476/1588) As best I can tell the drive will be out of spec > in about 14 months if your machine is powered on 24/7. > > gandalf ~ # smartctl -i /dev/sda > smartctl 5.39.1 2010-01-28 r3054 [x86_64-pc-linux-gnu] (local build) > Copyright (C) 2002-10 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net > > === START OF INFORMATION SECTION === > Device Model: WDC WD10EARS-00Y5B1 > Serial Number: WD-WCAV55464493 > Firmware Version: 80.00A80 > User Capacity: 1,000,204,886,016 bytes > Device is: Not in smartctl database [for details use: -P showall] > ATA Version is: 8 > ATA Standard is: Exact ATA specification draft version not indicated > Local Time is: Sun Apr 18 08:36:44 2010 PDT > SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability. > SMART support is: Enabled > > gandalf ~ # > gandalf ~ # !smart > smartctl -A /dev/sda > smartctl 5.39.1 2010-01-28 r3054 [x86_64-pc-linux-gnu] (local build) > Copyright (C) 2002-10 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net > > === START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION === > SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16 > Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds: > ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE > UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE > 1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x002f 200 200 051 Pre-fail > Always - 0 > 3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0027 129 128 021 Pre-fail > Always - 6525 > 4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age > Always - 21 > 5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 200 200 140 Pre-fail > Always - 0 > 7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x002e 200 200 000 Old_age > Always - 0 > 9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 098 098 000 Old_age > Always - 1588 > 10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 253 000 Old_age > Always - 0 > 11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 253 000 Old_age > Always - 0 > 12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age > Always - 20 > 192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age > Always - 5 > 193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 187 187 000 Old_age > Always - 41476 > 194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 121 116 000 Old_age > Always - 26 > 196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age > Always - 0 > 197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age > Always - 0 > 198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0030 200 200 000 Old_age > Offline - 0 > 199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age > Always - 0 > 200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x0008 200 200 000 Old_age > Offline - 0 > > gandalf ~ # > > > - Mark >
Hi Gandalf, thanks a lot for your extensive explanations!!! Unfortunately, I already bought two of those drives...according to your explanation about the expected lifetime of those I think I have done the complete wrong decision... But what could be the reason for building a drive with THAT setup... it literally kills itsself... May be itz is possible to "tune" the drive to not to save such great amount of energy (read: Do not park heads that fast) via hdparm??? Best regards, mcc -- Please don't send me any Word- or Powerpoint-Attachments unless it's absolutely neccessary. - Send simply Text. See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html In a world without fences and walls nobody needs gates and windows.
