Re: [gentoo-user] Winchester Digital HD: Advanced Format

Mark Knecht <markknecht@×××××.com> [10-04-18 17:44]:
> On Sun, Apr 18, 2010 at 4:16 AM,  <meino.cramer@×××.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

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