The original post is here but looks like I can’t update / respond to it.
Here is the issue:
There is a 14-15 second delay when accessing any of the three 2TB Black Caviar drives in my system making working with them virtually impossible. Anyone else is seeing that?
Drives: three WDC WD2001FASS-00U0B0, FW purchased in June 2010 (Ingram Micro)
OS: Vista, 7 Pro, XP 32-bit and 64-bit
Systems: HP Z800, generic X79 mobos
SATA controller(s): (1) onboard ICH10 SATA II in AHCI/RAID mode; (2) Marvell 91xx SATA III
Example 1: running AJA SystemTest 1.0 on the drive results in a 15-second delay before the benchmark actually starts. This never happens on any other drive (and I’ve tested hundreds). Subsequent runs within 5 minutes of the 1st run do NOT result in a delay. Subsequent runs in 1 hour results in the same 15-second delay. This happens on any of the three drives I have.
Example 2: using Picasa to scroll through hi-res images on one of the drives results in intermittent delays of 14-15 seconds (every few minutes or so).
Running WDC DLG tool finds nothing - “no problem found”.
Anyone else is seeing this? If so, what was the resolution if any?
Hi, since both test completed successfully, there doesn’t seem to be a hardware problem. You can try using the Disk Defragmenter to see if that helps. If possible you can also connect the hard drive to another PC motherboard. Check the link below for more information.
Thanks for the response. I may not have mentioned it before but the problem persists on a completely fresh drive with zeros written to it. It doesn’t even have a partition yet. I attempt to initialize it, and it just sits there for 14 seconds before the activity light goes on, and then it’s initialized in about a second. It’s clearly a hardware problem.
Are you being sarcastic? You did see that the problem affects all three of the Black Caviars that I have, across various SATA ports, controllers, platforms?
Can these 15 seconds be caused by the initial spin up of the platters before reading/writing can begin?
That’s what it sounds like. Wish there was a way to verify it.
Like I said though, that behavior persists across multiple SATA controllers and host systems, whether all three drives are connected, or just one. It’s clearly a problem affecting a batch of drives, possibly a rather small one given that nobody else seems to complain about it.
I do not own caviar blacks, so I cant check their configuration, but there are multiple firmware settings that controll the spin down that can occur after a certain idle period.
using the linux software hdparm, you can set the spindown after idle time (-S switch) and Advanced Power Management (-B switch, another powersafer feature) and also WDIDLE3, a WD specific setting that does the same as -S. Dunno why they can’t use common standards instead, but well, yeah, you got three settings to worry about.
Normally, you don’t have to bother with these settings on desktop drives (3.5" caviar blacks included), so before you go through that stuff, why don’t you increase the time delay for the spin down through windows first:
Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Power Options
Change plan settings of the currently active plan
Change advanced power settings
Hard disk → Turn off hard disk after XXX Minutes
also, every HDD does this, not just WD ones and it is NORMAL. So its not a “defective batch” of drives or something like that
also, every HDD does this, not just WD ones and it is NORMAL. So its not a “defective batch” of drives or something like that :)
Every disk does a 15 seconds delay?
Not sure I said anything about “defective”… Perhaps you noticed that the condition I described persists on three drives across multiple platforms and OS environments, while not evident on any other of more than a thousand drives I tested and worked with. To me, it does indicate that something’s wrong with the drives. Yet to you, that appears totally normal? I am amazed and jealous you can draw that kind of conclusions sight unseen.
a spin up time of 5 seconds per drive is very reasonable and with three of those, you get to around 15 seconds.
the smart log also contains the most recent spinup time in milliseconds, so you can check for that individually if you want.
as for the “defective”. You called it earlier a “hardware problem”, which in my eyes is synonymous for a defect. but as I cleared up earlier, that isn’t the case. it is by design and both an energy saving option and life prolonging measure (caviar blacks are not meant for 24/7).
you can tweak said behaviour, but if you only occassionally access the drives (non-OS device, for movie storage, data backup, etc), I would certainly let it spin down after a longer idle period (10-15mins?). I dunno how fast the drives spin down right now, but if its too often/quickly for you, just change it.
P.S. also, no matter what HDD you purchase, you’ll run into the very same problem, no matter the manufacturer ^^
a spin up time of 5 seconds per drive is very reasonable and with three of those, you get to around 15 seconds.
Where did I mention that I tested spin up times on all three drives and not individually? If I didn’t, may I ask you to please stop trying to make any further assumptions and rely primarily on what was actually described? Much appreciated.
There is a 14-15 second delay when accessing any of the three 2TB Black Caviar drives in my system making working with them virtually impossible. Anyone else is seeing that?
Drives: three WDC WD2001FASS-00U0B0, FW purchased in June 2010 (Ingram Micro)
Just a quick update: WD was kind to replace all three drives with WD2002FAEX ones, and these do not exhibit the problem; SMART spin up times are under 9 seconds. Happy ending.
This is an interesting issue. I would be curious what engineering could turn up for the drives you traded in. I’m really only writing to say that I have a WD2001FASS-00W2B0. I never saw this behavior. I am glad the company replaced the units which were giving you trouble.
