MBP WD Scorpio Black Load Cycle Problem

[Can Inelli]

Hi everyone,

Today I installed my new hard drive. Western Digital Scorpio Black 750 GB 7200 RPM . The Power On time is 5 hours and Load Cycle is 260 cycles. I guess that is too much load cycle for 5 hours and it is not normal ? I don't want my hard drive dying in 1 year. What do you guys recommend ?

By the way how can I check if the motion sensor is working ? I dont hear any sound while moving the mbp. ( I already checked from Terminal, Apple's SuddenMotionSensor is ON. )


Thanks a lot for the help,

 

[alust2013]

More than likely it has more load cycles because you had to put a lot of data on it at once. BTW, you can expect 300,000 load cycles or so before failure.

 

[Can Inelli]

More than likely it has more load cycles because you had to put a lot of data on it at once. BTW, you can expect 300,000 load cycles or so before failure.

Yeah I cloned my old hard drive which was around 200gbs. However I'm still not sure if this is normal. I guess I have to look at the average after 100 hours let's say ? Or what would you guys suggest ?

 

[Can Inelli]

For the last 10 hours it has increased by 800 cycles ! and I was sleeping so I haven't used it during these 10 hours. The temp is 33 degrees. What do you suggest me to do ? This is not normal . If it continues like this my drive will die in 1 year

 

[rekhyt]

... o.0 How would you check the load cycle of a hard drive?

 

[Can Inelli]

... o.0 How would you check the load cycle of a hard drive?

I use this program : http://www.volitans-software.com/smart_utility.php

 

[iMacDragon]

Hi everyone,

Today I installed my new hard drive. Western Digital Scorpio Black 750 GB 7200 RPM . The Power On time is 5 hours and Load Cycle is 260 cycles. I guess that is too much load cycle for 5 hours and it is not normal ? I don't want my hard drive dying in 1 year. What do you guys recommend ?

By the way how can I check if the motion sensor is working ? I dont hear any sound while moving the mbp. ( I already checked from Terminal, Apple's SuddenMotionSensor is ON. )


Thanks a lot for the help,

Western dig drives are renowned for doing this, due to aggressive power management. Only way to stop it is to use hdparm to set a less aggressive management every boot in a script.

 

[Can Inelli]

Western dig drives are renowned for doing this, due to aggressive power management. Only way to stop it is to use hdparm to set a less aggressive management every boot in a script.

I tried using hdparm and it works . But what about the protection of the drive ? When I use hdparm will the motion sensor stop working ?

 

[iMacDragon]

I tried using hdparm and it works . But what about the protection of the drive ? When I use hdparm will the motion sensor stop working ?

Anything to do with motion sensor protection, either the drives own, or the sytems, Should be independant. Ie, the system will specifically tell the drive to go to sleep, or the drive will notice the g-shock and act to protect itself.
Neither of these is a power management action of the drive itself.

 

[Can Inelli]

Anything to do with motion sensor protection, either the drives own, or the sytems, Should be independant. Ie, the system will specifically tell the drive to go to sleep, or the drive will notice the g-shock and act to protect itself.
Neither of these is a power management action of the drive itself.

Thanks a lot . Then I think I will install hdparm again. However I have one more question. When I move my laptop I don't hear the hard drive locking itself for protection. I could hear in my old Hitachi but in this I can't. Is there a way to check if the protection thing is working ? (New HD's G protection thing doesnt show up in SMART Utility, but my old harddrive's shows up in SMART utility)

 

[iMacDragon]

Thanks a lot . Then I think I will install hdparm again. However I have one more question. When I move my laptop I don't hear the hard drive locking itself for protection. I could hear in my old Hitachi but in this I can't. Is there a way to check if the protection thing is working ? (New HD's G protection thing doesnt show up in SMART Utility, but my old harddrive's shows up in SMART utility)

That I can't answer I'm afraid, I'm sure there probably is some way. I'd assume that such an incident should effect the load count stat too? But I'm not sure, but that may be a way of telling, only guessing though.

 

[10-Dee-Q]

hi , hows the drive perform ?
im interested in this hd as well as my old wd scorpio blue 640GB is very slow on my 2010 MBP.
im thinkin about this wd scorpio black 750 GB or seagate momentus XT 500 gb

 

[Can Inelli]

hi , hows the drive perform ?
im interested in this hd as well as my old wd scorpio blue 640GB is very slow on my 2010 MBP.
im thinkin about this wd scorpio black 750 GB or seagate momentus XT 500 gb

It is very fast and quiet. I can recommend you to buy it . I installed hdapm and now it stopped loading and unloading every 10 seconds. I guess that loading issue has nothing to do with the hard drive it depends on os x power management I think.

 

[10-Dee-Q]

Can Inelli,
Hi i just bought the drive
Planning to start a fresh so i just took out my previous hd and put it in external enclosure, then i put the new wdc 750 gb 7200rpm in.
Now its being formated (extended journaled) and zero out data, later on i planned to attach the old disk through usb to get the data(music,pic,video,etc) while for the software i installing new one .

Any tips you want to give me ?
And how do i know wheter ir not i need to use hdpm like u do or not?

Sorry for troibling you, thank you very much.

 

[rev.b]

I have ordered a WD Scorpio Black WD7500BPKT, too.

One question: is it necessary to disable Sudden Motion Sensor in OS X or not?

I have a Scorpio Black 320 Gb that doesn't have the "free fall sensor", it's the WD3200BEKT (only BJKT has it). But I can't find anywhere in WD7500BPKT specs if it has it or not. Anyone knows?

 

[RainCityMacFan]

I have ordered a WD Scorpio Black WD7500BPKT, too.

One question: is it necessary to disable Sudden Motion Sensor in OS X or not?

I have a Scorpio Black 320 Gb that doesn't have the "free fall sensor", it's the WD3200BEKT (only BJKT has it). But I can't find anywhere in WD7500BPKT specs if it has it or not. Anyone knows?

Some Scorpio Blacks have a built in sensor and it is necessary to disable the Sudden Motion Sensor or else they will conflict and cause kernel panics.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1934

Unfortunately (or fortunately in certain circumstances), your's seem to be one of them

http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/AAG/ENG/2178-771118.pdf

EDIT: Forget the link above. The BEKT is listed on the same page so I have no idea. Stupid Western Digital, I'm trying to invest in a drive that has a motion sensor

 

[bcaslis]

It is very fast and quiet. I can recommend you to buy it . I installed hdapm and now it stopped loading and unloading every 10 seconds. I guess that loading issue has nothing to do with the hard drive it depends on os x power management I think.

How does the drive compare to the stock drive in terms of noise and vibration?

 

[axu539]

My 1 TB Scorpio Blue did this in my old machine too, and made really soft click noises (not the click of death which I have also encountered before). I did a lot of research and found that other brands seem to do this too. The way OS X works causes the head to park and load constantly with hard drive power management firmware. Apparently all the HDDs that Apple ships in their machines have slightly tweaked firmware to combat this. I ultimately solved the problem by using HDAPM and just turning my HDD up to max at all times. Battery life took a little hit, but at least my HDD wasn't constantly walking toward its own death.

 

[hzxu]

I am also think of buying this HDD, and since all HDDs I used have LCC increasing too fast(for Hitachi ones, there is an official tool called Feature Tools which can set APM level in firmware, in order to make it not LCC too fast), so I did a bit of research and found that someone wrote letters to Fujitsu's engineer about this issue and got replies from them:

The reason for the clicking is due to the drive parking its heads on a ramp. We do this not as much for power consumption but for purposes of getting the heads in a position where they are less likely to be damaged during an impact.
All disk drive makers think pretty much the same way on this topic. Power management is a secondary benefit.
As for early disk failure due to continuous unloading on the ramp, We have studied the result of this function and understand that there is no wear on the actuator and minimal wear on the ramp itself. However, any wear is far outweighed by the reduction of drive failures due to head disk impact when the heads are left flying over the media.

Excessive Shock damage causes the heads to slap into the disk, if the heads are not up the ramp, which is usually catastrophic. If the head is on the ramp (as we suggest) and the system/drive receives a shock then no damage can happen to the head or media.

Regarding the 600,000 Load_Cycle_Count:
“The 600,000 is the typical spec of most drive ramps. We actually test to 1,000,000 load/unloads over various temp ranges and conditions. It is possible for the drive to exceed 600K in a year (however unlikely) if you use the drive nonstop, 24 hours a day and access the drive every 40 seconds continuously for that whole year. Now that scenario is not only unrealistic but it is so far beyond the design spec of the drive its not funny. The reality is a drive typically unloads 40 times an hour if the drive (not the system) is under constant use. Based on a typical 8 hours of drive use per day that’s 336 unloads per day. If you do that every day for a year that’s 122,640 unloads per year. That means you will reach the spec of 600K in 4.89 years.
We track Load/unload values in SMART. We do not have a threshold for load/unload however. Which means we do not raise any warnings to the system for load/unload. There are SMART values of much higher significance that we do track and have a warning threshold for.”

And he concluded:

So, even if you hit 600,000 Load_Cycles, SMART won’t start to nag or warn.
Fujitsu says their drives are tested to 1,000,000 Load_Cycles, and even then, Ramp failures are super-rare.
Part of the email included attachments labeled “Fujitsu Property & Confidential”, so I guessing they went a little above and beyond to give me some info on it.
In summary, what it sounds like, even though the clicking is annoying, an excessive Load_Cycle_Count may not be something to worry about.

 

[aznguyen316]

Can someone point to me on where to obtain/use hdparm? Googling I come up with many linux results and the download has a bunch of files in it. Is it an application that can be run or exactly how does it work? I just installed the 750GB WD Black and I have like 4,000 load cycles on 53 hours haha... so I'm kind of curious on using the hdparm.

 

[100Teraflops]

Can someone point to me on where to obtain/use hdparm? Googling I come up with many linux results and the download has a bunch of files in it. Is it an application that can be run or exactly how does it work? I just installed the 750GB WD Black and I have like 4,000 load cycles on 53 hours haha... so I'm kind of curious on using the hdparm.

I am interested too, as I installed the same drive 7 hours ago. Now to find the information you are referring too.

EDIT: I read a thread from Apple support and people were saying if you adjust "head parks," then battery life may be affected. Some dude has 3 million plus load cycles on his 3 year old MBP. Is this the exception or the rule?

EDIT THE EDIT: I reread a post above mine, cool!

 

[100Teraflops]

Can someone point to me on where to obtain/use hdparm? Googling I come up with many linux results and the download has a bunch of files in it. Is it an application that can be run or exactly how does it work? I just installed the 750GB WD Black and I have like 4,000 load cycles on 53 hours haha... so I'm kind of curious on using the hdparm.

try this link bro, http://mckinlay.net.nz/hdapm/

It took about 3 second to download. LOL the home page is out the ordinary, so if you see this, then it is normal.

 

[aznguyen316]

try this link bro, http://mckinlay.net.nz/hdapm/

It took about 3 second to download. LOL the home page is out the ordinary, so if you see this, then it is normal.

thanks actually I have been messing with that for the past hour... I just installed a 320GB black on my GF's macbook and got the hdapm working fine and tested via terminal with hdapm disk0 max blah blah success.

as for me, my WD 750GB is on my disk1
terminal test shows:

Jonathan$ hdapm disk1 max
disk1: WDC WD7500BPKT-00PK4T0
Setting APM level to 0xfe: FAILED

cannot get hdapm to work.. my drive is at 4200 load cycles now since hahah and I can hear the little clicks.. hmmmm annoying

I used some sudo cp commands to get the files to the appropriate folders (which happens to be on the ssd) if that matters or not. My vertex 2 is disk0 while my 750GB is disk1. I've edited the plist to disk1 also... does it matter if I h ave bootcamp on disk1? My mac partition is disk1s2

Followed some of this guy's directions: http://discussions.info.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=10291059

 

[100Teraflops]

thanks actually I have been messing with that for the past hour... I just installed a 320GB black on my GF's macbook and got the hdapm working fine and tested via terminal with hdapm disk0 max blah blah success.

as for me, my WD 750GB is on my disk1
terminal test shows:

Jonathan$ hdapm disk1 max
disk1: WDC WD7500BPKT-00PK4T0
Setting APM level to 0xfe: FAILED

cannot get hdapm to work.. my drive is at 4200 load cycles now since hahah and I can hear the little clicks.. hmmmm annoying

I used some sudo cp commands to get the files to the appropriate folders (which happens to be on the ssd) if that matters or not. My vertex 2 is disk0 while my 750GB is disk1. I've edited the plist to disk1 also... does it matter if I h ave bootcamp on disk1? My mac partition is disk1s2

Followed some of this guy's directions: http://discussions.info.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=10291059

What I want to know is if the load cycles is a real concern or are we paranoid? I will run a test as I have the same drive. My drive clicks and it is always active, unlike the stock 750 GB Toshiba 5400 HDD. Also, I repaired disk permissions, as my boot up time decreased 3 fold since I installed the 750 GB WD.

EDIT: I am testing the battery life for the first time with the WD HDD. If I do not like this drive, then I will not hesitate to reinstall the stock HDD and use this drive as a scratch disk etc...

 

[axu539]

I also had the load cycle problem with my WD Scorpio Blue 1 TB. Within 2 days, it'd gotten up to something like 5000 load cycles. I installed hdapm and everything was fine. It's just WD's power management not playing nice with OS X. I've also heard of this issue with other brands, so I think it's just that Apple uses custom firmware for its own drives, to prevent these unnecessary load cycles.