On 20/04/12 16:25, Chris Samuel wrote:
On Tuesday 10 April 2012 12:46:56 Toby Corkindale wrote:
It looks like someone has reversed engineered the DOS utility to disable/adjust the feature, though, so you can do it from Linux now. http://idle3-tools.sourceforge.net/
Nice find, though it looks like it doesn't work with USB connected WD Green drives (6400AAV)... :-(
If it's any consolation, neither does the original utility from WD, since it only works in DOS, which didn't support USB drives at all.
idle3-tools-0.9.1$ sudo ./idle3ctl -g /dev/sdb sg16(VSC_ENABLE) failed: Invalid exchange
idle3-tools-0.9.1$ sudo smartctl -A /dev/sdb | grep "^193" 193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 2571
2571 isn't that high, really.. The drives are rated to 300k load cycles*, and as we've seen from Russell, they don't spontaneously combust even with >1M cycles. Maybe the USB drive is set up differently? * The 300k rating is quoted all around the internet, but I never did manage to find an authoritative source from WD themselves.