High Load cycle in WD Scorpio Hard Drive.

[Zurina]

I have purchased a MSI netbook with a WD Scorpio Blue HDD in it. Everything is ok but it does a lot head parking, when I checked its Load Cycle Count in HD Tune Pro and it gives an average of 5 LCC per minute. From some source I have known that lifespan for LCC on a hard drive and if this is going to continue my hard drive will soon get dead. If there is a limit of 500.000 cycles, I can only use it for 70 days. Can anyone tell me that is that right because I find this a little weird for a new HDD. Any suggestion will be welcome.

[MACuser]

hello there I would advise you to test the drive with Data Lifeguard Diagnostics and make sure that this subject is due to an imminent drive's failure. If the test is unsuccessful and you think that this is not going to work for you then the option you will be having is to replace the hard drive.

[Zurina]

I already have tested it with the Data Lifeguard Diagnostics and found that the hard drive is in perfect condition. In my opinion there is no problem is that the Hard Drive is bad. But the problem is 'aggressive head parking'. Can anyone give me the detail about the lifespan for Load Cycle Count?

[Atakapa]

WD used to offer a WDIDLE3 utility that permitted the user to change the drive's defaulting APM (Automatic Power Management) protocols. I don't know if it will be working for your hard drive, though. By the way, according to the some of the document I have gone through (and the source is genuine) has rated number of load/unload cycles is 600,000. So you can now calculate how long will be lasting you hard drive. But the cause of concern is the high LCC not the entire LCC count.

[Bayougoula]

I've read someplace a few days ago that if you are using the WDIDLE3 you don't Your warranty is gone you are no more warranted. But I've purchased a netbook with a WD drive in it so I believe I am not having warranty at WD at all. Why would WD make a hard drive which only lasts for as regards 84 whole days? I don't understand this at all. Now I am kind of scared to just leave my netbook on while I’m doing not anything since my HDD's lifetime would then get exhausted.

[Biloxi]

The information given in this regard by WD is:
Present SMART normalized values have not been re-normalized to 1 million cycles so advisory reporting on this quality does not denote failure of manufactured product. Essentially, even if you arrive at the utmost Load Cycle Count for your drive, it does not denote that your drive will fall short. In an individual note, I have a Caviar Green drive, for few years now, and it has passed the maximum Load Cycle Count, the drive still working strong, no issue whatsoever.

[Bindoo]

just bought a notepad with a 500 GB with the same drive and the drive seemingly park it's head 5-15 times when it is sitting idle. The Hard drive surpasses a SMART test. During usage the drive is quiet. I think the drive is fine; it's just violent with head not loading. I'll believe them, I guess. I am sure that is not something which will sound pleasant. I've switched OS power management to never spin down the drive, but it still makes a fuss. My Opearating system is Windows 7 64bit.Has anyone tried using Quiet HDD with Win7? Does WD can suggest me some way to reduce this?

[Zurina]

Many Thanks you for your responding. This makes me be anxious a lot less. I'm happy that you can use it yet if it goes over the lifetime. So it would be smart to just use it as normal and check the drive every 3 months or so to see if it's still working fine? You guys have really made me worry much less. Thanks again.

[fragranz]

I lastly found that Western Digital has offered a tool to regulate and disable the characteristic that causes the heads to park them. It is called “wdidle3”, and since it seems that WD does not propose it directly, you have to search for it with Google. I cannt guarantee it will work for you and in fact I do not recommend you use it if you do not know exactly what you are doing,

[Virtuous]

It appears like WD Green drives are set to park their heads every 8 seconds by default. Drive heads are parking and unparking a lot of times per minute. WD is obviously aware of the difficulty; they have released the "RE2GP Idle Mode Update Utility" which solves the problem. Although their download page doesn't talk concerning my drive model I've upgraded the drive and so far it appears to be working: my load/unload cycle is stable on 1967 for an hour or so.