WD Elements SE 2.5" 1Tb - Change Spin-down Time

[Joe_S]

Did you look in Power Management and select never turn off drive? I don't if this will help any or not. Don't expect much from WD the virtual CD/Smartware was a problem when they first started it and they just added it to more products. There are posts here of the firmware fix for that problem corrupting their data there.

Joe

[deebee]

I tried the Power Managemnt thingy - did not help.

Looks like a more people are having this issue. Read here (1st reviewer from Italy), talks about the same issue.

http://www.buzzillions.com/reviews/western-digital-elements-se-portable-1tb-hdd-reviews

I tried the Crystal Disk Info utility. It reads the APM value for this drive as 60hex. I am able to set it to a higher value but its lost when the drive is re-plugged again. Its not able to hard programme the specific register inside the HDD. This change (permanent) requires a FW upgrade from WD to fix this issue.

WD - pls help get us a new piece of code that fixes this issue.

[deebee]

Quick update:

I just tested my older WD Elements Portable 500GB (first edition) with the Crystal Disk Info SW.

The APM value reads to be 80h for this older drive.

80hex as per the utility is stated to the value for Minimum Power Consumption without Standby.

So clearly the APM is in play here that needs to be set by WD's FW for the newer SE drives.

You guys know any way to access this register & write a new default value (80h) down in it during bootup? Usually the default values are fetched from a EEPROM / FLASH memory chip used alongside the controller chip inside the drive. 

[BBBBBrandon]

These drives will typically spin down and enter power save mode after about 10 minutes of inactivity.  Users that are continuously accessing data on this drive should not notice a problem.  If you are having weird behavior, I would advise running our DLG diagnostic utility and depending on the results, request an rma if the drive fails the test.

[deebee]

Brandon

From what we are seeing the drives do not spin down after 10 mins but rather in a matter of few 10s of seconds. This has also been noted by the other folks on this thread.

As also noted in a seperate thread, I got a new drive (after RMA) that behaved exactly like the first one. See here:

http://community.wdc.com/t5/Other-Externals/HELPP-Sluggish-WD-Elements-Portable-SE-500GB-HDD/td-p/65...

Is the APM value of 60h read by Crystal Disk Info utility correct for these SE drives? Or was that supposed to be 80h but has wrongly been programmed as 60h? My older WD Elements Portable 500GB (first edition) reads a APM val of 80h.

Is it possible to correct this APM value on these drives possibly via a FW upgrade?

Tks,

D

[LocalStranger]

I have contacted WD via support requesting a tool or firmware update to change spin down time from 8 seconds to higher value and they send me just this:

Thank you for contacting Western Digital Customer Service and Support.
Unfortunately Western Digital has no such tool for your Model. If you have any further questions, please reply to this email and we will be happy to assist you further.

I will not wasting any more time requesting firmware update - they just couldn't care less.

I think that changing APM value on every start is the only option for us at the moment.

It started for me when my good old 320 GB WD passport died after years of extensive use.

For long years I was very satisfied WD customer using many WD drives.

So I wanted a replacement for the passport. I did some research and find out that every new WD drive has "SmartWare" crap on it. So I decided to buy an external enclosure and a plain WD Scorpio Blue 750 GB drive.

I was hoping that this combination will provide good HW withou **bleep**ty SW. But I was wrong. They [delete] up everything they could, even firmware.

Now I have drive that stops every 8 seconds - great! Well done WD.

(Sorry for my bad english.)

[jakovasaur]

I returned this **bleep** drive and I'm making me payback.

WD wants to make nothing for their customers. The exchanges of e-mails did not succeed for me too. I am very disappointed by the services of WD. They mess the mouth of the world.

I'll buy a Seagate drive !!!

[shinhikari]

Great! I've tried The Crystal Disk Info utility and I think it's the best workaround we have right now... Set the APM to 80h and the drive won't spin down... The latest Crystal Disk Utility has the option to set  APM automatically... so whenever you re-plug the HDD, it will automatically set the APM to 80h... That's it... this solve my problem and I don't think WD is coming up with a solution... so this is your best bet...

Okay here what I did,

Set the program to run on start up and be a resident:

Function -> Resident (ticked)

Function -> StartUp (ticked)

Set the APM from 60H to 80H:

Function -> Advance Feature -> AAM/APM Control -> Choose your WD drive from the dropdown menu -> set APM to 80h

Set the program to automatically set APM to 80h:

Function -> Advance Feature -> Auto AAM/APM Adaptation (ticked)

And lastly, set the program to auto detect newly connected drive:

Function -> Advance Feature -> Auto Dectection -> 30sec (you can make this faster if you want)

That's it... I hope this solve your problem as well

And here is the APM value as stated by Crystal Disk Info utility...

00h          Reserved
01h          Minimum power consumption with Standby
02h-7Fh  Intermediate power management levels with Standby
80h          Minimum power consumption without Standby
81h-FDh  Intermediate power management levels without Standby
FEh          Maximum performance
FFh          Reserved

So I think you can set the APM value to other value as needed...

In my opinion, if you are a heavy user, you can safely stay at 80h or above, it eliminate the need for the drive to go into standby... this logically reduce the mechanical wear of the drive...

But if you are not, you might want to set up the APM to 7FH or below... so it will still go into standby but after a longer idle time (not just a silly 8 seconds!)... I haven't tested this... but it is supposed to do as I think

Anyway do it at your own risk okay... I don't want to be held responsible

[deebee]

The above prooves beyond doubt that the WD FW has an issue & given a will there is a way to cicumvent the problem.

Great work shinhikari !

---------

Come on Brandon reply!

Why does not WD make this single byte change from 60h to 80h to the APM value & release a new FW.

I am willing to be an budding alpha tester .

Come on help us....

[LocalStranger]

Thank you shinhikari and CrystalDisk