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Seagate Load Cycle Count


Mick Mickle

Question

I've got a couple of ST4000DM000 4TB drives that I'm using in my server (removed from original external USB enclosures). One is now over the 300,000 Load Cycle Count limit, and another is close to it. So, basically, they have the green WDC drive problem that WDidle3 fixes by changing the timing from 8 to 300 seconds. Seagate now has a SeaChest program that will change timing of newer drives that use EPC (Extended Power Conditions), but ST4000DM000 apparently predates EPC. Any ideas on how to minimize the load cycle count on these drives to prolong their lives?

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Well, I should have checked other posts here first. I see a lot of relevant conversation on the pinned thread here:

So I'll try out some of what's discussed. And I see that the current (a few years ago, anyway) conventional wisdom seems to be not to worry about high LCC on aggressive-park designed HDDs unless other problem indicators develop.

Still, it's disconcerting to see the out-of-tolerance measurements in SMART reported by Scanner. 

Note that the referenced thread above doesn't address the newer Seagate drives such as Iron wolf which use EPC. According to Seagate, most of the drives made since 2016 use that power management feature, and the new SeaChest program accesses the feature, even in 64-bit Windows. There's some discussion about it over here:  https://forum.synology.com/enu/viewtopic.php?t=125401&start=45

On a slightly different topic, if I don't ignore the LCC warning, I don't get more warnings from Scanner that the LCCs are getting worse (Good!).  If I ignore the current warning, I'll get another warning almost immediately as the count goes up. The permanently ignore option is clear if there is only one SMART condition (like LCC) to deal with. But it's not clear to me how that works if there are two or more flagged SMART conditions, such as both LCC and Reallocated Sectors Count. It looks like I would never get another warning about either if I chose Permanently.  However, while I wouldn't want to be bothered with LCC warnings, I would want to know if the Reallocated Sectors continued to increase. Clarification?

 

20181110_113307.jpg

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Scanner issues a warning since that's what the specs for the drives say.  We follow that, even if the drive is known to be aggressive about head parking.

But that said, LCC by itself isn't an indicator of mechanical wear.  If you see other SMART warnings pop up and LCC, then that would indicate an issue. 

 

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Thanks, Christopher.  That's what I thought from earlier comments you've made.  How about this question concerning "Ignore S.M.A.R.T. Warning" in Scanner?

 

On ‎11‎/‎10‎/‎2018 at 11:57 AM, Mick Mickle said:

The permanently ignore option is clear if there is only one SMART condition (like LCC) to deal with. But it's not clear to me how that works if there are two or more flagged SMART conditions, such as both LCC and Reallocated Sectors Count. It looks like I would never get another warning about either if I chose Permanently.  However, while I wouldn't want to be bothered with LCC warnings, I would want to know if the Reallocated Sectors continued to increase. Clarification?

 

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