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Author Topic: Western Digital Advanced Format Drives - Read before you buy!  (Read 166887 times)

D-Link Multimedia

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This post is pending until 1.10 is released. Once 1.10 is released, AFT drives should be fully supported.

ShareCenter Users,
 
We regret to inform you that we can not support Western Digital’s new Desktop disk drives with Advanced Formatting Technology for use in our ShareCenter NAS devices.
 
WD does not recommend (and will not support) the use ANY of their Desktop disk drives in NAS devices, including their new drives with the Advanced Formatting Technology.  WD has no intention of rectifying this issue for NAS support.
 
According to WD, even if we were to solve the issues caused by their Advanced Formatting Technology in the standard mode, these drives may still cause problems when used in RAID configurations (especially with RAID 5).
 
This issue is not unique to D-Link nor the ShareCenter product line but rather relates to WD’s strategy moving forward.
 
WD will only guarantee the compatibility of their Enterprise disk drives with NAS devices, as they are not integrated with their Advanced Formatting Technology.
 
As a result, we will NOT support the use of any WD disk drive with Advanced Formatting Technology.
 
Thank you for your understanding.  Please do not hesitate to contact our team directly with any questions or concerns.
« Last Edit: October 14, 2011, 04:57:48 AM by JavaLawyer »
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Stavr0s

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Re: Western Digital Advanced Format Drives - Read before you buy!
« Reply #1 on: May 08, 2010, 03:44:59 AM »

does that mean the WD10EADS i have ordered are no good then :(

i have found via google that the WD10EARS model is the one that will be a problem, i was under the impression the WD10EADS was ok.

i see the 2TBEADS is on the supported list but i dont see the 1TB

if anyone here knows or has one in their 323 i would be glad of a reply, thanks


stavr0s


« Last Edit: May 08, 2010, 03:46:34 AM by Stavr0s »
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dosborne

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Re: Western Digital Advanced Format Drives - Read before you buy!
« Reply #2 on: May 08, 2010, 04:04:53 AM »

I have a WD15EADS in one of my DNS323's and have been running it for a while with no errors. It is my understanding it is not one of the affected drives (only the WD10EARS, WD15EARS and WD20EARS).

Edit: Drive list from WDC http://products.wdc.com/Library/Flyer/ENG/2178-771123.pdf
« Last Edit: May 08, 2010, 04:12:02 AM by dosborne »
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3 x DNS-323 with 2 x 2TB WD Drives each for a total of 12 TB Storage and Backup. Running DLink Firmware v1.08 and Fonz Fun Plug (FFP) v0.5 for improved software support.

Stavr0s

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Re: Western Digital Advanced Format Drives - Read before you buy!
« Reply #3 on: May 08, 2010, 04:35:19 AM »

thanks alot dosborne
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James_CSE

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Re: Western Digital Advanced Format Drives - Read before you buy!
« Reply #4 on: May 09, 2010, 08:02:24 PM »

I have a WD10EARS hard drive. I do not use it in RAID only standard mode so will I have any problems with it. Its the green supposedly energy efficient drive I've been using it for a month with no problems. I mainly just ftp files between home & work with it but if there's a chance it will fail maybe I should just use it in an enclosure as a plain USB drive & buy another HD for my DNS-323.
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AC3

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Re: Western Digital Advanced Format Drives - Read before you buy!
« Reply #5 on: May 10, 2010, 03:59:56 PM »

I've been running a WD20EADS standard mode for past few months with no problems. I believe the EARS (w/ 64mb cache) are the ones using 4k AFT, the EADS w/ 32mb cache aren't.
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D-Link Multimedia

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Re: Western Digital Advanced Format Drives - Read before you buy!
« Reply #6 on: May 10, 2010, 04:26:58 PM »

The only thing you would notice is performance issues. We are going to try our best to work with WD and 'play nice' but it is not their intention for users to use desktop drives with nas units so we (as well as other nas manufacturers) suffer. Personally I would stay away from the 4k drives until it is more widely adopted by other HDD manufacturers and preferably ones that don't only care about Windows and Macs.
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IcyMidnight

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Re: Western Digital Advanced Format Drives - Read before you buy!
« Reply #7 on: May 11, 2010, 11:11:03 AM »

Since people have been able to work around the limitations of the 4K clusters on the DNS 323, and WD claims that modern operating systems know how to format the drives properly, shouldn't it be fairly doable to detect drives that use 4K clusters and properly align the partitions created in the firmware?
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drakeblood

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Re: Western Digital Advanced Format Drives - Read before you buy!
« Reply #8 on: May 11, 2010, 12:27:39 PM »

in fact the alignment can be done manually using fdisk... the problem is that at the next reboot the dlink frontend software will not detect it as a valid "dns-323 formatted driver"
it is quite funny because until you dont reboot, your NAS will be running 100% fine and aligned.(tested personally)
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Rodent

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Re: Western Digital Advanced Format Drives - Read before you buy!
« Reply #9 on: May 11, 2010, 05:21:33 PM »

As my supplier no longer supply WD20EADS drives and only supply's WD20EARS drives and the only 2TB drive on the Supported Hard Drive list is the WD20EADS what 2TB drive should one get?

If I plan to only use the DNS323 in standard drive mode can I use the WD20EARS drives with no problems?

Thanks
R.
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neoncs

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Re: Western Digital Advanced Format Drives - Read before you buy!
« Reply #10 on: May 12, 2010, 04:01:33 AM »

Oh Bugger,

As I type I am at 98% just formating 2 newly purchased WD 2TB EARS Green in Raid 1 configuration in my new DNS 323 with fw upgraded to 1.08.

What can I expect the issues to be?

I will report back any problems I found.
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Tank_Killer

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Re: Western Digital Advanced Format Drives - Read before you buy!
« Reply #11 on: May 12, 2010, 07:31:58 AM »

Expect very poor performace in a few months, or after you have started writing large amounts of data.  I would return those drives ASAP for something compatable.

Its unfortunate, as alot of people will buy EARS drives for this box as the retail package wouldn't indicate unsupported drives.  And only hardcore people would check the forum before purchasing drives for their NAS.

Oh well, computers are fun!
« Last Edit: May 12, 2010, 07:39:04 AM by Tank_Killer »
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dosborne

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Re: Western Digital Advanced Format Drives - Read before you buy!
« Reply #12 on: May 12, 2010, 08:07:19 AM »

I had picked up a WD15EARS HDD to mirror to my WD15EADS drive last Friday. It formatted fine, mirrored fine, then the raid "degraded" in a couple of hours. I reformated, remirrored. After a few hours, same thing, raid degraded. I returned the WD15EARS drive on Monday for a Seagate ST31500341AS, formatted, mirrored and been running fine since.
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3 x DNS-323 with 2 x 2TB WD Drives each for a total of 12 TB Storage and Backup. Running DLink Firmware v1.08 and Fonz Fun Plug (FFP) v0.5 for improved software support.

neoncs

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Re: Western Digital Advanced Format Drives - Read before you buy!
« Reply #13 on: May 12, 2010, 03:26:33 PM »

Yep,

It formated ok and appeared to be working. I then copied 10 GB and it was fine. I then left it to copy 300GB to it and this morning the mirrored drive shows it was disconnected in the logs. It has be regraded. I then did a restart of NAS and it advises the replacement drive does not have a large enough capacity.

Oh well looks like I will have 2 x 2TB drives to sell.
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dd

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Re: Western Digital Advanced Format Drives - Read before you buy!
« Reply #14 on: May 12, 2010, 04:35:44 PM »

Slot   Vendor   Model   Serial Number   Size
Right   WDC   WD20EADS-00R6B0   WD-WCAVYxxxx   2000 G   
Left   WDC   WD20EADS-00R6B0   WD-WCAVYxxxx   2000 G

Configured as Jbod.  Runs quite well.  Sometimes, it runs quite slowly,
and I'm never sure if it's the ethernet connect speed or something else.
I expect 1000Mbps ... not sure if (or how) I should be configuring jumbo frames,
which is the purpose of my forum visit today.

Accessed from Win7-64, WinXP and Linux .... having a bit of trouble with my Macs.

Will post dnstester speeds.   
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