Bug#784661: debian-installer: Installation manual should note Green Drive failure under Linux
Package: debian-installer
Version: Head
Severity: wishlist
Tags: d-i patch
Hi,
Western Digital Green drives fail early under Linux due to excessive
load/park cycling of the heads. This should be noted in the
Installation Manual's hardware compatibility section.
For more information on the problem see the package description of the
idle3-tools package:
https://packages.debian.org/jessie/idle3-tools
the -J option of the hdparm man page:
http://manpages.debian.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=hdparm&apropos=0&sektion=0&manpath=Debian+8+jessie&format=html&locale=en
and Arch Linux's drive notes:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Advanced_Format#Special_Consideration_for_WD_Green_HDDs
Attached is a patch against head. (It'd be nice to see this
backported to Jessie so that, at least in theory, people would not
have their drives die.)
-- System Information:
Debian Release: 7.8
APT prefers stable
APT policy: (500, 'stable'), (500, 'oldstable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Kernel: Linux 3.2.0-4-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
--- manual/en/hardware/hardware-supported.xml.orig 2015-05-07 09:36:36.548881874 -0500
+++ manual/en/hardware/hardware-supported.xml 2015-05-07 10:19:58.091221001 -0500
@@ -345,6 +345,35 @@
</para>
</sect2>
+ <sect2 id="green-drives"><title>Green Hard Drive Support</title>
+
+<para>
+Green hard drives are engineered to reduce power consumption. To this
+end they park the drive heads after a period of inactivity. At the
+time of this writing Western Digital Green drives have an idle timeout
+of 8 seconds. Under the Linux kernel this results in excessive
+load/park cycles, drive wear, and premature drive failure.
+
+</para><para> The idle timeout of Western Digital Green drives can be
+permanently adjusted using proprietary software supplied by Western
+Digital that, at the time of this writing, runs only under MS-Dos.
+Alternately, the <command>hdparm</command> command's
+<command>-J</command> option can be used to temporarily adjust the
+idle timeout. The <command>hdparm</command> developers recommend a 30
+second timeout. The <command>idle3ctl</command> command is another
+Free Software option. It permanently adjusts the idle timeout.
+
+</para><warning><para>
+The Western Digital Green drive firmware is proprietary and
+reverse-engineering is required to produce the Free Software that
+manipulates the idle timeout. Consequently use of Free Software tools
+to modify the idle timeout, while they work for many at the time of
+this writing, might render your Western Digital Green drive
+inoperable. The Free Software tools are used at your own risk.
+
+</warning></para>
+ </sect2>
+
<sect2 id="gfx" arch="not-s390"><title>Graphics Hardware Support</title>
<para>
&debian;'s support for graphical interfaces is determined by the
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