Western Digital AV HDDs, serious problems

[vadimo 0]

Im big fan of WD HDDs and been using Green and Black Caviar 2TB for 2 years. I been building custom PC based DVRs for few years using same software.

 

I decided to try new WD model, so purchased 6 of WD20EURS (AV-GP)

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=150

 

I thought they sound great: for DVRs 24x7 reliability! So i upgraded 2 existing Windows 7 based DVRs. After 1 month myself and customers noticed that when you view CCTV recordings, some dates, the recordings playback skips by 40 seconds and very slow access time, 10-15 minutes waiting for recordings to load.

 

Called WD support, their technician told me i should not be using AV and go back to Caviar Black.

 

Anyone else out there?

[SEANHAWG 1]

I dont understand why their 500gb and 1tb versions are 5900 RPM. They should be 7200. Perhaps that could be one reason why you are noticing some problems. With that being said, I have never had that problem with them in the Dahua Standalones like u reported, but have only used a few of those hard-drives before.

 

I prefer Seagate SV, It is the Surveillance HD made by Seagate. Never had any problems at all with theirs. 500 and 1TB come in 7200 RPM, 2TB is 5900 RPM. The thing is they have tripled in pricing because of the Thailand flood.

[Soundy 1]

Called WD support, their technician told me i should not be using AV and go back to Caviar Black.

The WD tech is right: AV and "green" drives are not well suited for the particular demands of surveillance applications. Caviar Blacks, or even their enterprise-grade RE-series drives are preferred.

[rory 0]

viewtopic.php?f=36&t=22300&p=133873#p133873

check thread from the beginning, regarding a WD Green AV drive and stuttering video.

 

WD Blacks? Nice, but the blues work fine for alot less.

The greens seem to work fine in Dahua DVRs also maybe because its just 7fps record max - the problems I had were in a GeoVision PC DVR.

[SEANHAWG 1]

The WD tech is right: AV and "green" drives are not well suited for the particular demands of surveillance applications.

 

Western Digital states thats exactly what the AV drives are made for:

 

"WD AV and WD AV-GP surveillance hard drives deliver smooth, continuous playback of up to 12 HD multimedia streams, perfect for mainstream surveillance for small businesses."

[Soundy 1]

And yet, experience shows otherwise... note that most NAS manufacturers don't recommend them for RAID usage beyond basic home systems.

[vadimo 0]

i can say that Green Caviar been 2TB been working well for me in last 1 year since i started using them. Having said that there has been couple faulty ones but hey they are well priced for what they are. As for Blue Caviar - im staying clear off them, they are too weak in perforamnces.

 

The way i see is a lot depends on what software you use (the way it write/read), compression, fps, number of channels and what recording mode: motion only or continues.....

 

As for my AV drives problem, WD are miss represeting them in media. I will fight WD to get my money back!

[gb5102 0]

I regularly use the WD Green drives for the video storage drives on Geovision DVR/NVR with no issues. I always use a Blue or Black drive for the OS though, and I try not to assign more than 8 cams per disk(less with PTZs/MP cams).

 

I think WD's claims for the AV drives are mostly bloated...the only time I've run into problems was when trying to do too much on a single slow(green) disk. For me, they work good for cheap storage but they can't take too much multitasking.

 

Also, on any of the disks assigned for video playback you should disable indexing, System Restore, and automatic defragmentation. If SysRestore writes a shadow copy or auto-defrag runs on its default schedule, these processes will definitely slow your disks to a crawl. Also, don't put your pagefile on any of the disks which are used for video storage.

 

I know I've read alot of people complaining about the Green disks, but using the basic guidelines above i've had satisfactory results using them, I guess YMMV.

[vadimo 0]

Also, on any of the disks assigned for video playback you should disable indexing, System Restore, and automatic defragmentation. If SysRestore writes a shadow copy or auto-defrag runs on its default schedule, these processes will definitely slow your disks to a crawl. Also, don't put your pagefile on any of the disks which are used for video storage.

.

 

same here!

 

i have seen WD state that Green edition has been tested with RAID 1 and 0. I tried it and it failed over soon after.

[dvarapala 0]

After 1 month myself and customers noticed that when you view CCTV recordings, some dates, the recordings playback skips by 40 seconds and very slow access time, 10-15 minutes waiting for recordings to load.

 

I have a pre-buyout Hitachi 2TB drive, and on a couple of occasions I have experienced symptoms similar to yours. In both cases the problem turned out to be a bad block on the HD. Normally there are enough "spare" blocks on the disk that the firmware in the HD can remap the bad ones automagically. However, once you run out of those built-in spares, you have to map out any additional bad blocks yourself. My system is Linux-based, so all I had to do to fix the problem was force an fsck and reboot. Dunno how you would accomplish that under Windows 7, but I'm sure someone else can advise you on that.

 

HTH.

[vadimo 0]

After 1 month myself and customers noticed that when you view CCTV recordings, some dates, the recordings playback skips by 40 seconds and very slow access time, 10-15 minutes waiting for recordings to load.

 

I have a pre-buyout Hitachi 2TB drive, and on a couple of occasions I have experienced symptoms similar to yours. In both cases the problem turned out to be a bad block on the HD. Normally there are enough "spare" blocks on the disk that the firmware in the HD can remap the bad ones automagically. However, once you run out of those built-in spares, you have to map out any additional bad blocks yourself. My system is Linux-based, so all I had to do to fix the problem was force an fsck and reboot. Dunno how you would accomplish that under Windows 7, but I'm sure someone else can advise you on that.

 

HTH.

 

my issue was on all 6 HDDs, it would be ultimate bad luck if i was to have faults on all. Never the less of course i run chkdsk, there are no faults found and windows logs looked clean too.

[JoeLansing 0]

The green drives use an advanced power scheme. While that might be good for PC's and other devices that support it, they will try and sleep on other devices. The big ones also require an Advanced Format which may not be setup before you installed them? They also have a long timeout which really hurts them on most RAID (and DVR?) systems. It's called TLER (Time Limited Error Recovery) and may be giving you fits. Google "disable WD TLER" and see what you find. This info might help, might not. I hope it does.

- Joe

[vadimo 0]

The green drives use an advanced power scheme. While that might be good for PC's and other devices that support it, they will try and sleep on other devices. The big ones also require an Advanced Format which may not be setup before you installed them? They also have a long timeout which really hurts them on most RAID (and DVR?) systems. It's called TLER (Time Limited Error Recovery) and may be giving you fits. Google "disable WD TLER" and see what you find. This info might help, might not. I hope it does.

- Joe

 

 

AF tool only required to be run on Windows XP. Windows 7 can handle 2TB drives without use of AF tool.

 

I will check TLER out of interest.

 

Thanks

[Campbell 0]

I used to use Greens extensively. I never had any issues with them recording wise but have had a couple of them fail on me now. Black all the way.

[vadimo 0]

I used to use Greens extensively. I never had any issues with them recording wise but have had a couple of them fail on me now. Black all the way.

 

whats the longest continues run so far you have on the black ones? i found that if greens fail they do within first 3 month or so, oldest greens i have are about 11 month.

[Campbell 0]

The Greens that are failing are about 12mths old. Blacks havent failed yet.

[danger_e 0]

The Western Digital AV drives are specifically made for DVR and other high I/O system (AV = Audio/Video). However if they are Green Power drives (GP) they have a function called "IDLE3," or Intellipark, that spins the drive down after a certain amount of inactivity. This can manifest dangerously (as described) when performing motion only recording.

 

This is usually handled fine by Windows based systems, but embedded (standalone) DVRs can have issues with spinning the drive back up in time to write to them.

 

I've got several thousand WD AV drives in DVRs, hybrids, and NVRs in the field, and I'm not currently having any issues. Caviar drives are desktop rated drives and are not actually as robust as the AV drives.

 

I hope that this information helps you with your issues.

[vadimo 0]

The Western Digital AV drives are specifically made for DVR and other high I/O system (AV = Audio/Video). However if they are Green Power drives (GP) they have a function called "IDLE3," or Intellipark, that spins the drive down after a certain amount of inactivity. This can manifest dangerously (as described) when performing motion only recording.

 

This is usually handled fine by Windows based systems, but embedded (standalone) DVRs can have issues with spinning the drive back up in time to write to them.

 

I've got several thousand WD AV drives in DVRs, hybrids, and NVRs in the field, and I'm not currently having any issues. Caviar drives are desktop rated drives and are not actually as robust as the AV drives.

 

I hope that this information helps you with your issues.

 

yes i thought that too but i was recording continues mode, all happy now with black caviar HDDs

[Soundy 1]

The Western Digital AV drives are specifically made for DVR and other high I/O system (AV = Audio/Video).

Except a lot of these, when they say "DVR", mean the home type for recording one or two TV shows intermittently... not the surveillance type that have to record, index, and playback up to 32 video streams under constant 24/7 I/O.

 

A Ford Ranger and an F-350 are both pickup trucks, too, but you wouldn't want to carry 1800 lbs. of topsoil in the former. Sure, you COULD... don't expect things to go very smoothly or the truck to last very long, though.

[danger_e 0]

As my boss says, "Why you gotta bring up old stuff?"

 

So, I can back up my claim about WD AV drives, WD is actually marketing them as surveillance storage drives: http://products.wdc.com/library/Flyer/ENG/2278-701024.pdf

 

However, the real reason that I want to bump this thread is to ask what you guys are doing about the rise in HDD prices? Is anyone seeing any effects so far? I know that it'll be another six months or so (hopefully less, but I'll be cautious) before prices start to come back down, how's everyone handling it?