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
