@SleeperThe newest firmware is .20 - are you still running .18?
No, that is not what I said.
There is a problem with some WD Elements drives (drive fails to wake up after sleeping) that is corrected by updating the firmware on the drive. The drive I have has -03 as the suffix on the part number (also reported by @zippy).How to tell if your drive has this problem?Does the Tablo report that your drive is: WD Elements 10A8 1042 (XXX GB)If so, you should upgrade the drive firmware.How to update your WD Elements drive:On a Windows PC, download the firmware updater tool from http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/wdsmartwareupdate/firmware.asp?id=wdfGeneric&os=win and follow the instructions. It takes about 5 minutes and does NOT modify the data on the drive. The tool will report that the drive firmware was updated from 1.042 to 1.049.After the update, reconnect the disk to your Tablo, it will report that the drive is: WD Elements 10A8 1049 (XXX GB)
@mark - I just bought a WD elements (1GB) drive and the suffix was -05. The funny thing is the update utility shows that the current firmware version is 1.012 and that is also what my drive came with out of the box. So this means that the -03 and -05 use totally different firmware. I will start testing this drive later tonight (swap after everyone in the house goes to bed) and report back after a week if it goes well, sooner if it fails.
There is a problem with some WD Elements drives (drive fails to wake up after sleeping) that is corrected by updating the firmware on the drive. The drive I have has -03 as the suffix on the part number (also reported by @zippy).How to tell if your drive has this problem?Does the Tablo report that your drive is: WD Elements 10A8 1042 (XXX GB)If so, you should upgrade the drive firmware.How to update your WD Elements drive:On a Windows PC, download the firmware updater tool from http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/wdsmartwareupdate/firmware.asp?id=wdfGeneric&os=win and follow the instructions. It takes about 5 minutes and does NOT modify the data on the drive. The tool will report that the drive firmware was updated from 1.042 to 1.049.After the update, reconnect the disk to your Tablo, it will report that the drive is: WD Elements 10A8 1049 (XXX GB)
Thanks for the link. Just updated mine which did in fact take it from 1.042 to 1.049. I’ll report back if this works for more than 3 days because that’s the going record fro me with this drive.
@psmosser Let us know how this goes!
Still havent seen a repeat of the error since upgrading the drive firmware. Cautiously optimistic!
Still havent seen a repeat of the error since upgrading the drive firmware. Cautiously optimistic!
How long ago did you do the upgrade?
@sleeper Sorry I have not tried the update and yes mine reports the drive as WD Elements 10A8 1042 (1000GB). My drive went to sleep again causing recordings to fail so I’m going to attempt this update tonight and will post how it went and then update as it goes through the week. Thank you and also @Mark for the details.
Update fixed my drive. Haven’t had It go offline since I installed the update.
So I’m trying to update my drive and plugged it into my laptop but it’s not showing up anywhere. What am I doing wrong? It does appear as a USB connection with the little green check which I have to right click to safely remove.
Ok the firmware update completed just fine. I figured the drive wasn’t recognized as it’s not formatted as a Windows drive but the updater recognized which is the important part so all good. Tablo now reports my drive as WD Elements 10A8 1049 (1000 GB). I’ll report back later this week.
And I did just sell one of our two Tivo units so I’ve moved from having just a toe in the water.
@psmosser - about a week ago now…still no issue.
@tablosupport So far so good. I think I had been able to avoid the issue over the past few weeks as I found someone in my household had been recording Criminal Minds…83 episodes worth…so the hard drive was hard at work. Those stopped about a week ago which is also when I started to use antenna for live TV and viola we had big gaps in active time giving the HD a chance to sleep. I’ll keep you posted on the update helping to avoid sleep time with HD.
Another night of the HD staying awake. Cautiously optimistic! =D> And I turned the HD around so I can see the light easily. Comforting to walk by and see it on.
@mullermj That’s great news 
keep us posted.
@TabloSupport - So here is a question, if the hard drive never goes to sleep we are basically accelerating the wear and tear by running it 24x7x365. Shouldn’t the tablo let it go to sleep the 18 hours a day we are not watching or recording tv? I mean is this really a good idea to provide it with no rest time?
Sleeping drives is sorta new enterprise side… that is to say, most everything I work with have drives spinning 24x7, even low end SATA drives. And they mostly stay up for their full warranty period if not longer.
I had a desktop PC once that I set to never go to sleep and that thing lasted forever.
Some newer Western Digital drives have a new feature called Intellipower or some such thing. It is known to techies as the Idle3 Timer. I have read that It makes the drive head park on a area off the spinning plate and puts the drive to sleep if the drive is idle for more than 8 seconds. It is supposed to save energy. From what I have read this has caused the number of times the head stops and starts to sky rocket and drive life expectancy is measured in stop and starts.
An issue with these drives for streamers is that streaming buffers a length of time then displays the buffer until it needs more buffer. This causes the head to stop and start often. Under this scenario a drive head could stop and start a hundred or more times during a stream of 2 hour movie.
I read that most drives are rated at 250,000 stop and starts. I had one of these drives and SMART data said the drive head stopped and started over 12000 times in 3 months. I had another drive without the Idle3 Timer and SMART said it stopped and started only 460 times in 18 months. That was 2 drives out of three that I use for media streaming so theoretically each drive was used only 1/3 of the time each month.
To makes matters worse I understand WD has different technologies they market under the same name so it is very difficult to determine if the drive has the Idle3 Timer. I believe all WD Green drives now have this and some the red and purple drives. I currently buy this drive and have determined from SMART Data that it does not have the Idle3 Issue. I also told on another forum that this drive does have the Idle3 Timer because it is designed for security cameras which write to the drive 24/7 so the feature would be a waste of money for WD to include with the drive.
@psmosser @dougc405 Very glad to hear it, folks! Hope you're seeing the same results @mullermj.
So far all still working here after 4 days. That’s one day better than I had done in the past and it’s hit all of my recordings this week. I’ll check in over the weekend with an update.