Author Topic: Hard Drive failing on LS LIve HS-DH500GL  (Read 4517 times)

CuriousMark

  • Calf
  • *
  • Posts: 8
Hard Drive failing on LS LIve HS-DH500GL
« on: February 17, 2009, 06:52:08 PM »
   

I recently noticed read errors retrieving data from the LS Live.  The hard drive would be making a ticking noise and then the read would time out and fail.  I dissassembled the unit and ran the Samsung utility on the drive and during the read scan it found lots of ECC and media errors.  When I re-assembled the unit and plugged it back in I noticed the fan is not spinning.  This may be the cause of the HD failure.  Should I expect the fan to spin up on powerup or is it normal to only start spinning after the box has warmed up.  If the latter is the case, perhaps the fan is fine and all I need to do is wait a while.  So far it is ten minutes and no fan movement is happening.

 

If the fan is bad, I will replace both it and the drive, I just want to make sure I am not off in left field.  

 

A second question.  I presume I should replace with a Samsung Spinpoint F1 drive, like what is in it now, for compatibility.  But if the firmeware doesn't care, can I use any drive?

 

CuriousMark

 

Edit: P.S.  I have my answer on the fan, it is spinning now.  Any suggestions on what drive model to buy is still welcome.  Thanks in advance.

Message Edited by CuriousMark on 02-17-2009 05:32 PM

cbergeson

  • Calf
  • *
  • Posts: 33
Re: Hard Drive failing on LS LIve HS-DH500GL
« Reply #1 on: February 18, 2009, 04:54:24 PM »
Glad to hear you got the fan working, what did you find got it to work again?  With looking for a replacement you can use any manufacturer's drive as long as it is similar in specs to the one that was pre-installed, the fw shouldn't notice the change.

CuriousMark

  • Calf
  • *
  • Posts: 8
Re: Hard Drive failing on LS LIve HS-DH500GL
« Reply #2 on: February 18, 2009, 06:48:35 PM »
   

I waited another ten minutes and when I checked the fan was running.  It is probably controlled by a temperature sensor on the drive or the processor board.  My old Kurobox was not so civilized so I was needlessly worrying that something was broke when indeed nothing was wrong with the fan at all.

 

I have plenty of choices of drives at Newegg.  Thanks for the advice.


CuriousMark

  • Calf
  • *
  • Posts: 8
Re: Hard Drive failing on LS LIve HS-DH500GL
« Reply #3 on: February 27, 2009, 11:14:10 AM »
   
"With looking for a replacement you can use any manufacturer's drive as long as it is similar in specs to the one that was pre-installed, the fw shouldn't notice the change."
 
I purchased and installed a Western Digital Caviar GP WD7500AACS drive and am seeing a potentially minor issue.  This drive has a head unloading mode that kicks in when the drive is idle.  Unfortunately the firmware seems to want to access the drive regularly when idle and I am hearing a ticking sound when the NAS is idle that I believe is due to the heads loading and unloading.  This happens for periods of about two minutes with the quiet ticks spaced about two to to about six seconds apart.  it will then be silent for several to many minutes.  This might or might not be considered to be hard on the drive, I am asking WD separately on that score.  If it is, then this kind of drive may not be appropriate in this application.  I will post back when I know more.
 

CuriousMark

  • Calf
  • *
  • Posts: 8
Re: Hard Drive failing on LS LIve HS-DH500GL
« Reply #4 on: February 27, 2009, 12:58:39 PM »
   WD was not much help.   They don't support drives in third party enclosures, ask the enclosure maker.  In other words, ask here.  I did some poking around the WD site and it appears older drives with head unloading can be tuned to do that less often.  Given that they offer the ability to tweak it, or at least used to, I am thinking it is probably not good for the drive to let this go on, so I will pull it out and try to tweak it to head onload less often, or eve not at all.  Progress will be reported to this thread.  Meanwhile, other users may want to stay away from green drives that do this, just in case it is hard on the drive.