WD 8 second load cycle count

I know there is a lot of discussion in the past. Is there still nothing in Windows 10 to fix this?

I'm downloading WDIDLE3 and formatting boot disk right now but would prefer a software solution?

1000 cycles in about a week on a brand new HP laptop.

I don't know what WD is. And I don't know what WDIDLE3 is.
But I do know what a brand new HP laptop is.
If WD is a serious problem and the laptop is new, then it's HP's problem. Send it back!

margrave55 said:

I don't know what WD is. And I don't know what WDIDLE3 is.
But I do know what a brand new HP laptop is.
If WD is a serious problem and the laptop is new, then it's HP's problem. Send it back!

Sorry tried to keep it brief. Seems to be a problem with Western Digital hard drives for years. Many drives are set to park the heads after just 8 seconds. With Windows 10 background tasks, it parks/unparks the heads constantly during idle. Which means they can exceed design limits within a couple of years or so. There is a DOS utility to expand the time. I was just hoping Windows 10 might have had a setting.

Can't get the damn thing to boot from USB. May as well just stick the thing on ebay. Can't stand the thing clicking away all the time. Stick to windows XP on all my systems, far less hassle.

You did say this is a brand-new system, right?
So raise a stink with HP! You're entitled to better.

I use a number of WDC HDDs and don't notice any unusual noise with them. Most drives used to have a MTBF [Mean Time Between Failures] of 100,000 hours or maybe more. Most of the drives I've had fail, of different brands, were in external cases, USB and Ethernet, where the added interface in the case was at fault, the drives themselves with the printed circuit card on them worked after removal from the case and used in other devices made for the purpose such as the Thermatake BlacX docking station. A loud click from a drive can indicate imminent failure, it's usually the Voice Coil Relay retracting the read/write arms back to the power-off stop. And it's not always easy to totally eliminate electrical or software issues turning off the power to the drive.

Berton said:

I use a number of WDC HDDs and don't notice any unusual noise with them. Most drives used to have a MTBF [Mean Time Between Failures] of 100,000 hours or maybe more. Most of the drives I've had fail, of different brands, were in external cases, USB and Ethernet, where the added interface in the case was at fault, the drives themselves with the printed circuit card on them worked after removal from the case and used in other devices made for the purpose such as the Thermatake BlacX docking station. A loud click from a drive can indicate imminent failure, it's usually the Voice Coil Relay retracting the read/write arms back to the power-off stop. And it's not always easy to totally eliminate electrical or software issues turning off the power to the drive.

It is definitely a known issue that many WD drives park the heads with 8 seconds of idle. Some say these drives are not suitable as an OS drive. People are exceeding the "design limit" within 6 months although it is not clear what the associated failure rates are. You can see the load cycle going-up in SMART. Design limit for most drives is 300000. WDIDLE3 can change the time for some drives but it seem it might not work on never drives. I cannot get my pc to boot from USB so cannot test the DOS exe. The problem has existed over 10 years and there is on ongoing thread in the WD community forum for the past year and most recent post today but WD don't seem interested.

Blue. HD sleep options made no difference.