PSA: Western Digital Changed the drives in Elements Enclosures!

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nickf1227

Active Member
Sep 23, 2015
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Hello All,
I ordered an "WD 10TB Elements Desktop Hard Drive - USB 3.0 - WDBWLG0100HBK-NESN" on Amazon last week. Inside is a Western Digital WD101EMAZ drive
Previously, I had ordered 2 more of these back in November from Amazon and I recieved two Western Digital WD100EMAZ drives

What is the difference you ask? The new SKU is not helium...
No word on whether or not this is SMR or CMR.

IMG_20200616_185012.jpg

Any idea how to test?
 

EffrafaxOfWug

Radioactive Member
Feb 12, 2015
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SMR drives tend to have larger caches (256MB vs. 64MB) and I've been told they report having TRIM/unmap support to the OS.

Alternatively you can just add it to a ZFS array and kick off a resilver... if you haven't posted back in 10 days we'll assume it's still rebuilding :D

Some preliminary reports on reddit here.
 

nickf1227

Active Member
Sep 23, 2015
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backup# smartctl -a /dev/ada3
smartctl 7.1 2019-12-30 r5022 [FreeBSD 12.1-STABLE amd64] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-19, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Device Model: WDC WD101EMAZ-11G7DA0
Serial Number: VCG9SG4M
LU WWN Device Id: 5 000cca 0b0c46f64
Firmware Version: 81.00A81
User Capacity: 10,000,831,348,736 bytes [10.0 TB]
Sector Sizes: 512 bytes logical, 4096 bytes physical
Rotation Rate: 5400 rpm
Form Factor: 3.5 inches
Device is: Not in smartctl database [for details use: -P showall]
ATA Version is: ACS-2, ATA8-ACS T13/1699-D revision 4
SATA Version is: SATA 3.2, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 6.0 Gb/s)
Local Time is: Tue Jun 16 19:51:23 2020 EDT
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled


I just started a ZFS Send/Receive, nothing jumps out as wildly bad or differant:

1592352942457.png
1592352843531.png
1592352905273.png


EDIT: With it running a little bit longer, we can see disk latency is different. We see lower peaks but higher over all mean read latency. We actually are seeing LOWER write latency, however.
1592354249366.png
 

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JediAcolyte

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May 29, 2020
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I contacted WD tech support before I purchased 2 of these myself. They said that no 10TB drives were made with SMR.
 

cstang67

New Member
Jun 24, 2020
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I bought 3 8TB Easystore last week.
They went from WD80EMAZ (helium) To WD80EDAZ (air) as well..
 

indiekiduk

New Member
Sep 12, 2020
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I bought 3 8TB Easystore last week.
They went from WD80EMAZ (helium) To WD80EDAZ (air) as well..
You really need to give the full model numbers because the first part is not the whole story, e.g.

WD80EMAZ-00M9AA0 air
WD80EMAZ-00WJTA0 helium

WD80EDAZ-11TA3A0 air
 
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Spartacus

Well-Known Member
May 27, 2019
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Interesting, are these the same sector size as the EMAZ?
Any concerns with reliability difference? or just the heat factor (mine are in supermicro enclosures with noctua fans so it should be fine)
I'm with zack, does it still have the 3.3v issue that would be an acceptable tradeoff to me.
 

squirrelslikenuts

New Member
Mar 30, 2019
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You really need to give the full model numbers because the first part is not the whole story, e.g.

WD80EMAZ-00M9AA0 air
WD80EMAZ-00WJTA0 helium

WD80EDAZ-11TA3A0 air

I have 6 x WDC_WD80EZAZ-11TDBA0 in my sever, and 2 in my desktop. All shucked.

I've just noticed today (after rebuilding my main pc) that one of my drives is actually a WD80EDAZ-11TA3A0.

It has come to my attention that this is a AIR filled drive and not Helium like the others. It also DOES NOT REQUIRE the 3.3v pin mod.

Is it really of concern that this drive is air and ALL my other drives are helium? Should I return it for a chance at another helium?

Performance is on par with the EZAZ helium drives, temp is within 1 degree under load (31c).

Thoughts?
 

squirrelslikenuts

New Member
Mar 30, 2019
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Still have to use the tape hack for voltage?
EZAZ-11TDBA0 requires tape hack (unless you are using it in a server backplane) or alternatively (what I do) is a use a Sata->Molex adaptor that is missing the orange wire.

EDAZ- 11TA3A0 DOES NOT require tape hack
 
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squirrelslikenuts

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Mar 30, 2019
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Interesting, are these the same sector size as the EMAZ?
Any concerns with reliability difference? or just the heat factor (mine are in supermicro enclosures with noctua fans so it should be fine)
I'm with zack, does it still have the 3.3v issue that would be an acceptable tradeoff to me.
No sir the EDAZ doesn't have the 3.3v pin reset as they appear to be rebadged desktop drives.
 
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ske4za

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Feb 4, 2019
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe another way to tell is to look up smart value 22. If it exists and showing 100, it's a helium drive. I have a mix of WD80EMAZ-00WJTA0 and WD80EFAX-68LHPN0 and they all that value.
 
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squirrelslikenuts

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Mar 30, 2019
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe another way to tell is to look up smart value 22. If it exists and showing 100, it's a helium drive. I have a mix of WD80EMAZ-00WJTA0 and WD80EFAX-68LHPN0 and they all that value.
Yep, if the smart value shows helium then well its helium :)
 

squirrelslikenuts

New Member
Mar 30, 2019
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The D part of EDAZ stands for enterprise, so not necessarily.

E - 3.5”
D - Enterprise
A - 5400rpm
Z - Sata 6gb/s

I know that is what it says, but in my testing, this drive is most certainty NOT enterprise level. It could be because these are in fact enterprise drives that have been RPM limited in firmware perhaps?
 

squirrelslikenuts

New Member
Mar 30, 2019
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What of your testing points to it not being enterprise?
rpm, very wonky performance.

Yes, it will do 200+ MB/s at the beginning of the drive and taper to 100 MB/s near the end, but the peaks and valleys are all over the place in between. Ill post a graph later. Even my WD80EFAX-68KNBN0 while initially slower than the EDAZ drives, perform consistently better. WD80EFAX-68KNBN0 isn't even enterprise.
 

Spartacus

Well-Known Member
May 27, 2019
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What does RPM have to do with it being enterprise or desktop? There are varying rpm models for both.
That sounds about right on speeds. thats how a hard drives work these models start at 190ish down to 80ish when full.
It takes longer to write to the inner most tracks furthest away from the head.

If you're referring to short transfers behalving that way, its likely due to it using the drive cache and then switching to writing to the platter directly.

Edit: That said I cant speak for the EDAZ, I haven't tested them directly, their EMAZ counterparts at 70% full currently average about 130MB/s for me when running a parity check over 15 hours.
 
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