Western Digital Blue HDD - High Load / Unload Cycle Count

Steve C · 2025-02-20T01:45:14-0500

I have a WD Blue HDD 4GB, WD40EZRZ-00GXCB0 installed in my desktop PC which is mainly used for backups. The drive is working fine in Windows 11 with 3262 power on hours. However, CrystalDiskInfo reports a high Load/Unload Cycle Count (20,007 cycles). This excessive head parking could lead to wear over time.

ChatGPT advises the now unsupported utility WDIDLE3 to adjust or disable the IntelliPark feature, which automatically parks the HDD heads after a short idle period. This utility is hard to use since it requires a special DOS boot drive to run. Why is the WD Blue HDD operating like this which many users report? Should I be concerned and can is there a solution to reduce the number of head parking cycles other than using WDIDLE3?

FreeBooter · 2025-02-20T02:06:57-0500

Do you hear any clicking sound?

Steve C · 2025-02-20T02:08:08-0500

FreeBooter said:
Do you hear any clicking sound?

No but I have a good sound insulated PC case.

FreeBooter · 2025-02-20T02:10:44-0500

Steve C said:
No but I have a good sound insulated PC case.

Hearing clicking sound is not good for the health of the HDD, so i suggest you open the computer case and make sure there is no clicking sound coming from the HDD.

abactuon · 2025-02-20T09:50:49-0500

What happens if the hard disk is set to offline mode (if the disk is rarely used)?

Steve C · 2025-02-20T10:36:08-0500

abactuon said:
What happens if the hard disk is set to offline mode (if the disk is rarely used)?

I can't do that since I use the drive for scheduled Reflect backups

abactuon · 2025-02-20T19:51:08-0500

This is certainly not advice, but you can use the task scheduler to specify in the script
Set-Disk ...

XxXxX · 2025-02-21T01:08:09-0500

have you checked at WD for any firmware updates.
my WD (SSD) needed firmware updates. you can use the WD dashboard to check.

Western Digital Support | Western Digital

Find detailed answers to your support questions for your Western Digital products.

support-en.wd.com

best of luck, Steve ..

Steve C · 2025-02-21T01:30:42-0500

XxXxX said:
have you checked at WD for any firmware updates.
my WD (SSD) needed firmware updates. you can use the WD dashboard to check.

Western Digital Support | Western Digital

Find detailed answers to your support questions for your Western Digital products.

support-en.wd.com

best of luck, Steve ..

There are no firmware updates but I sent a support query to WD

Steve C · 2025-02-21T01:31:15-0500

abactuon said:
This is certainly not advice, but you can use the task scheduler to specify in the script
Set-Disk ...

??

abactuon · 2025-02-21T02:21:56-0500

EXAMPLE 1

Set-Disk (Storage)

Use this topic to help manage Windows and Windows Server technologies with Windows PowerShell.

learn.microsoft.com

If that's what you mean. I don't know how this will affect the operation of the device controller.

Steve C · 2025-02-21T08:46:23-0500

Update. I ran the WD disk utility program but that did not find any issues or firmware update. I then created a DOS boot drive using Rufus and copied the WD utility wdidle3.exe to the USB drive. This utility is used to set the load / unload timer for WD drives. However, when I executed the command wdidel3.exe /R to check the current settings I got the message ”No drives detected. If hard drives are on the system then perhaps the controller is not supported.” The WD Blue drive is connected via the standard Windows 11 Standard SATA AHCI controller so I don't understand why the WD drive isn't found. I'm stumped now since there appears to be way to reduce the high number of load / unload cycles.

Western Digital Blue HDD - High Load / Unload Cycle Count

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