# ST1000DM003 (7200rpm desktop) head parks after some seconds, are they serious!?



## kn00tcn (Mar 12, 2015)

anyone else use this seagate? i only tested it in a 'dumb' enclosure over esata so far, the same enclosure that normally has a ST2000DL003 (green) that doesnt seem to park, or if it does, it takes minutes for it to happen

i've used an WD40EZRX (green) with its head parking, & i successfully used wdidle to disable the parking of a WD10EZEX (blue) used as an OS drive

so then why would a full speed DESKTOP marketed hard drive have such extremely aggressive head parking!?

even for externals or greens, how is 8 seconds (for WD at least) a good idea!? when users are organizing files, they would spend time traversing folders, or for example i have winamp set to cache mp3 files into ram, so if i were to have a playlist of files, the drive would unpark+park over & over every few minutes

anyway this seagate desktop drive is going to be in a p5q-e motherboard, so it will be sata2 & used as an OS drive.... i sure hope i dont need some anti idle tool to always be running


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## R-T-B (Mar 12, 2015)

Use something like HDD Sentinel maybe to disable the APM and thus the head parking?

I've found many manufacturers do a retarded amount of head parking, tbh.


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## kn00tcn (Mar 12, 2015)

R-T-B said:


> Use something like HDD Sentinel maybe to disable the APM and thus the head parking?
> 
> I've found many manufacturers do a retarded amount of head parking, tbh.



i thought APM is only for fragmented reading noise, i will try i suppose

one thing of note.... hdtune could NOT see the drive's smart values or information, but crystaldiskinfo could

that also means i didnt try APM at the time since hdtune couldnt set it

i will have to benchmark when it's in the desktop, since i appear to max out at 100mbytes/s over esata on all drives with this enclosure

a promising sign is that it never dipped below that speed, even on the inner parts of the platter!

another thing of note is that it's really THIN & LIGHT, it might be a single platter drive






i was all 'did i accidentally get a laptop drive?'


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## R-T-B (Mar 12, 2015)

My brother has one of those.  They are single platter and yes I know they park a lot...  though yours sounds even worse than ours.


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## SQr (Mar 12, 2015)

This line of Seagate drives are the worst they have ever produced...I HAD 3 ST3000DM001 drives. One of them suddenly died one day with 100% health, taking all the data with it. The other two started to produce thousands of bad sectors and now windows doesn't detect them anymore. At least I got the data off of them early on...All this with head parking disabled.

Moved to WD Red drives, slower yes, but no head parking and seems to be more reliable overall.

/Rant

and 1+ for ST2000DL003, great old drive.


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## R-T-B (Mar 12, 2015)

SQr said:


> This line of Seagate drives are the worst they have ever produced...I HAD 3 ST3000DM001 drives. One of them suddenly died one day with 100% health, taking all the data with it. The other two started to produce thousands of bad sectors and now windows doesn't detect them anymore. At least I got the data off of them early on...All this with head parking disabled.
> 
> Moved to WD Red drives, slower yes, but no head parking and seems to be more reliable overall.
> 
> ...



FWIW, my brothers has been running almost 2 years without issue at all.


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## 95Viper (Mar 12, 2015)

Make sure you have the latest firmware (*CC4H*) on the drive; which, is suppose to fix reliability and performance issues.

Barracuda (1TB/disk platform) Firmware Update

Quote from above page:


> If the firmware upgrade installation instructions are not followed properly, the firmware upgrade could be data destructive and/or render your hard drive inoperable. As Seagate does not warrant the data on your drive, in addition to regular back-ups, your data should be backed up, if possible, before upgrading the drive firmware. Additional information on backing up the contents of your drive can be found at our Knowledge Base. Though this firmware upgrade to your product is a change to the product, the terms and conditions of your Seagate warranty for the product will remain effective to its normal expiration. For other warranties on your product, please consult the warranty documentation provided by your supplier.



This may help; unless, you already have the latest firmware.


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## The N (Mar 12, 2015)

i have the exactly same model of seagate HDD 1TB with firmware cc49. working flawless. with more than 150 avg speed. yeah, seagate hard drives are slimmer than WD. no doubt.


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## kn00tcn (Mar 14, 2015)

EDIT: mine is CC45 firmware

i still dont get how hdtune cant see most of its information but crystal can... fw issue? hd tune is too old now? cant do it over esata even though every other drive works?



SQr said:


> This line of Seagate drives are the worst they have ever produced...I HAD 3 ST3000DM001 drives. One of them suddenly died one day with 100% health, taking all the data with it. The other two started to produce thousands of bad sectors and now windows doesn't detect them anymore. At least I got the data off of them early on...All this with head parking disabled.
> 
> Moved to WD Red drives, slower yes, but no head parking and seems to be more reliable overall.


but how did you buy, at the same time? shipped to home? i always pick up in person at a store (i trust a large shipping truck over a small courier)

i am satisfied with the WD10EZEX (blue) that i have a computer using for over half a year now, good speed, disabled the head parking (didnt notice until after many months unfortunately), it's not loud, not hot, it's borderline black, maybe i should have gotten this one again



The N said:


> i have the exactly same model of seagate HDD 1TB with firmware cc49.



what is the start stop count if your load cycle is 97?


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## The N (Mar 14, 2015)

@kn00tcn


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## kn00tcn (Mar 14, 2015)

The N said:


> @kn00tcn



hah, why is your G with a caution?

how are you only 43 hours on, yet powerted on/off 38 times? that means you barely have the drive on for an hour (average) before shutting it off

but see this is my point/problem, ~40 power cycles but ~100 head parks, with only ~40 hours usage...

also let me guess, this isnt your OS or pagefile drive (the WD blue i mentioned parked 7,400 times if i remember, but only like 700 hours powered on, should be maybe near a couple hundred power cycles, it's an OS drive)


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## CharlieTwoFour (Mar 22, 2015)

kn00tcn said:


> anyone else use this seagate? i only tested it in a 'dumb' enclosure over esata so far, the same enclosure that normally has a ST2000DL003 (green) that doesnt seem to park, or if it does, it takes minutes for it to happen
> 
> i've used an WD40EZRX (green) with its head parking, & i successfully used wdidle to disable the parking of a WD10EZEX (blue) used as an OS drive
> 
> ...


I have 2 ST1000DM003s in RAID 0. I don't understand why you feel the the head parking or not is an issue as i get burst speeds of 3.3Gbps and Read speeds of 450Mbps. Single disk, however gives me burst of 1.2Gbps and sequential read of 150Mbps at ANY time. Even if i have idled the computer for 4hrs+. 

I think it is some power saving option that you may have activated in the OS.


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## kn00tcn (Mar 23, 2015)

CharlieTwoFour said:


> I have 2 ST1000DM003s in RAID 0. I don't understand why you feel the the head parking or not is an issue as i get burst speeds of 3.3Gbps and Read speeds of 450Mbps. Single disk, however gives me burst of 1.2Gbps and sequential read of 150Mbps at ANY time. Even if i have idled the computer for 4hrs+.
> 
> I think it is some power saving option that you may have activated in the OS.


the speed is plenty, i care about a mechanical drive needlessly wearing a component out that ironically would last longer if the drive is constantly being accessed

in the case of WD, they have some rating in their specifications ~300,000 parks on greens, right?

so when people used a WD green as an OS drive, what happened? they had constant head parks & unparks since its default time limit is 8 seconds, resulting in people going past the rated 'lifetime' park amount within a few months or a year (a lot less than the warranty length)

that is understandable for a 'green' marketed drive, & you can modify the delay with a tool provided by WD, but why is this DESKTOP marketed seagate doing the same thing??

also that's a good one, me activating a setting in the OS.... why would i make a thread without checking settings, not to mention other users like RTB confirm it & this is over esata where no other drive put in this enclosure has done such a thing

but anyway, we will find out how it acts once i load an OS onto it & use sata2


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## ThE_MaD_ShOt (Mar 23, 2015)

I am running one as My game drive with no ill effects with CC47 firmware.


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## Toma (Feb 14, 2016)

I found a tutorial how to disable APM on ST1000DM003, ST2000DM001, ST3000DM001, ST4000DM000, as well SV35 series. I try this on my ST1000DM003 and ... 



```
HOWTO: Disable Seagate DM001 APM Head Parking *Permanently*

This tutorial applies to DM series: ST1000DM003, ST2000DM001, ST3000DM001, ST4000DM000, as well SV35 series

This is supposed to fix the random "Chirp", "Click" noise and stop SMART C1 Load Cycle Count from increasing fast.

Hardware needed: Seagate STx000DM001 disk, empty USB drive (any size)

I have tried to disable my Seagate ST2000DM001 head parking for quite some time without success, but after I tinkered with HDAT2 again today, I am able to save the APM value to disk permanently. Now the disk runs silently without any head parking. Feel free to share this instructions anywhere.

If you follow the instructions right, your data in the disk will NOT be deleted.

Warning: HDAT2 can be dangerous if mis-used. It can wipe your disk clean, or make persistent size / attribute changes or lock it up. Please follow the instructions carefully. If any step gives you any error, or the instruction does not match your screen, STOP!

Steps:

1. Get HDAT2 1.44M IMAGE from: http://www.hdat2.com/files/hdat2img_50.exe

2. Extract the content of the file to a temp folder, the file you need is named "HDAT2FDD.IMG"

3. Get Win32 Disk Imager from: http://sourceforge.net/projects/win32diskimager/

4. Use Win32 Disk Imager to write HDAT2FDD.IMG to an empty USB drive

5. Boot from the USB drive to DOS prompt, type "HDAT2", <Enter>

6. Select the DM001 drive to modify in the device list, <Enter>
** If the intended disk is not on the list, you need to change your SATA mode from AHCI / RAID to IDE temporarily and start over.

7. Select "Commands Menu", <Enter>

8. Select "Commands/Feature Sets", <Enter>

9. Select "Advanced Power Management (APM) Feature Set", <Enter>, <Y>, <D>, <Enter>

10. <Esc>, <Esc>

11. Select "Device Configuration Overlay (DCO) Menu", <Enter>

12. Select "Modify", <Enter>

13. Select "Security Mode Feature", <Right Arrow>, <S>, <Y>
** We only do some changes to be able to save DCO, since this item is disabled by default, removing it does not affect any disk functionality. Saving DCO will result APM setting being saved onto disk.

14. Keep pressing <Esc> until quit to DOS prompt.

15. Power off, all done!

Don't forget to change SATA mode back to AHCI / RAID if you changed it in step 6.

The default APM value for the disk should now be 0 (Disabled) instead of 0x80 (Minimum)
```

http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=68760


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## ASOT (Feb 14, 2016)

I have it for 2 years and no issue


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## ...PACMAN... (Feb 15, 2016)

ASOT said:


> I have it for 2 years and no issue



Read the thread again, it can affect different drives depending on the firmware


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## RejZoR (Feb 16, 2016)

Such parking only makes sense on laptops and portable drives because a parked head cannot make damage if it falls on the ground (experiences a shock in general). But such behavior on desktop is very undesired. It induces delay and unnecessary wear of the drive.


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## ...PACMAN... (Feb 16, 2016)

I can't get this to work on my drive, the Commands/Feature Sets APM option is not there so I'm SOL unless someone know an alternative.

What software do you use that can basically do this on each boot and not cause issues with windows 10, also do you guys use Intel RST or just Microsoft drivers?


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## Toma (Feb 16, 2016)

Correct order of commands to view APM:


> 7. Select "Commands Menu", <Enter>
> 
> 8. Select "Commands/Feature Sets", <Enter>
> 
> 9. Select "Advanced Power Management (APM) Feature Set", <Enter>, <Y>, <D>, <Enter>


..and if you have a problem as I had with DCO:FROZEN message:


> If you see any error message or in 'Device List' menu at your disk you see a notice '!DCO: FROZEN', then it is possible that BIOS was sent a command DCO Freeze and all subsequent DCO commands will be aborted now. How to try bypass this state see answer nr. 2.
> 
> Q2: How to bypass a Security and/or DCO frozen state?
> 
> ...


..I fix with option 2.


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## ...PACMAN... (Feb 16, 2016)

Unfortunately when i go into commands menu, there is no commands/feature sets option....there is nothing and I also don't get DCO FROZEN message either.

Is there any software that can just enable this on each boot that is reliable within Windows 10?


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## Toma (Feb 17, 2016)

You can use HDSentinel or CrystalDiskInfo for that.










...or if you use IRST driver you can try this settings in your registry because of this https://communities.intel.com/thread/53305?start=0&tstart=0

```
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStorA\Parameters\Device]
"EnableAPM"=dword:00000000
```


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## shovenose (Feb 28, 2016)

ST1000DM003 and WD10EZEX are both solid drives. Used many of both in desktops, servers, etc. with no issues.


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## ...PACMAN... (Feb 28, 2016)

shovenose said:


> ST1000DM003 and WD10EZEX are both solid drives. Used many of both in desktops, servers, etc. with no issues.



Again, this is true, but certain firmware revisions have issues.


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