# Beware of aggressive APM on Windows 10 Build 1809



## Regeneration (Mar 24, 2019)

In build 1809 of Windows 10, Microsoft enabled APM (Advanced Power Management) by default for all SATA storage devices via the AHCI driver. For SSDs this is not a big deal, but for HDDs, APM increases latency, reduces performance and possibly lifespan (parking/unparking heads every few seconds isn't healthy).

Windows 10 Build 1809



Windows 10 Build 1607


APM can be disabled with 3rd party software like CrystalDiskInfo (must be re-applied on reboot) or AHCI driver through the registry (permanent solution).


----------



## NdMk2o1o (Mar 24, 2019)

Regeneration said:


> In build 1809 of Windows 10, Microsoft enabled APM (Advanced Power Management) by default for all SATA storage devices via the AHCI driver. For SSDs this is not a big deal, but for HDDs, APM increases latency, reduces performance and possibly lifespan (parking/unparking heads every few seconds isn't healthy).
> 
> Windows 10 Build 1809
> View attachment 119413
> ...


Not sure what effect it has on my system I haven't benched with and without it on (likely not much as it's a 1TB HDD that is 70% full and used as downloads drive so the performance probably isn't great anyway), however after installing Crystaldiskinfo if you go to Function>Advanced Features>AAM/APM Control> and select your HDD from the drop down and click disable APM has disabled mine even upon restart.


----------



## hat (Mar 24, 2019)

Hmm, it's still too early for this. Spinners are still king for $/GB. Unless they're banking on most systems having a single SSD and those who still want to use spinners would know about this and circumvent it?


----------



## cucker tarlson (Mar 24, 2019)

goth both my spinners on a docking station,turns them off only after 30 minutes like the station is advertised.seems the update is not affecting my setup.


----------



## hat (Mar 24, 2019)

That's... different? I wouldn't expect a docking station (likely connected via USB) to behave the same as drives directly connected to internal SATA ports.


----------



## Regeneration (Mar 24, 2019)

Docking station is most likely connected via USB and that's unaffected.

On my Intel setups, Windows keep re-enable APM after restart/shutdown.

If you're getting annoying HDD clicking noises with 1809, that's APM too.


----------



## biffzinker (Mar 24, 2019)

Doesn't seem to bother my external Toshiba 3 TB over USB 3.1 Gen1.


----------



## Shambles1980 (Mar 24, 2019)

decided to use rst again the other day so had to swap back to raid drivers.  Seems i forgot how i used to set it up though so had to move to priomocache instead. and set up one of my SSD's as a dedicated lvl 2 storage device.. really cant say i see any difference between primocache and how rst used to work but it is what it is.. 
Any way none of that matters the point is I think im safe from this bug if im using raid drivers.


----------



## NdMk2o1o (Mar 24, 2019)

How do you know this is down to Win10 1809 and not something unrelated?


----------



## biffzinker (Mar 24, 2019)

Wouldn't the hard disk drive controller be in control of APM but the ACHI driver now exposes it to Windows 1809?


----------



## Regeneration (Mar 24, 2019)

Force APM flag was added to that build for most common SATA controllers. On Intel, APM is now enabled with or without RST.


----------



## TheoneandonlyMrK (Mar 24, 2019)

Regeneration said:


> In build 1809 of Windows 10, Microsoft enabled APM (Advanced Power Management) by default for all SATA storage devices via the AHCI driver. For SSDs this is not a big deal, but for HDDs, APM increases latency, reduces performance and possibly lifespan (parking/unparking heads every few seconds isn't healthy).
> 
> Windows 10 Build 1809
> View attachment 119413
> ...


Could explain why I've been suffering hdd issues ty.


----------



## steen (Mar 24, 2019)

Regeneration said:


> On Intel, APM is now enabled with or without RST.



Auto APM on post 12.9.x RSTe drivers has been a PITA.



NdMk2o1o said:


> however after installing Crystaldiskinfo if you go to Function>Advanced Features>AAM/APM Control> and select your HDD from the drop down and click disable APM has disabled mine even upon restart.



APM setting is retained on restart, but check full power off. Even setting HDD firmware to off may be overriden by 1809/RSTe. The best bet is to change APM 80h->C0h to stop excessive head parking while retaining some low power modes.


----------



## trparky (Mar 24, 2019)

Regeneration said:


> APM can be disabled with 3rd party software like CrystalDiskInfo (must be re-applied on reboot) or AHCI driver through the registry (permanent solution).


What is the registry setting?


----------



## FordGT90Concept (Mar 24, 2019)

Clean install of 1809 like two weeks ago.  I have not dabbled in the registry at all.  I'm not seeing any problems here:





The HD Tune (non-Pro) apparently only detects 2.2 TB of capacity versus 12 TB.  Probably why it doesn't curve down like one would expect it to.


----------



## Mescalamba (Mar 24, 2019)

And my long term service branch keeps on giving..


----------



## MrGenius (Mar 25, 2019)

Why is this my bullshitometer pegged on 100%? Meh...probably that lack of supporting evidence.


----------



## eidairaman1 (Mar 25, 2019)

Sounds like gotta check it after each upgrade.

Never had that problem in Windows 7.


----------



## MrGenius (Mar 25, 2019)

I went ahead and found the registry keys, and did the rest of the research.

First, there's no such thing as an "Advanced Power Management" setting(s) in Windows 10.

Second, it's called AHCI Link Power Management, and is set to OFF or "Neither HIPM or DIPM allowed. Link power management is not used" by default. But can be *PERMANENTLY *enabled/disabled in advanced power options(if added to the GUI).

Third, what you're doing with CrystalDiskInfo is temporarily enabling/disabling/modifying the DIPM(Device-Initiated Power Management) mode. Which is not enabled by default. But can be enabled on its own, or in combination with HIPM(through the registry or advanced power management if added to the GUI).

Fourth, you can set the disk idle timeout to 0(or Never, which is exactly the same thing) in advanced power options(or in the registry), and the hdd/ssd will never power down or park when idle, overriding any of the other power management schemes(as far as powering down, or parking, your hdd/ssd...ever).

*Link Power Management mode registry key, aliases and visibility settings*
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power\PowerSettings\0012ee47-9041-4b5d-9b77-535fba8b1442\0b2d69d7-a2a1-449c-9680-f91c70521c60
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/wi...ttings-link-power-management-mode---hipm-dipm

*Disk idle timeout registry key, aliases and visibility settings*
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power\PowerSettings\0012ee47-9041-4b5d-9b77-535fba8b1442\6738e2c4-e8a5-4a42-b16a-e040e769756e
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/wi...ower-settings/disk-settings-disk-idle-timeout

*How to add or remove AHCI Link Power Management from Power Options*
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/72971-add-ahci-link-power-management-power-options-windows.html

Lastly, this is seriously much ado about nothing. As it is nothing new with Windows 10(1809 or other). And has not changed in any way since Windows 7.


----------



## EarthDog (Mar 25, 2019)

No issues here.

Why would this affect some but not others?


----------



## Regeneration (Mar 25, 2019)

APM is a head parking technology built on the drive itself (separated from AHCI PM and Windows' power profile). Not all mechanical drives support it. Configured similarly like AAM.

Build 1809 forces APM on the OS drive if supported. Mechanical or not.


----------



## steen (Mar 26, 2019)

MrGenius said:


> I went ahead and found the registry keys, and did the rest of the research.



I'm afraid, not. It's nothing to do with link state control of the host AHCI controller. It was first exposed as an issue with 13.x RST AHCI drivers & is a known issue. This is usually noticed as a regular clicking sound and sluggish performance as heads are continually being parked on the landing zone. Effectively it causes the drives that are affected to behave like WD Green EARS series drives. Constantly parking their heads, unnecessarily chewing up load cycles that may reduce the HDD's lifespan. I've disabled APM on my 2x2TB Hitachi via the IBM/Hitachi util, but installing RST 13.x+ turns APM back on & sets to 80h. This happens on every boot & needs to be soft reset by eg Crystaldiskinfo every startup. The default MS SATA AHCI driver didn't do this unitl the latest 1809 patch. @Regeneration now informs us that the default MS AHCI driver is setting APM=80h (I'm guessing) on the OS volume.



EarthDog said:


> No issues here.
> 
> Why would this affect some but not others?



Checked your load/unload cycle count? Is it higher than your POH? Does Crystaldiskinfo show APM as a drive feature? What's the value?

To answer your question, depends on whether the APM flag is set in HDD FW. It doesn't matter what value is set. On Win/RST 13.x+ AHCI init, for APM=>APM=80h. Depending on brand/model/series/fw, FW strat may then continually park heads on the landing zone racking up load cycles that can exceed max load cycle count in a short time. Enterprise drives tend not to do this. I have another 2TB Seagate (GrenadaBP) that is affected (APM can't be disabled except via a 3rd party util), while two other 4TB aren't affected. All my spinners are storage only drives. With Linux it's a simple command line fix.


----------



## Freakezoit (Mar 27, 2019)

Well i got it fixed permanently , Because the issue is that whatever tool i tested it only worked for the Actuall windows session. After reboot it was gone , APM for the Harddisk itself was allways on even after disabling it , it was instant enabled again. On the Old build from my screenshots i didn`t need to do anything of that stuff. It worked out of the Box like it should. And hipm-dipm was disabled @ latest build.
But everytime you add an HDD you should look @ Registry that it is disabled for your new drive . You can disable or enable it for each drive by Hand.

Well to point one, that was the key to Success :


----------



## R-T-B (Mar 27, 2019)

MrGenius said:


> Why is this my bullshitometer pegged on 100%? Meh...probably that lack of supporting evidence.



Meh, do want you want.  Or install any app and confirm (I confirmed with HDD sentinel it sets apm to 128 not just every boot but regularly).



MrGenius said:


> Second, it's called AHCI Link Power Management



No it's not.  You are up an entirely different tree here.



Mescalamba said:


> And my long term service branch keeps on giving..



Will effect 1809 LTSC as well.


----------



## Regeneration (Mar 27, 2019)

Some SSDs support APM and may be effected.

I wonder if someone can provide benchmarks with an SSD.


----------



## Freakezoit (Mar 28, 2019)

MrGenius said:


> I went ahead and found the registry keys, and did the rest of the research.
> 
> First, there's no such thing as an "Advanced Power Management" setting(s) in Windows 10.



Totally wrong @ that point there is one :

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStorAC\Parameters - EnableAPM
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\storahci\Parameters - EnableAPM

AMD driver has also an HDD Parking setting :

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\amdsbs\Settings\CAM - EnableHDDParking

Even the intel iastore driver ini has and idle powermanagement option - EnableIdlePowerManagement.

And that whole issue is an windows 10 (@ some build it startet) issue but with 1607 its not there , so something has changed and that has nothing to do with hipm or dipm . Even if both are disabled that headparking thing ocures.

As for SSD my pro series  with APM has no issues whatever build.  (i think that it only affects some drives with APM and not all)

I will investigate that further.


----------



## podkaracz (Jun 11, 2020)

Guys this thread is a classic example how you should not make a thread. Please post instructions how to disable this via registry instead of alarming about problem and saying there is a fix but find out how to apply this fix yourself. I downloaded mentioned crystaldisk but im not sure if i applied correct fix. Please post guidance if you advise some1 to fix something. My hdd has problems with latency since 1607 maybe thats the cause.


----------



## Regeneration (Jun 11, 2020)

podkaracz said:


> Guys this thread is a classic example how you should not make a thread. Please post instructions how to disable this via registry instead of alarming about problem and saying there is a fix but find out how to apply this fix yourself. I downloaded mentioned crystaldisk but im not sure if i applied correct fix. Please post guidance if you advise some1 to fix something. My hdd has problems with latency since 1607 maybe thats the cause.



There is no global way to disable APM. It depends on the controller and device.

Try this software: https://sites.google.com/site/disablehddapm/

Move the "Disable HDD APM" shortcut to the Windows' Startup folder.


----------



## podkaracz (Jun 11, 2020)

Regeneration said:


> There is no global way to disable APM. It depends on the controller and device.
> 
> Try this software: https://sites.google.com/site/disablehddapm/
> 
> Move the "Disable HDD APM" shortcut to the Windows' Startup folder.



Thanks for quick response also how is that i have msi h110m pro-d mobo and the only solution up until this time to fix latency on hdd was to install intel ahci driver for example 15.9.8.1050 version. What is different between generic ahci microsoft driver and intel that intel has no latency problems and microsoft one is unusable constant 100% usage spikes and latencymon shows iastorport.sys 3000 qs jumps ( i dont install rst cuz its bloatware for non-raid systems  just inf ahci driver manually via device manager).


----------



## Deleted member 193792 (Jun 11, 2020)

Can someone provide a definitive *.reg file to permanently fix this?


----------



## podkaracz (Jun 11, 2020)

jermando said:


> Can someone provide a definitive *.reg file to permanently fix this?



First you need to know which intel ahci drivers suits your mobo there are different irst branches v15,v16,v17 and older . Then once you manually install ahci driver use this fix + registry that simplest explanation i found here :


----------



## AsRock (Jun 11, 2020)

Regeneration said:


> There is no global way to disable APM. It depends on the controller and device.
> 
> Try this software: https://sites.google.com/site/disablehddapm/
> 
> Move the "Disable HDD APM" shortcut to the Windows' Startup folder.



What brands are those ? or any list on those ?,  i have never had one that i could not disable APM on,  just like the old samsung i have now.


----------



## podkaracz (Jun 11, 2020)

AsRock said:


> What brands are those ? or any list on those ?,  i have never had one that i could not disable APM on,  just like the old samsung i have now.



Could you please share software that you use to disable this and verify this registry tweak i posted above ?


----------



## AsRock (Jun 11, 2020)

The software is Hard Drive Sentinel, i am on a AMD right now.


----------



## Deleted member 193792 (Jun 12, 2020)

podkaracz said:


> First you need to know which intel ahci drivers suits your mobo there are different irst branches v15,v16,v17 and older . Then once you manually install ahci driver use this fix + registry that simplest explanation i found here :


I got AMD X470 and Windows 10 AHCI drivers in RAID0 mode.


----------



## Regeneration (Jun 12, 2020)

AsRock said:


> What brands are those ? or any list on those ?,  i have never had one that i could not disable APM on,  just like the old samsung i have now.



I was referring to a fix without 3rd party software.


----------



## lexluthermiester (Sep 13, 2020)

All the troubles depicted in this thread can be mitigated within the Windows power management settings themselves.

Go to "Power Options". Click on "Advanced power settings" where the power plans reside.
A new window will open. Regardless of which plan you choose, the hard drive sleep options can be changed.
Click on "Change plan settings" -> click on "Change advanced power settings".
A new window will open and the option at the very top will be "Hard Disk" -> "Turn off hard disk" -> "Setting(minutes):"
If you set it to "0"(zero) all of your drives will never shut down or sleep regardless of APM settings.

I currently have mine set for 240 minute(4hours) and Windows obeys that setting, keeping the drives awake until that time limit is reached.




How this setting has escaped everyone's attention is beyond me, but it really is that simple.


----------



## trparky (Sep 14, 2020)

lexluthermiester said:


> How this setting has escaped everyone's attention is beyond me, but it really is that simple.


Because people would generally like to bash Microsoft and suggest tons of tweaks only to turn around and have issues which they don’t blame themselves for but Microsoft instead and then whine and complain that Windows 10 sucks.


----------



## lexluthermiester (Sep 14, 2020)

trparky said:


> and complain that Windows 10 sucks.


Windows 10 does suck. It's just in this situation the solution was a matter of setting up the correct Windows config settings.


----------



## trparky (Sep 14, 2020)

lexluthermiester said:


> Windows 10 does suck.


You had to go there, didn't you? I'm of the opinion that if you keep Windows 10 as-is and you don't muck with it, you'll generally have no issues.


----------



## lexluthermiester (Sep 14, 2020)

trparky said:


> You had to go there, didn't you?


LOL! You can't make statements like that and not expect me to respond accordingly.


trparky said:


> I'm of the opinion that if you keep Windows 10 as-is and you don't muck with it, you'll generally have no issues.


That is one school of thought. Not everyone has had the same experiences and not everyone is willing to run Windows 10 it's default configuration.

But we're getting off-topic here...


----------



## trparky (Sep 14, 2020)

lexluthermiester said:


> LOL! You can't make statements like that and not expect me to respond accordingly.


No, I guess I can't.


----------



## INSTG8R (Sep 14, 2020)

lexluthermiester said:


> How this setting has escaped everyone's attention is beyond me, but it really is that simple


Considering those settings have existed for at least a decade...


----------



## R-T-B (Sep 14, 2020)

Hard disk sleep timer is different than APM mode, just FYI.  You guys are discussing something entirely different from this threads topic.


----------



## wyxchari (Sep 14, 2020)

I repeat this message that was in position # 37 and disappeared:

I had a laptop that I put a ssd on and the hdd I passed to the optical bay. Now the hdd turns off every 70 seconds like a DVD! I have also reviewed the external usb hdds, some turn off and others park their heads even every 5 seconds of the last access.

- To fix the internal hdd, I have installed the HDDScan application and it is done: Select disk, Tools, Command, APM 240 (20 minutes) and save the specific generated file.bat of each disk to start it and configure it at each boot. Example file.bat:

```
"C:\Program Files (x86)\HDDScan\HDDScan.exe" "\\?\Usbstor#disk&ven_st912081&prod_7as&rev_3.aa#52e14c23&0#{53f56307-b6bf-11d0-94f2-00a0c91efb8b}" -APM 240
```

- Fixing the external hdd is more complicated because you have to execute the command when you plug the hdd disk into the usb:
1.- First we put HDDScan as explained before and create a specific file.bat file for each disk.
2.- Create a scheduled task for each disk. In Action we put the disk specific file.bat. In triggers we put When an event occurs, Custom, New event filter, XML, Edit query: 

```
<QueryList>
<Query Id="0" Path="Microsoft-Windows-StorageSpaces-Driver/Operational">
<Select Path="Microsoft-Windows-StorageSpaces-Driver/Operational">*[System[Provider[@Name='Microsoft-Windows-StorageSpaces-Driver'] and Level=4 and EventID=207]] and *[EventData[Data[@Name='DriveSerial']='52E14C23']]</Select>
</Query>
</QueryList>
```
In DriveSerial we put the serial number of the disk that appears in the bat of each disk. Compare the file.bat examples with the xml.


----------



## lexluthermiester (Sep 14, 2020)

R-T-B said:


> Hard disk sleep timer is different than APM mode, just FYI.  You guys are discussing something entirely different from this threads topic.


While true, the setting I indicated above will over-ride, as a general rule, internal hard drive controller sleep settings. There are some drives that will continue to do their own thing, but that can be changed with the manufacturers own drive configuration utility and all of them have one.


----------



## P4-630 (Sep 14, 2020)

For a while now I'm using only SSD's so I'm fine.


----------



## basco (Sep 16, 2020)

my sandisk ssd has it and the toshiba drive:


----------



## wyxchari (Sep 16, 2020)

The APM of the hdd can be configured in many ways from the moment the computer is turned on.
1.- The hdd takes the default APM value stored in disk memory and begins to use it as the current value.
2.- The BIOS may or may not change the current value, but what it almost always does is freeze the accesses to be able to change the default value, although it is possible to continue changing its current value. That is why some programs such as HDAT2 to change the default APM values, need to remove the current to the disk, it is re-plugged in HOT and thus bypass the BIOS. 
3.- The Windows ACHI driver may or may not change the current value.
4.- Windows power settings do not normally change these current APM values. Windows has its own disk power timers and when the limit is reached it shuts down the disk. The problem is that if the APM of the disk is lower than that of Windows, the APM of the disk will fire earlier and the Windows power settings are of no use.
5.- Programs such as HDDScan, CrystalDiskInfo, ... change the value of the "CURRENT" APM but it is lost at each startup so you have to configure them as starting with Windows so that the values are maintained. To change the value to "DEFAULT" mainly to use USB drives, each manufacturer has its own tools. For example, WD uses wdidle3.exe in DOS, which, although it does not change the default APM, does change the idle timer, which is similar up to a maximum of 300 seconds or 5 minutes. For Hitachi there are some utilities but they do not change the default values, but the current values. For Seagate I have successfully used a HDAT2 call in DOS but it works only on some drives.
6.- To this we add the disks plugged in via USB, which are much more difficult to configure, since they are plugged in after the computer starts up and the APM is not usually configured by BIOS, AHCI, or Windows. You have to configure the APM manually after plugging them in or doing a scheduled task associated with an event as I explained in a previous post.

The majority of users do not experience problems with the discs since normally the APM is configured by default in 80h which is 10 minutes to park the heads and does not turn off the engine turn. But about the year 2010-2014, "green" discs were manufactured that park their heads even every 1 second or after 8 seconds unless BIOS, ACHI, Windows or programs change the current value. In practice they are continually making clicking noises and shortening the life of the disc. The disks are designed for a maximum of around 300,000 head parking spaces and bad sectors start to appear from that value. I confirm that I have 2,5" Seagate disks with bad sectors with 680,000 head parkings because of an APM of only 10 seconds that although they did not turn off the spinning of the disk, they did park the heads, even with a 20 minute shutdown disk in Windows.


----------



## Sora (Oct 30, 2021)

wyxchari said:


> The disks are designed for a maximum of around 300,000 head parking spaces and bad sectors start to appear from that value. I confirm that I have 2,5" Seagate disks with bad sectors with 680,000 head parkings because of an APM of only 10 seconds that although they did not turn off the spinning of the disk, they did park the heads, even with a 20 minute shutdown disk in Windows.


Parking has no correlation to bad sectors, sectors go bad with age through magnetic weakness, not whether or not the actuator is active or not.



R-T-B said:


> Hard disk sleep timer is different than APM mode, just FYI. You guys are discussing something entirely different from this threads topic.



APM settings beneath 80h(128) perform the same thing as disk sleep timer (idle spin down)


----------



## R-T-B (Oct 30, 2021)

Sora said:


> Parking has no correlation to bad sectors


It does have a coorelation to head crashes, which tend to cause bad sectors.  There are a limited number of parks that can be performed.


----------



## wyxchari (Oct 30, 2021)

Sora said:


> Parking has no correlation to bad sectors, sectors go bad with age through magnetic weakness, not whether or not the actuator is active or not.


True, but parking the head more than 300,000 times, damages it and causes the data to not be recorded correctly on the disc. The head loses its precision and does not point correctly to the designated sector. The specifications of the manufacturers of hdd clearly indicate which is the maximum parking of the head for which a correct engraving of the data is guaranteed.


----------



## Sora (Oct 30, 2021)

R-T-B said:


> It does have a coorelation to head crashes,



any movement can see to that, the parking itself has no correlation to head crashes or bad sectors any more than the constant movement and flicking of the actuator, and you certainly cannot put a number on head movements over all which would exceed the parking count by an unfathomable factor.

you'll find that the number there is just the amount of times they have tested it to and not a value that coincides with actuator reliability in real world.

The head can fail well after and well before reaching it.


----------



## R-T-B (Oct 30, 2021)

Sora said:


> any movement can see to that, the parking itself has no correlation to head crashes or bad sectors any more than the constant movement and flicking of the actuator, and you certainly cannot put a number on head movements over all which would exceed the parking count by an unfathomable factor.


You disagreeing with manufacturers that rate a fixed number of head parks on their drive datasheets?


----------



## Sora (Oct 30, 2021)

R-T-B said:


> You disagreeing with manufacturers that rate a fixed number of head parks on their drive datasheets?



Manufacturer ratings are only the number tested to and averaged against before failure could occur, not failure does occur.

I'm not disagreeing with the testing, im disagreeing with your understanding of MTBF.

If it happened that MTBF actually meant "your thing will fail at this number" there wouldn't be thousands of 24/7 HDD's operating with smart thresholds of 0 for power on time and no read/write or badsectors logged.

Heres a bit of a spanner in the works,

Many of WD's drives within the same plattercount but different sku/spindle speed are manufactered with the same components and then some are tested to 300,000 and others to 600,000 - this is despite the actuator and headcount being the same across sku's where that cycle count changes and only the sticker on the drive changes.


----------



## R-T-B (Oct 30, 2021)

Sora said:


> Manufacturer ratings are only the number tested to and averaged against before failure could occur, not failure does occur.
> 
> I'm not disagreeing with the testing, im disagreeing with your understanding of MTBF.
> 
> If it happened that MTBF actually meant "your thing will fail at this number" there wouldn't be thousands of 24/7 HDD's operating with smart thresholds of 0 for power on time and no read/write or badsectors logged.


All I'm going to say is a lot of users here had WD green drives commit suicide from excessive head parks.

I know perfectly well what MTBF is.


----------



## Sora (Oct 30, 2021)

R-T-B said:


> All I'm going to say is a lot of users here had WD green drives commit suicide from excessive head parks.



if you'd care to look, most of those were well below the tested cycle count and actually a result of poor ramping of the actuator from a stopped state rather than the amount of times it had stopped and started, i believe most of them were also from the maylasia facility.

as Wizzard said about it years ago



W1zzard said:


> these drives have a special power saving mechanism that moves the head in the park position if no accesses for 8 seconds. according to wd the mechanism is estimated to be good for 300k cycles. of course this is just an estimate, *yours could fail after 1 million or 10 million cyles or just right about now* ^^



And here we have 1,300,000 of them


			http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=1351539&r=22139577#r22139577


----------



## rparmar (Nov 26, 2021)

lexluthermiester said:


> All the troubles depicted in this thread can be mitigated within the Windows power management settings themselves.
> [...]
> How this setting has escaped everyone's attention is beyond me, but it really is that simple.



Unfortunately, you are wrong. For some drives, this doesn't help at all.

Here we are in November 2021 and there's still no way to get a hard drive to stop clicking every few seconds. It's simply stupid.


----------



## Superzuber (Nov 26, 2021)

rparmar said:


> Unfortunately, you are wrong. For some drives, this doesn't help at all.
> 
> Here we are in November 2021 and there's still no way to get a hard drive to stop clicking every few seconds. It's simply stupid.


Some enterprise drives have a mechanism that constantly controls sectors on the drive while idle (making them often even more noisy when idle) and workarround is a script to write 0-byte file on the drive in small time intervals.


----------



## rparmar (Nov 26, 2021)

Otherwise you would know that the drive in question is the Seagate BarraCuda 10 TB (ST10000DM0004-1ZC101), so not an Enterprise drive. I deliberately bought this model to be quieter than the NAS counterparts... oh silly, ignorant me!

I have tried the workaround you suggest, along with many others (registry hacks, hard drive control apps, etc.). All to no avail. Neither does the drive respond to low-level APM calls. As stupid consumers, we are simply stuck with this problem, like it or not.


----------



## wupoes (Jan 25, 2022)

[regarding AMD machine]

Guys, so can I or can I not (or should I or should I not) set the *HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\amdsbs**\Settings\CAM EnableHDDParking *value to *0*, because this thread became madness and I'd like my Barracudas to park less. It's better to spin constantly than to keep moving the head around. I cannot overwrite the drives' APM settings using ordinary tools.

Prime X470 Pro, SATA AHCI, Ryzen 5 2600, Windows 10, Barracuda drives that keep parking heads every 4-10 seconds. All the power management settings set to no idle, active, max performance, never sleep. No result.

---

Alternatively can the Intel people set their relevant registry values to 0 to resolve the issue?

---

In short... Is changing of any settings of the AHCI or RAID drivers okay enough on a Windows 10 machine, or should any other steps be performed to resolve the issue with the excessive head parking? What are the side effects of that? Anyone tested such solutions?


----------



## lexluthermiester (Jan 25, 2022)

wupoes said:


> Guys, so can I or can I not (or should I or should I not) set the *HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\amdsbs**\Settings\CAM EnableHDDParking *value to *0*


Thank You for that. Been looking for that setting. 

BTW, this setting applies to all systems, not just those that are AMD based.


----------



## R-T-B (Jan 27, 2022)

lexluthermiester said:


> BTW, this setting applies to all systems, not just those that are AMD based.


Are you sure?  It's tweaking a "amdsbs" service...


----------



## basco (Jan 27, 2022)

@wupoes 

did ya try hard disk sentinel ? it worked for me on x99 intel with the sanddisk ssd and a 1tb toshiba hdd


----------



## lexluthermiester (Jan 27, 2022)

R-T-B said:


> Are you sure?  It's tweaking a "amdsbs" service...


Yup. Intel based systems, including my Intel systems, have that registry entry and it is enabled by default. Disabling it will prevent drives from "sleeping" before APM triggers a sleep command.


----------



## trparky (Jan 27, 2022)

OK, but why would one want to do this?


----------



## lexluthermiester (Jan 27, 2022)

trparky said:


> OK, but why would one want to do this?


To keep your HDDs from sleeping(parking it's heads and spinning down the platters)? That one explains itself..


----------



## trparky (Jan 28, 2022)

lexluthermiester said:


> To keep your HDDs from sleeping(parking it's heads and spinning down the platters)? That one explains itself..


But wouldn't making the motor that spins the platter work all the damn time be bad for the overall longevity of the drive?


----------



## Regeneration (Jan 28, 2022)

It's healthier for the drive to be rather fully on, or fully off. Constant head parking is just killing the drive faster.

Look at those old 80GB HDDs without APM. Most still work even after 20 years, unlike the modern HDDs.


----------



## lexluthermiester (Jan 28, 2022)

trparky said:


> But wouldn't making the motor that spins the platter work all the damn time be bad for the overall longevity of the drive?


No. Maintaining the spinning platters does little wear & tear. Constantly spinning up & down and parking the heads puts tons of wear and tear on a drive motor and the heads.


----------



## trparky (Jan 28, 2022)

But doesn't that do something?


----------



## Regeneration (Jan 28, 2022)

trparky said:


> View attachment 234204
> But doesn't that do something?


No. That's another power saving feature. Windows completely shuts down non-OS drives after X time of idle.


----------



## lexluthermiester (Jan 28, 2022)

trparky said:


> View attachment 234204
> But doesn't that do something?


Yes, but it's part of the AHCI power management that runs through the motherboard. The setting referred to above is a drive specific setting. It allows the drive to stay in a hybrid power mode, parking the heads and stopping the platter, but with the main drive controller still powered on. With the setting you are showing, when in effect, Windows puts the drive to "sleep", which still involves parking the heads and stopping the platters, but also flushing the drive cache and powering down the drive controller.

When setting the reg key above, the HDD(s) will not park the heads or spin down in hybrid mode, but will still fully "sleep" when Windows issues the command.


----------



## Sora (Feb 4, 2022)

lexluthermiester said:


> BTW, this setting applies to all systems, not just those that are AMD based.



no it doesn't.



lexluthermiester said:


> Yup. Intel based systems, including my Intel systems, have that registry entry and it is enabled by default. Disabling it will prevent drives from "sleeping" before APM triggers a sleep command.



A driver that is not running on a device because of the absence of supported hardware or different vendor driver being loaded, cannot apply its parameters to the sub devices of an unaffiliated device.

SC.EXE Query amdsbs

SERVICE_NAME: amdsbs
        TYPE               : 1  KERNEL_DRIVER
        STATE              : 1  STOPPED
        WIN32_EXIT_CODE    : 1077  (0x435)
        SERVICE_EXIT_CODE  : 0  (0x0)
        CHECKPOINT         : 0x0
        WAIT_HINT          : 0x0

Parameters set in the registry correspond to functions in the driver, no intel driver supports "EnableHDDParking" so no intel device can benefit from the "EnableHDDParking" parameter

Service names respective to Intel include iaStorA, iaStorAV, iaStorAVC, iaStorV

redundant service iaStor used to respect the following parameters

"Port0AAM"=dword:000000fe
"Port0APM"=dword:000000ff
"Port1APM"=dword:000000ff
"Port1AAM"=dword:000000fe

and iaStorA
"EnableAPM"=dword:00000000

There is no confirmation that this parameter works for current versions of the Intel AHCI/RAID driver (AV, AVC) but it may.


----------



## lexluthermiester (Feb 4, 2022)

Sora said:


> no it doesn't.


Yes, it does.



Sora said:


> no it doesn't.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


That was a very eloquent response and just as equally wrong. There are a number of services and settings that share common platforms. This is due to the cross-licensing between Intel and AMD. This is also why that entry is set to enable and has to be disabled if you want to prevent drives from head-parking and motor spin-down. It works on ALL platforms that run the AMD X64 instruction sets which Intel licenses and uses in ALL of their CPU's and chipsets, which includes drive interfaces.

You were saying?


----------



## Assimilator (Feb 4, 2022)

Regeneration said:


> Look at those old 80GB HDDs without APM. Most still work even after 20 years, unlike the modern HDDs.


You are almost certainly wrong.



lexluthermiester said:


> Yes, it does.
> 
> 
> That was a very eloquent response and just as equally wrong. There are a number of services and settings that share common platforms. This is due to the cross-licensing between Intel and AMD. This is also why that entry is set to enable and has to be disabled if you want to prevent drives from head-parking and motor spin-down. It works on ALL platforms that run the AMD X64 instruction sets which Intel licenses and uses in ALL of their CPU's and chipsets, which includes drive interfaces.
> ...


Making up ridiculous bullshit to support your obviously nonsensical claims don'tv make tyhose claims any less nonsensical. It does, however, make you look like an idiot.


----------



## Sora (Feb 5, 2022)

lexluthermiester said:


> Yes, it does.
> 
> 
> That was a very eloquent response and just as equally wrong. There are a number of services and settings that share common platforms. This is due to the cross-licensing between Intel and AMD. This is also why that entry is set to enable and has to be disabled if you want to prevent drives from head-parking and motor spin-down. It works on ALL platforms that run the AMD X64 instruction sets which Intel licenses and uses in ALL of their CPU's and chipsets, which includes drive interfaces.
> ...



You have no idea what you're talking about or how driver parameters work (and in extension how kernel services work).


The Parameter subkey is only relevant to the driver service name it is a subkey of,
a SATA controller running iaStor* in any form cannot inherit fhe parameters of amdsbs, they must be set in the subkey of iaStor.
Service Binary iaStorA cannot aquire the parameter set in iaStorAV (or vice versa)
Only devices attached to the Host controller using the Service Binary will be passed the commands per setting of the parameter.
amdsbs is the built in RAID controller for AMD AHCI Compatible RAID Controller matching PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_4392, as this is a built in driver the updated vendor release driver will use a seperate binary service name (refer back to 3, the amdsbs parameters will not be applied to the updated vendor driver which will have its own parameter subkey)
The storage controller driver binary must have relevant code for the parameter name and value range being specified, EnableHDDParking is not implemented in the iaStor* binaries.
*AMDSBS CAN BE QUERIED BY SC.EXE AND VERIFIED TO NOT BE RUNNING ON ANY INTEL SYSTEM AS IT IS SPECIFIC TO AMD HARDWARE.*
*THE CROSS LICENSING AGREEMENT REFERS TO THE X86 (and in extension -64) ARCHITECTURE AND INSTRUCTION SETS, IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH DRIVER SHARING.*



Assimilator said:


> You are almost certainly wrong.



I can vouch for 20 year old WD's, but definitely not Seagate or Maxtors, the latters tend to develop significant raw read errors as the actuator is designed to fail intentionally.


----------



## lexluthermiester (Feb 5, 2022)

Just for the record, if the entry in question has no effect on Intel platforms, why is it then HDDs stop head-parking and spinning-down when it's disabled? Hmmm? Don't bother answering, I care only about functional solutions to problems and I don't care what you think.


----------



## Regeneration (Feb 5, 2022)

Sora said:


> You have no idea what you're talking about or how driver parameters work (and in extension how kernel services work).
> 
> The Parameter subkey is only relevant to the driver service name it is a subkey of,
> a SATA controller running iaStor* in any form cannot inherit fhe parameters of amdsbs, they must be set in the subkey of iaStor.
> ...


You may be correct about the parameter being exclusive to AMD controllers, but you being too aggressive and leading into a flame war.

Can you just test it to be sure? with both Intel RST and built-in iaStor? I don't have APM HDDs at the moment.

It is theoretically possible that the OS may inherit parameter from one service (even if its not started) and force it globally.


----------



## lexluthermiester (Feb 5, 2022)

Regeneration said:


> but you being too aggressive and leading into a flame war.


I might have also been a bit too harsh, but people keep giving me crap about things that they can easily test and verify themselves, and it's getting really old. It really doesn't take much testing either.



Regeneration said:


> Can you just test it to be sure? with both Intel RST and built-in iaStor? I don't have APM HDDs at the moment.


Perhaps I should explain in more detail. In the past I've had drives that kept parking and spinning down before my configured APM was set to kick in. This happened across a wide variety of drives but not all drives, so factory defaults were not to blame. When I went looking for the source of the problem, the setting discussed earlier was found to be the cause. Setting it to disable and rebooting fixed the problem. I had forgotten that registry entry until it was stated above. Have reapplied it and the drives in my systems which kept going to sleep have stopped doing so. I have only one AMD based system. All the rest are Intel, and yet this setting works in all.

How do I know it works? Simple, the drives stay spinning and drive access is instant instead of taking time for the drives to spin back up. BTW, my APM settings are the same in all of my systems, 210 minutes.





When the registry entry setting mentioned earlier in the thread is re-enbled the drives in question can be heard parking their heads and spinning down. To me, that is conclusive evidence the setting in question is having an effect, regardless of how or why.


----------



## Sora (Feb 5, 2022)

Regeneration said:


> Can you just test it to be sure? with both Intel RST and built-in iaStor? I don't have APM HDDs at the moment.



An unloaded driver can't set operating parameters, Period, so theres no need to test anything. You actually fail WHCK tests if you attempt to load parameters illegally.

It would be a totally different thing if this was a filter binary that may be (but usually isn't) capable of operating on hardware agnostically as this is bound to the device type class id  and boot loaded as a low or bus level filter
AMDSBS is not a Filter driver, its the driver for the actual controller itself.


----------



## Regeneration (Feb 5, 2022)

Sora said:


> An unloaded driver can't set operating parameters. Period.


It's an OS built-in driver part of the SATA stack, and it might read the parameter even if the driver isn't loaded at boot.

The same way APM was forced on to begin with from build 1809. That was a global change in the SATA stack.


----------



## Sora (Feb 6, 2022)

Regeneration said:


> It's an OS built-in driver part of the SATA stack, and it might read the parameter even if the driver isn't loaded at boot.



No, because "You actually fail WHCK tests if you attempt to load parameters illegally."

Drivers not loaded by the system are not applying their paremeters. Period.



Regeneration said:


> The same way APM was forced on to begin with from build 1809. That was a global change in the SATA stack.



This was a code change made to the StorAHCI driver, iastora 13.xx.xxx+ and equivalent dated amd storage drivers.
It was not a "global stack change" and does not occur with iastora 12.7 and lower, RSTe 4.3, or similarly dated AMD sata drivers where the default sets this off on the same machines.


----------



## pavle (Feb 6, 2022)

Anyhow - back to topic at hand - just set to "Turn off hard disk" to "Never" and you'll be fine. Let the HD bearings do the rest.


----------



## lexluthermiester (Feb 6, 2022)

pavle said:


> Anyhow - back to topic at hand - just set to "Turn off hard disk" to "Never" and you'll be fine.


That doesn't always work. Most drives still do the hybrid-sleep thing and the setting above seems to be either the direct cause or directly related. Disabling it stops drives from exhibiting this behaviour altogether. This has been my experience.



Sora said:


> Drivers not loaded by the system are not applying their *parameters*. Period.


Ok, then why does disabling this setting continue to result in the desired effect? You can ramble on all you wish, the evidence is against you. So once again....


----------



## Netix (Feb 7, 2022)

Hi all. I've been plagued by the same problem and just discovered that two of my Seagate drives are slowly dying.. HD Sentinel that I've used all along doesn't report that data, only found out when I installed StableBit Scanner.. 

I've tried the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\amdsbs\Settings\CAM EnableHDDParking set to 0 solution.. Will see if it fixes it. 

I use an intel cpu and the drive are plugged in into an LSI HBA. 

Any idea what I could try? I've just put a new Seagate drive (Ironwolf Pro) 2 days ago and he's already at 309 load cycle count...


----------



## lexluthermiester (Feb 7, 2022)

@Netix
First off, welcome to TPU. TPU's forums are a fun place to be when for tech enthusiasts!



Netix said:


> I've been plagued by the same problem and just discovered that two of my Seagate drives are slowly dying..


When you say this, do you mean that performance is falling off or that the numbers the utility you showed screenshots of scare you a bit?


Netix said:


> HD Sentinel that I've used all along doesn't report that data, only found out when I installed StableBit Scanner..


I never seen that utility myself. Looks interesting and the information it displays seems reasonable. However, have you double checked that data with a second utility such as HWInfo or CrystalDisk? If not, give them a god and see what they tell you. See links below.









						Free Download HWiNFO Sofware | Installer & Portable for Windows, DOS
					

Start to analyze your hardware right now! HWiNFO has available as an Installer and Portable version for Windows (32/64-bit) and Portable version for DOS.




					www.hwinfo.com
				



I recommend the portable version as it is the easiest to use and runs perfectly in-place.






						CrystalDiskInfo
					

About CrystalDiskInfo A HDD/SSD utility software which supports a part of USB, Intel RAID and NVMe. Standard Edition Shizuku Edition Kurei Kei Edition Download System Requirements OS Windows XP/Vista/7/8/8.1/10/11Windows Server 2003/2008/2012/2016/2019/2022 Architecture x86/x64/ARM64 IE 8.0~...



					crystalmark.info
				



Don't let the anime scare you off, the creator of the utility is a huge anime fan. However, Crystal Disk Info is one of the best available.
The portable version, which I recommend, is here;








						Downloading File /76657/CrystalDiskInfo8_15_0.zip - CrystalDiskInfo - OSDN
					

Free download page for Project CrystalDiskInfo's CrystalDiskInfo8_15_0.zip.CrystalDisklnfo is disk utility that supports some types of USB connections, Intel RAID, and NVMe.  If anything abnorm...



					osdn.net
				




Let us know what you discover and we'll see if we can help you sort out your situation.


----------



## Netix (Feb 7, 2022)

lexluthermiester said:


> @Netix
> First off, welcome to TPU. TPU's forums are a fun place to be when for tech enthusiasts!
> 
> 
> ...


Both HD Sentinel and Crystal Disk Info report a 100% and Good Health Status. They don't seem to report the head parking count. I can't find the data in HWinfo either. 

And yes apart from the data that StableBit Scanner shows me, they didn't give me any sign of failing. I guess it scares me.


----------



## lexluthermiester (Feb 7, 2022)

Netix said:


> Both HD Sentinel and Crystal Disk Info report a 100% and Good Health Status. They don't seem to report the head parking count. I can't find the data in HWinfo either.
> 
> And yes apart from the data that StableBit Scanner shows me, they didn't give me any sign of failing. I guess it scares me.


Looks like you're using an older version of Crystal Disk Info. The newest version is 8.15.

Below is a screen shot of HWInfo64 which shows the entries of interest.



As you can see, that drive of mine has had more that a few cycles to it.


----------



## Assimilator (Feb 7, 2022)

Netix said:


> Both HD Sentinel and Crystal Disk Info report a 100% and Good Health Status. They don't seem to report the head parking count. I can't find the data in HWinfo either.
> 
> And yes apart from the data that StableBit Scanner shows me, they didn't give me any sign of failing. I guess it scares me.


That's because head park count is a manufacturer-specific SMART attribute, the value and meaning of which can change between different drive models and even different firmware versions of the same model. Hence very few hard disk utilities even bother showing this value - because they have no way of knowing how to interpret it, and hence no way to guarantee they're showing an accurate value. For this reason, I'd be extremely suspicious of the number that StableBit Scanner is reporting.

If you're really concerned, download and use *the manufacturer's tools*, not some third-party utility that's trying to scare you into paying for it, to scan your disks. For Seagate drives this is SeaTools. If the manufacturer's tool says your drives are fine, they're fine.

Finally, ignore lexluthermeister's nonsensical claims. Setting that registry key *will not do anything* because your drives are not controlled by an AMD SATA controller, but an LSI one. And even if that wasn't the case, tampering with these sort of settings *when you aren't even certain there's a problem* is a fool's errand.


----------



## Netix (Feb 7, 2022)

So I used SeaTools for Windows since the server is off-site. I can't use the bootable tools. Doesn't seem like it provide any S.M.A.R.T. data.. only that it pass. See picture.

HWInfo64 Load/Unload cycle seems high also. 

Not sure what to do with all this...


----------



## 95Viper (Feb 7, 2022)

Stay on topic.
Stop personal insults and take your arguing to PMs.


----------



## lexluthermiester (Feb 7, 2022)

Netix said:


> So I used SeaTools for Windows since the server is off-site. I can't use the bootable tools. Doesn't seem like it provide any S.M.A.R.T. data.. only that it pass. See picture.
> 
> HWInfo64 Load/Unload cycle seems high also.
> 
> Not sure what to do with all this...


If Seagate's own tools give it a pass, those drives are likely fine. Though it might be wise to replace them, if that newer drive is not intended as such. They would still be useful as backup or incidental storage.


----------



## Netix (Feb 7, 2022)

lexluthermiester said:


> If Seagate's own tools give it a pass, those drives are likely fine. Though it might be wise to replace them, if that newer drive is not intended as such. They would still be useful as backup or incidental storage.


Those are data drive in a Plex Array.. I don't currently have any drive to replace them with.. is there anything else I should monitor ? Nothing I could do to prevent the head to park itself that frequently ?


----------



## Assimilator (Feb 7, 2022)

Netix said:


> Those are data drive in a Plex Array.. I don't currently have any drive to replace them with.. is there anything else I should monitor ? Nothing I could do to prevent the head to park itself that frequently ?


*Stop worrying about it.* The drives are working as designed. Leave them alone unless there is an actual, quantifiable problem. "Heads are parking too often for my liking" is *not* such a problem.


----------



## lexluthermiester (Feb 7, 2022)

Netix said:


> Those are data drive in a Plex Array.. I don't currently have any drive to replace them with.. is there anything else I should monitor ? Nothing I could do to prevent the head to park itself that frequently ?


Make sure any power management settings are configured not to put the drive to sleep too frequently. Beyond that it might be good idea to think about replacing the drives in the array.


----------



## Netix (Feb 8, 2022)

Thx for the quick reply both of you. 

If both drives passes the S.M.A.R.T. test. I guess there's no point of replacing them though?


----------



## Sora (Feb 8, 2022)

Assimilator said:


> That's because head park count is a manufacturer-specific SMART attribute, the value and meaning of which can change between different drive models and even different firmware versions of the same model. Hence very few hard disk utilities even bother showing this value - because they have no way of knowing how to interpret it, and hence no way to guarantee they're showing an accurate value. For this reason, I'd be extremely suspicious of the number that StableBit Scanner is reporting.



As a matter of fact, some vendors don't even differentiate between C0 and C1 and record the same data for both, makes for quite alarming reactions for the unlearned when they see "Unsafe Shutdown" count is extremely high on Hitachi drives.


----------



## lexluthermiester (Feb 8, 2022)

Netix said:


> I guess there's no point of replacing them though?


I try to error on the side of selective caution. If the drives in question are a few years old, you likely have little to worry about. 4 years old or more, it's time to consider creating a new array with new drives and relegating the existing drives to casual, non-critical storage use-case scenario's.


----------



## Netix (Feb 8, 2022)

lexluthermiester said:


> I try to error on the side of selective caution. If the drives in question are a few years old, you likely have little to worry about. 4 years old or more, it's time to consider creating a new array with new drives and relegating the existing drives to casual, non-critical storage use-case scenario's.


The two seagate drive in question have been bought in November 2020. Apart from the high load/unload cycle that certain apps report, they seems fine and they pass every S.M.A.R.T test I throw at them.


----------



## lexluthermiester (Feb 8, 2022)

Netix said:


> The two seagate drive in question have been bought in November 2020. Apart from the high load/unload cycle that certain apps report, they seems fine and they pass every S.M.A.R.T test I throw at them.


Yeah, I'd say you're good for a couple more years.


----------



## Sora (Feb 15, 2022)

After testing across multiple reboots, i can confirm that the only Registry Key and setting that an Intel iaStorA or iaStorAC controller responds to is the EnableAPM dword within that services Parameter\Device subkey.

The driver behavior of StorAhci 1809+, IRST 13+ and similarly dated AMD Sata drivers specifically writes to the drives config block and enables APM with an 80h value unless configured otherwise,
in the presence of the DWORD corresponding to the device driver, the APM value is left unaltered from the configuration as made by DiskInfo or other.

In the case of IRST, 13.x, which was released prior to 2015, the service binary has no understanding of this parameter, so i would recommend x79 ivy/sandy gen systems to either use StorAhci with the EnableAPM param, or use IRSTe 4.7 which does accept the EnableAPM dword.

RSTe 4.7 shares the iastora service name with 13.x

8/9 series has the choice of 14.8.18.1066 which i believe uses iastorav
X99 has the choice of 14.8.18.1066 or IRSTe 5.5-6.3 and also uses iastorav

any intel driver after 14.8/4.7 should support the Parameter.

@Regeneration 
had this behavior been rooted in the storport drivers themselves, it would have affected the APM control on USB and UASP hdd's both of which never deviate from the setting the user makes.


----------



## XSAlliN (Dec 2, 2022)

Bought an external HDD awhile back (_Seagate Expansion - _on the outside / ST1000LM035-1RK172 1000.2 GB - on the inside) - and end-up in same boat as many others: annoyed as f*k by this recurring industry standard - where either an aggressive power saving implementation or a _preventive wear_ "feature" parks the magnetic head every couple of seconds -_ which audibly translates to a clock-like clicking noise._

Did some digging as usual - a bit concerned at first (didn't seem normal - to say the least), yet - still annoyed while finding out that "this is suppose to be normal (as intended by the manufacturer)" this days. Tho, after all that digging "i couldn't find a single official supporting the claim - that this aggressive sleep mode - is both intended and a good thing". More like... conclusions - supposedly "_logical_" since they are based on official knowledge regarding the existence of this features (or implemented setting) - yet inconclusive, as in... there's not official info regarding the level of aggressiveness (if it's safe for the head to park every couple of seconds). Even contradictory - if you're to check the datasheet of most of products. For example... in terms of reliability (what the manufacturer deems as expected working conditions - while beyond those specific variables failure is regarded as a probability) my HDD is rated with the following variables:

*Load/Unload 

600,000* software-controlled power on/off cycles (this is basically the APM - be it as implemented in the HDD even some "_feature_" or as defined by Windows Settings)

*20,000* hard power on/off cycles (Shunting Down or Starting/Restarting the Operating System)

And yet... an aggressive APM (or _feature_) - where 1 minute = 10 unloads and 60 minutes = 600 unloads and 10 hours = 6.000 unloads and 5 days = 30.000 unloads and 30 days = 180.000 unloads = 5 Months = 900.000 unloads... Oops! Not even half a year and - an avid computer user already surpassed the expected stable conditions by 50% so... failure should also be within expectations - based on the official data sheet. That being said, maybe this days... if you here someone complaining about a HDD failing after only a year - you should tell him to stop complaining and consider himself lucky?! Nah! That doesn't sound reasonable to me. And that's just it... the opinions on this subject are either mixed, contradictory, from one extreme to another or biased. Personally, i blame it on the officials - for being well aware of this discussions regarding their products - yet, refusing to shade some light (clear things up). On the other hand - something (well, my experience and knowledge regarding the corporate world and their way of doing things) - tells me this is intentional (since product failure works in their favor, and... same goes for dishonesty/misinformation). Like... those Non-disclosure agreement contracts one has to sign - regarding company secrets - are also tied to dirty secretes.

Even beyond internal politics - sometimes the misinformation is hard to ignore (misleading - if you will). As was the case with Seagate (this time around) - where their official software (SeaTools) - properly and accurately identifies the SSD (which is made by Samsung) - yet, at same time - shows a vague description of their own model (*STKM1000400**)*. You can only find this info - on the official site with the help of the SN. On the other hand, every other 3rd party tool (CrystalDiskInfo, GSmartCtrl, HDDScan, Victoria, etc) - can properly identify even the HDD from inside (*ST1000LM035-1RK172*) - an info that's not available even on the official website. Furthermore, the only recommended tools by Seagate for this products - are Seagate File Recovery Software and SeaTools. Yet, neither of this have any setting - useful/required for managing the APM. End-up wasting couple of days - trying all kinds of recommendations (it's how i end-up in this topic - one of many many many others on this subject) and workarounds (disabling the APM with a 3rd party tool - does work, but since this setting resets on shut-down - was more feasible to use a simple tool like PingHD 0.1 on start-up / most of the other APM tweaks need extra/specifics steps for an external HDD - some even discouraging since you can only try once - like editing the settings of the HDD itself), till finally i found some official tools - that could properly manage the APM (without even disabling it), as in - Seagate Dashboard (which was not made for this product & it's officially unsupported for windows 11  - yet works) and supposedly - you can also manage the power within SeaChest Utilities (didn't get to try this one).

Seriously, tho... this is what it takes in 2022 to manage a simple yet relevant setting?! And how many do you think - are whiling to go so far? Cause from what i noticed: quite a lot chose to return their products and many of those like WD users (in particular) - are convinced that it's a feature causing this issue: https://community.wd.com/search?expanded=true&q=PWL - and looking for models without PWL. Tho, as mentioned above - there's no info on PWL being this aggressive, so maybe it's still - just an aggressive idle/sleep setting (that's a given - if the clicking stops while disabling APM or using a tool like PingHD 0.1 - which keeps the head constantly active by writting a small text every couple of seconds). Funny thing is - the conclusion pointing out to PWL as the main culprit - convinced many others that this "feature" is a new industry standard - adopted by every HDD manufacturer. Thus, they're asking around for models without PWL. And... coincidentally - as some mentioned (after buying/trying) - there actually are some models which don't have this issue (presumably, using a different APM implementation). Others, chose to flip the coin and ignore the constant clicking - while their HDD parks the head every couple of seconds (accepting/concluding that this is caused by PWL - and thus - working as intended / honestly, i find their resistance/adaptability to this noise quite impressive - since it's not something i can manage). While most of the rest - went with the first option that proved to work (among those - there's probably some who even made a habit of starting a 3rd party tool and manually turning the APM on every OS Start/Restart).

Anyway, that's my take on this - thought i'd share my 2 cents - in case it helps someone.

Cheers.


----------



## Sora (Dec 3, 2022)

PWL type clicks are 3-7 seconds while the head is actively flying across the platter, the merit of such a feature has no evidence to date.

PWL is not parking the head, it flicks it away from its current position before moving it back. RAMP/UNRAMP is more wear then just moving the head itself.


----------



## XSAlliN (Dec 3, 2022)

Sora said:


> PWL type clicks are 3-7 seconds while the head is actively flying across the platter, the merit of such a feature has no evidence to date.
> 
> PWL is not parking the head, it flicks it away from its current position before moving it back. RAMP/UNRAMP is more wear then just moving the head itself.



Can you link any official info (be it an official statement or datasheet written/attested by WD officials) - where that short time frame (3-7 seconds) is actually mentioned? 

The only official info i could find on PWL is this:

*Pre-emptive Wear Leveling (PWL)*
This Western Digital feature provides a solution for protecting the recording media
against mechanical wear. In cases where the drive is so busy with incoming
commands that it is forced to stay in a same cylinder position for a long time, the PWL
control engine initiates forced seeks so that disk lubricant maintains an even
distribution and does not become depleted. This feature ensures reliability for
applications that perform a high incidence of read/write operations at the same

Furthermore, if you're to contact the official customer support department - and mention that you hear clicks (or clacks) from your external HDD every couple of seconds - the most common recommendation is to try a different USB port and if "the issue" persists RMA the HDD. Which goes to prove that even their own official support department - seems to lack specific knowledge involving this clicks - let alone reassuring their customers that it's normal (working as intended). And this is more than a decade old issue/debate: https://community.wd.com/t/my-take-on-pwl-noise-and-customer-support/3329  That being said...  i take it some random user - draw this conclusion and posted it on the Internet. And, for the lack of better answers - many others just roll with it - till it became the norm to blame it on the PWL. The biggest irony... many of those don't even own a WD HDD - so it only makes sense to roll with that conclusion even further - and acknowledge it as a new industry standard (a standard - that only the consumers seem aware of).

On the other hand, you can find official info on all kinds of other WD Features - which are meant to control the head in one way or the other:
*
NoTouch Ramp Load Technology*
Parks the recording heads off the disk surface during spin up, spin down and when
the drive is off. This ensures the recording head never touches the disk surface
resulting in improved long term reliability due to less head wear, and improved non-
operational shock tolerance.

*Dual Actuator Technology*
A head positioning system with dual-stage actuators that improves positioning
accuracy over the data track(s). The primary stage provides course displacement; the
secondary stage uses piezoelectric motion to fine tune the head positioning to a
higher degree of precision.
*
Staggered Spin-up* — allows the system to control whether the drive will spin up
immediately or wait until the interface is fully ready before spinning u

*Native Command Queuing (NCQ )*
These drives support Native Command Queuing. NCQ is a true Enterprise feature for
environments such as database, Web servers, and e-mail servers.
Performance of a random I/O workload can be improved through intelligent re-
ordering of the I/O requests so they read/write to and from the nearest available
sectors and minimize the need for additional disk revolutions or head actuator
movement. This improvement is achieved though Native Command Queuing (NCQ).
NCQ allows the drive to re-order read commands, thereby increasing random read
IOPs. Additional NCQ features that can prove beneficial include a Write Cache
disabled IOP increase and a queuing implementation built upon an existing, highly
automated cache architecture. Queued reads in NCQ leverage the same re-ordering
schemes used for write caching. The firmware design maintains the “order” of
overlapping/colliding queued commands. NCQ is designed to excel in multi-
threaded environments with high random I/O loads.

*Dynamic Fly Height Control*
This feature is designed to compensate for head/media separation changes due to
temperature and altitude. It adds video quality margins across temperature and
altitude changes

There's even a feature - that's suppose to prevent hasty movement of the actuator (this is what moves the head) - as in:

*IntelliSeek*
WD’s unique IntelliSeek technology proactively calculates an optimum seek speed to
eliminate hasty movement of the actuator that produces noise and requires power,
which is common in other drives. With IntelliSeek, the actuator’s movement is
controlled so the head reaches the next target sector just in time to read the next
piece of information, rather than rapidly accelerating and waiting for the drive
rotation to catch up. This smooth motion reduces power usage by more than 60
percent compared with standard drives, as well as quiets seek operation and lowers
vibration.

Last but not least - and probably the most common feature - since it's actually adopted by every HDD manufacturer - even tho, they're not all tweaked to work the same way:

*Improved Power Management*— provides improved power management
features including Host Initiated SATA Power Management (HIPM) and Device
Initiated SATA Power Management (DIPM).

So hey, maybe it actually is the PWL that's making that sound - "for specific models from WD". But it's definitely not PWL (or a similar feature) - that's causing those click on my Seagate - and same goes for certain WD Models (some claim - there's some versions of WD BLUE - that don't make any clicking sound).


----------



## ThrashZone (Dec 3, 2022)

Regeneration said:


> You may be correct about the parameter being exclusive to AMD controllers, but you being too aggressive and leading into a flame war.
> 
> Can you just test it to be sure? with both Intel RST and built-in iaStor? I don't have APM HDDs at the moment.
> 
> It is theoretically possible that the OS may inherit parameter from one service (even if its not started) and force it globally.


Hi,
Old thread is this really still an issue ?


----------



## Regeneration (Dec 3, 2022)

ThrashZone said:


> Hi,
> Old thread is this really still an issue ?



I don't have HDDs with APM and I avoid using Microsoft SATA drivers so no clue.


----------



## Sora (Dec 4, 2022)

XSAlliN said:


> Can you link any official info (be it an official statement or datasheet written/attested by WD officials) - where that short time frame (3-7 seconds) is actually mentioned?



Theres no documents, and the 3-7s is just a range for disks of all vendors that employ the tech.



ThrashZone said:


> Hi,
> Old thread is this really still an issue ?


It's still an issue.


----------



## izy (Dec 4, 2022)

While playing Marvel’s Spider-Man Miles Morales (only in this game) the game was freezing for like 20 seconds time to time and i found this error in logs: "Reset to device, \Device\RaidPort0, was issued." 
I am not running any raids and all my drives are healthy, i changed "ahci link power management hipm-dipm"  to active and did a secure erase on the SSD but i have not tested if that fixed the problem.
Is this related to this issue or is something else?


----------



## 80251 (Dec 4, 2022)

@izy I doubt PWL would affect SSD's because an SSD doesn't have any tracks.


----------



## XSAlliN (Dec 4, 2022)

izy said:


> While playing Marvel’s Spider-Man Miles Morales (only in this game) the game was freezing for like 20 seconds time to time and i found this error in logs: "Reset to device, \Device\RaidPort0, was issued."
> I am not running any raids and all my drives are healthy, i changed "ahci link power management hipm-dipm"  to active and did a secure erase on the SSD but i have not tested if that fixed the problem.
> Is this related to this issue or is something else?



After installing Windows - did you also installed all the drivers you can find on the OEM support page? Cause there's also optional drivers - like Intel Rapid Storage - which are essential for those using a RAID configuration or Intel Optane, yet... unnecessary for the majority  (who don't use either of those 2 options). Technically, even if you install optional drivers - if there's no appropriate hardware to act as a trigger - they remain inactive. Tho, your system should also be set in BIOS to AHCI (that's usually how it's set by default - in most cases at least - so it's worth checking just to be sure). Could also be related to a corrupted system file - so it's worth checking that as well - just open the terminal (be it CMD or PowerShell) as admin and use the following command:

sfc /scannow


----------



## izy (Dec 4, 2022)

XSAlliN said:


> After installing Windows - did you also installed all the drivers you can find on the OEM support page? Cause there's also optional drivers - like Intel Rapid Storage - which are essential for those using a RAID configuration or Intel Optane, yet... unnecessary for the majority  (who don't use either of those 2 options). Technically, even if you install optional drivers - if there's no appropriate hardware to act as a trigger - they remain inactive. Tho, your system should also be set in BIOS to AHCI (that's usually how it's set by default - in most cases at least - so it's worth checking just to be sure). Could also be related to a corrupted system file - so it's worth checking that as well - just open the terminal (be it CMD or PowerShell) as admin and use the following command:
> 
> sfc /scannow


I dont remember if i installed or not the optional raid drivers but everything else is OK , no corrupted files. The game is stored on a secondary SSD and its the only game (or program) that does that (i didnt test with many games but ive ran many programs stored on that SSD with no issues), i have to try again and see if changing "ahci link power management" did anything (or the secure erase).


----------



## ThrashZone (Dec 4, 2022)

Hi,
Win-11 has hidden a lot of normal power options that win-10 still have this also works on 10 to
This makes it easier to find








						Add or Remove "Choose Power Plan" context menu in Windows 11  Tutorial
					

A power plan is a collection of hardware and system settings that manages how your computer uses power. Power plans can help you save energy, maximize system performance, or achieve a balance between the two.  Changes made to a power plan will affect all users that use the same power plan as...




					www.elevenforum.com


----------

