I happened upon this post http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=21007.0 about WD drives and autoparking. Im wondering if this is still an issue on EADS drives and if I should run the wdidle? or should I not worry about it.

run widle and check your time. If it says 8 seconds id switch it to 300.  Just remember to remove power and data cables for 1 minute after flashing.  I tried it and didnt unplug the cables (just power cycled the pc) and got the dredded im not going to transfer squat and click alot error.

I wouldn't bother -- any time you change the firmware on a drive, if anything goes awry you can "brick" the drive.

 

WD's "IntelliPark" does operate in a way that's going to cause significant issues on the drive.  Even if it's set at 8 seconds (not sure if this is still the default, but it doesn't really matter), that only means it parks after 8 seconds of no activity.    The "concerns" that this is going to cause thousands of excessive load cycles are based on a usage pattern like this:  the drive is in use;  then not in use for just over 8 seconds so the heads park;  then a second later you access it again once;  then no access for 8 seconds until the heads park;  then another immediate access;  then 8 more seconds of idle;  then one more access; then 8 seconds of idle; etc. -- continuously until you "wear out" the drive 

 

That is in no way realistic.  For example, a parity check will cause ONE head load for the entire parity check;  a movie being streamed will likewise cause ONE head load for the duration of the movie;  a write to the array will case ONE load for the complete write; etc.

 

My media server (the older of my two UnRAID systems) has 15 of these drives.  It's written to virtually every day, and has been on continuously for over 3 years.  The parity drive current has a load cycle count of 4308 ... well below the 300,000 specification    I checked a couple of the data drives at random, and they're both well below that (both below 2,000).    I certainly don't see any reason to run wdidle on these drives      Nor would I do so on any new ones I might buy.