May 9, 20197 yr I found that one of the drives in my array is slow. I looked up some information on write cache and found that on this drive its disabled. The drive is HGST_HUS726060ALA640 6TB. I've tried some different things to turn on write cache but can't seem to get it to work. Any suggestions? sdparm -g WCE /dev/sdb /dev/sdb: ATA HGST HUS726060AL T1EN WCE 0 [cha: y] Tried this... sdparm --set=WCE /dev/sdb and this... hdparm -W1 /dev/sdb
May 9, 20197 yr Community Expert sdparm is for SAS devices only, hdparm for SATA, so hdparm for that one, what error are you getting after running the command?
May 9, 20197 yr Author No error. I run the following.... hdparm -W1 /dev/sdb /dev/sdb: setting drive write-caching to 1 (on) write-caching = 0 (off) Check... Still off hdparm -W /dev/sdb /dev/sdb: write-caching = 0 (off)
May 9, 20197 yr Community Expert No idea then, try it on a different controller if available, I don't remember seeing anyone else with the same issue.
May 9, 20197 yr Author It was on my LSI controller. Moved it from there to the motherboard SATA connection. Nothing...
August 7, 20196 yr I On 5/9/2019 at 1:20 PM, x-null-x said: No error. I run the following.... hdparm -W1 /dev/sdb /dev/sdb: setting drive write-caching to 1 (on) write-caching = 0 (off) Check... Still off hdparm -W /dev/sdb /dev/sdb: write-caching = 0 (off) I am having the same problem on two drives, sdb & sdi. I have twelve matching Seagate 4tb drives. Will not enable on the two out of twelve. I tried on two different motherboards sata ports and on LSI 9207-8i card with same results, won't enable. I just purchase another matching drive to replace one to see if the problem persists or not. I will report back. But in the meantime any helpful suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
November 14, 20196 yr im getting same issue on one of my HGST_HUH728080ALE's 8TB Sata drive that JUST showed up. I have 3 others of the same model without issue it just wont enable. I have another similar model with no issue HGST_HUH728080ALE604 is fine HGST_HUH728080ALE600 is the one that wont enable with the hdparm or sdparm commands root@Thor:~# hdparm -W 1 /dev/sdm /dev/sdm: setting drive write-caching to 1 (on) write-caching = 0 (off) also tried root@Thor:~# sdparm --set=WCE /dev/sdm /dev/sdm: ATA HGST HUH728080AL T7JF root@Thor:~# sdparm -g WCE /dev/sdm /dev/sdm: ATA HGST HUH728080AL T7JF WCE 0 [cha: y] diagnostics attached thor-diagnostics-20191114-1147.zip Edited November 14, 20196 yr by Can0nfan added commands tried
November 14, 20196 yr Author I was able to use the drive via Windows however I had to check the write-caching policy, check it or uncheck it. Can't remember now. But that was the only way to get the full write speed of the drive. This is the first time I've ever had to do that with a drive. So maybe its a drive issue?
January 9, 20206 yr after doing some research online I found some drives have it disabled in firmware and you need to contact the drive maker to get updated firmware to have it enabled. ill eventually replace that old HGST as i bought it used anyways but no issues with writespeeds with it disabled anyways
January 9, 20206 yr Author I wonder if that is my case. I still have the drive and it works perfectly well. Just can't get it to go above 75 mb/s.
January 10, 20206 yr 14 hours ago, x-null-x said: I wonder if that is my case. I still have the drive and it works perfectly well. Just can't get it to go above 75 mb/s. Do you have parity drives? I also have write speeds around 75MB/s, but according to the Wiki that should be normal, because one write causes 4 operations. One read and write on the parity disk and also on the drive you write to. So 150MB/s per drive (75M/s read and 75MB/s write) and this should be ok for a spinner? Edited January 10, 20206 yr by RedReddington
January 10, 20206 yr Author I think I was getting like 35-40 out of it in Parity. Actually I can't remember anymore but I know it was slower than any other disk I had on there which is why I started looking into it. Edited January 10, 20206 yr by x-null-x
February 7, 20206 yr Author So I recently bought a Rosewill cage, RSV-SATA-CAGE-34, and was going to use the same write cached issue drive as a backup drive, unassigned. I thought at least I could archive on it rather than it just sitting around. While doing a preclear to make sure the drive was still working I noticed that the drive was over 100 MB/s on the preclear. I did an erase and preclear and the drive averaged 145 MB/s. So I put it back in the array as a second parity drive. It seems to be running at a good speed. The plugin Fix Common Problems does give me this warning... I verified again that write-cache is not on. Write Cache is disabled on parity2
April 14, 20206 yr I had this problem with a Seagate IronWolf drive (ST8000VN0022). The write cache was disabled and none of the sdparm or hdparm commands would enable it. I was finally able to fix it with SeaChest utilities (https://www.seagate.com/support/software/seachest/). The download includes a boot drive creation tool. I booted a second system into this Linux environment and the following command fixed the issue for me: SeaChest_Configure -d /dev/sg0 --sctWriteCache enable
November 13, 20205 yr On 4/13/2020 at 5:21 PM, cpshoemake said: I had this problem with a Seagate IronWolf drive (ST8000VN0022). The write cache was disabled and none of the sdparm or hdparm commands would enable it. I was finally able to fix it with SeaChest utilities (https://www.seagate.com/support/software/seachest/). The download includes a boot drive creation tool. I booted a second system into this Linux environment and the following command fixed the issue for me: SeaChest_Configure -d /dev/sg0 --sctWriteCache enable I appreciate cpshoemake's comment - that saved me a bunch of headache. I used that to enable on two of my Seagate SATA drives that were on my LSI SAS card, and wouldn't change write caching with the above hdparm or sdparm commands. This SeaChest command worked perfect for me!
October 20, 20223 yr I know this is a old thread, but wanted to put another solution in here I found for my WD drive that were not enabling cache. Here is the source for this method. Unable to activate write caching on several drives - WD Internal Drives / Desktop & Mobile Drives - WD Community The basic idea of it is to use this command first to enable the ATA command on the controller. Update /dev/sdg to your correct drive though. Quote smartctl -s wcache-sct,ata,p /dev/sdg Then once that is submited and comes back showing Quote === START OF ENABLE/DISABLE COMMANDS SECTION === Write cache SCT Feature Control is set to: Controlled by ATA (persistent) Then you can submit the hdparm command to enable write cache as stated earlier in this thread. Edited October 20, 20223 yr by mavrrick
February 18, 20233 yr Thank you @mavrrick! This command seems to have worked for my 14TB WD140EDGZ that wouldn't accept the hdparam command to enable the write cache. Maybe because I am using a pcie adaptec hba controller? At any rate, it appears to be working now! And it made "Fix Common Problems" happy! smartctl -s wcache-sct,ata,p /dev/sdg
March 5, 20233 yr For me the solution was to Enable Cache Writing in the BIOS. Parity Sync is now 160MB/sec. 😀
April 23, 20233 yr On 10/20/2022 at 4:13 PM, mavrrick said: I know this is a old thread, but wanted to put another solution in here I found for my WD drive that were not enabling cache. Here is the source for this method. Unable to activate write caching on several drives - WD Internal Drives / Desktop & Mobile Drives - WD Community The basic idea of it is to use this command first to enable the ATA command on the controller. Update /dev/sdg to your correct drive though. Then once that is submited and comes back showing Then you can submit the hdparm command to enable write cache as stated earlier in this thread. I know this is a necro, but thank you very much @mavrrick - this resolved my issue! Sincerely appreciated!
October 2, 20232 yr Community Expert After changing my Parity drive, as expected, I got 'Fix common problems' flagging my HGST 8TB disk with 'write cache disabled on parity' But, I'm getting this: /dev: setting drive write-caching to 1 (on) HDIO_DRIVE_CMD(setcache) failed: Inappropriate ioctl for device I've tried it after this; smartctl -s wcache-sct,ata,p /dev/sdb The behaviour did not change. ______________UNTIL I STOPPED THE ARRAY FIRST!
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