annualized workload rate

[bjesteadt]

I noticed that the Western Digital drives we use for Veeam backup storage have a 180TB/year annualized workload rate. How can I find what our workload rate is, and whether we are exceeding the manufacturer's rating?

[wishr]

Hi Brian,

I'd suggest you check it with the manufacturer because there is no definitive terminology. Probably it's a combined Read/Write, but it's better to have it confirmed.

Thanks

[bjesteadt]

I'm looking for a way to determine what my average workload is (reads+writes). I know how much Veeam writes during the backup process by simply looking at my files, but that doesn't account for the weekly health checks, synthetic merges, or any additional things that Windows does. What data metrics do I have access to related to total daily/weekly/monthly drive activity?

[wishr]

I believe it should possible to check it on the OS end, but if not you'll require to involve some 3-rd party tool. B&R is not supposed to provide such information. Maybe even Western Digital themselves are willing to provide something for measurement?

[bjesteadt]

I thought maybe someone might have some insight into this, maybe a fellow Veeam customer?

So it isn't available in any Veeam One reports either? This is quite the enigma...

[wishr]

Hi Brian,

Yes, currently Veeam ONE does not collect such information, however, I transferred your request to the responsible PM, so it's noted.

Thanks

[Shestakov]

Brian, I'm also curious why annualized rate is helpful at all. How are you going to use that information?
Thanks!

[Igor Lukic]

Hi Brian,

the definition from Seagate is this:
https://www.seagate.com/de/de/support/k ... -005902en/
I would expect that WD has the same definition.

But how can you check how much data you have written or read?
Most Seagate drives are logging these values.
You can read them via Seatools for Windows.
*On some drives, Seatools also shows you the annulized workload rate.

But you could also use a tool like Crystaldiskinfo and check the S.M.A.R.T. values.
There should be "LBA written" and "LBA read".
These are Hex values.
One LBA has 512Bytes.

On my desktop drive, I have these values:
Liftetime Power on Hours: 30401

LBA written value: HEX = 4A7CCD68E -> Dec= 19995088526 x 512 bytes = 10237485222912 bytes.
LBA read value: HEX = 72AD20803 -> DEC= 30783178755 x 512 bytes = 15760987522560 bytes.

Harddisk makers are counting 1 TB as 1000GB (Not 1024GB!)
So if you need TB you have to devide these values with 1000000000000.

LBA written = 10.237 TB
LBA read = 15.761 TB

LBA written + LBA read:
10.237TB + 15.761 TB = 25.998 TB.
25.998TB x 8760/30401 = 7.491 TB/yr

*Strange thing is, that my drive shows me an annulized workload rate of 750TB/yr.

Maybe this can help you.

[Shestakov]

Great input, Igor.
Thanks!

[bjesteadt]

Shestakov, what I am trying to do is see how much "work" (reads/writes) the drive is doing, and verify that it is not exceeding the manufacturer's maximum specification (180TB/year). My fear is that between deduplication from Microsoft, synthetic merges, health checks, and normal backup or backup copy operations, that we are "working" the drive too much and will cause premature failure of the drives.

Thanks for the input Igor. I checked with my Western Digital disk utility and with a 3rd party software (Passmark DiskCheckup), and I do not have the values you mentioned. Here's what it shows me:

Code: Select all

SysInfo DLL Version:                                                  SysInfo v1.0 Build: 1122
Time of export:                                                       10:07:23 12-Aug-2019

Device information:                                                   
   Device ID:                                                         4
   Interface:                                                         SATA
   Device Capacity:                                                   7630882 MB
   Serial Number:                                                     R6GWVMGY
   Model Number:                                                      WDC WD80EFZX-68UW8N0

SMART ATTRIBUTES:
 ID	Description                         	Status    	Value     	Worst     	Threshold 	Raw Value 	TEC                 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  1	Raw Read Error Rate                 	OK        	100       	100       	16        	0         	N/A                 
  2	Throughput Performance              	OK        	132       	132       	54        	112       	N/A                 
  3	Spin Up Time                        	OK        	150       	150       	24        	38683279800	N/A                 
  4	Start/Stop Count                    	OK        	100       	100       	0         	66        	N/A                 
  5	Reallocated Sector Count            	OK        	100       	100       	5         	0         	N/A                 
  7	Seek Error Rate                     	OK        	100       	100       	67        	0         	N/A                 
  8	Seek Time Performance               	OK        	140       	140       	20        	15        	N/A                 
  9	Power On Time                       	OK        	100       	100       	0         	5305      	N/A                 
 10	Spin Retry Count                    	OK        	100       	100       	60        	0         	N/A                 
 12	Power Cycle Count                   	OK        	100       	100       	0         	13        	N/A                 
 22	(Unknown attribute)                 	OK        	100       	100       	25        	100       	N/A                 
192	Power off Retract Count             	OK        	97        	97        	0         	4523      	N/A                 
193	Load Cycle Count                    	OK        	97        	97        	0         	4523      	N/A                 
194	Temperature                         	OK        	209       	209       	0         	31 C      	N/A                 
196	Reallocation Event Count            	OK        	100       	100       	0         	0         	N/A                 
197	Current Pending Sector Count        	OK        	100       	100       	0         	0         	N/A                 
198	Uncorrectable Sector Count          	OK        	100       	100       	0         	0         	N/A                 
199	UltraDMA CRC Error Count            	OK        	200       	200       	0         	0         	N/A

[bjesteadt]

Digging into the Passmark software a bit, on a "Hidden areas" tab, it does show "Max User LBA" "Max Native LBA" and "Max Disk LBA". They are all the same value, 15628053167. I'm guessing this is similar to the Seagate values Igor mentioned? Doing the math Igor mentioned, it comes out to 8TB. I'll do some more testing on other drives in the system to see if that will give us what I'm looking for.

[Igor Lukic]

Hi Brian,

since I don't have any WD drives I can't tell you if WD is monitoring these values.
Do you wanna check it with Crystaldiskinfo?

https://crystalmark.info/en/software/crystaldiskinfo/

Here is a screenshot of my drive:
https://1drv.ms/u/s!AkZeVhqP46zWgj6VsaI ... d?e=4AZB1C
The values are "Total host writes & Total host reads"

Good look

[bjesteadt]

As it stands, it doesn't appear that my Western Digital drives monitor any LBA data. When I compare one 8 TB Western digital "Red" drive to another with the same model number, they both have the exact same "Max Disk LBA" value, even though they should have very different usage.

Is there some way we could run a semi long term (i.e. 30 days) capture of disk usage and extrapolate the annual disk "work" from that? I will also open a support ticket with Western Digital to see if they have any suggestions.