WD Red 6 TB (WD60EFAX) with firmware 82.00A82 making constan

[Soliver84]

Hello
I am posting about a WD Red 6 TB hard drive, as well as several other drives from the same series, that appear to be affected by a known firmware issue.

Affected drive:

* Product: WD Red 6 TB
* Model: WD60EFAX-68SHWN0
* Serial number: WD-WX21D39D27YF
* Firmware: 82.00A82

Problem:

According to SMART diagnostics such as CrystalDiskInfo and WD Data Lifeguard Diagnostics, the drive appears to be completely healthy, with no errors, no pending sectors, and no reallocated sectors. However, it constantly produces rattling and clicking noises.

I already disabled the SATA controller in Windows Device Manager, but the noise still remains.

There are also no obvious system accesses or workload conditions that would explain this constant mechanical activity.

Background / suspected firmware issue:

According to several sources, including TrueNAS, ZFS forums, and community reports, firmware version 82.00A82 on WD60EFAX drives has been reported as problematic. Affected drives may, among other things:

* enter unusual error states in ZFS or RAID systems
* require specific firmware updates such as 04.1VH0
* show irregular access patterns and unusual mechanical behavior without any visible SMART warnings

The drives for which I need a firmware update are already registered as well.

Drives concerned:

1. WD Red 6 TB

* Model: WD60EFAX-68SHWN0
* Serial: WX21D39DZ7YF
* Power-on time: 177 hours

2. WD Red 6 TB

* Model: WD60EFAX-68SHWN0
* Serial: WX21D39PLC1F
* Condition: new

3. WD Red 6 TB

* Model: WD60EFAX-68SHWN0
* Serial: WX31D397L6FF
* Condition: new

4. WD Red 6 TB

* Model: WD60EFAX-68JH4N1
* Serial: WX12DB0AZJ81
* Condition: new

I am currently looking for the latest available firmware update for these drives. If anyone has information about the current update version, a working update path, or experience with this exact issue, I would appreciate your help.

[michael chiklis]

That's because this is a SMR drive, firmware is working in background.
Probably it also has active trim function as SSD do!

https://web.archive.org/web/20200417191 ... a_id/25185

https://support-en.wd.com/app/answers/d ... a_id/25185

[Soliver84]

That's because this is a SMR drive, firmware is working in background.
Probably it also has active trim function as SSD do!

SMR drive.jpg

https://web.archive.org/web/20200417191 ... a_id/25185

https://support-en.wd.com/app/answers/d ... a_id/25185

@michael chiklis,
Thanks for info.

Do you happen to have the firmware?

Thank you
Soliver84

[michael chiklis]

From a firmware perspective, hard drives don't work as you think.
Many people believe that simply flashing the hard drive's firmware, perhaps by searching for a specific version on a dedicated website can change its functionality, like you would with the firmware on a CD burner or a TV.
Well, hard drives firmware is structured very differently; it's made up of modules, some of which are unique to the drive itself and therefore cannot be replaced.
For this reason, it's unthinkable to flash the entire firmware and expect the drive to continue working. The various updates that manufacturers release are nothing more than patches that modify only certain modules, and in any case, i don't think they release versions that allow you to alter/turn off the track reorganization functionality of an SMR HDD.

However, i wouldn't attempt to alter the trim functionality or SMR behavior in general. That would just kill the hard drive faster!
This makes sense only if the disk is experiencing physical problems (which your HDD most likely doesn't have, as yourself reported SMART doesn't indicate any problems) and you need to recover the data.

If your HDD is acting up, it's because you're not using it as intended by the manufacturer.
SMRs weren't designed for repetitive random writes, so i don't recommend copying and pasting numerous small files that might then be moved frequently from one disk to another and then rewrite again on your drive by filling all the space as much as possible. This would be a terrible use case because it would keep hdd to busy with SMR/TRIM operations. Also, this type of hdd isn't made for working on RAIDs systems!!
I recommend using this HDD for more sequential writes, such as large files like videos or image backups, which don't need to be deleted frequently and therefore need to be kept permanently in read mode.

If your hdd does a lot of noises (very busy) and you see that is getting slower, then you should stop abusing it!
I suggest to format it (do first a backup) and start using it properly as i explained.

https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/co ... h/comment/

[Soliver84]

From a firmware perspective, hard drives don't work as you think.
Many people believe that simply flashing the hard drive's firmware, perhaps by searching for a specific version on a dedicated website can change its functionality, like you would with the firmware on a CD burner or a TV.
Well, hard drives firmware is structured very differently; it's made up of modules, some of which are unique to the drive itself and therefore cannot be replaced.
For this reason, it's unthinkable to flash the entire firmware and expect the drive to continue working. The various updates that manufacturers release are nothing more than patches that modify only certain modules, and in any case, i don't think they release versions that allow you to alter/turn off the track reorganization functionality of an SMR HDD.

However, i wouldn't attempt to alter the trim functionality or SMR behavior in general. That would just kill the hard drive faster!
This makes sense only if the disk is experiencing physical problems (which your HDD most likely doesn't have, as yourself reported SMART doesn't indicate any problems) and you need to recover the data.

If your HDD is acting up, it's because you're not using it as intended by the manufacturer.
SMRs weren't designed for repetitive random writes, so i don't recommend copying and pasting numerous small files that might then be moved frequently from one disk to another and then rewrite again on your drive by filling all the space as much as possible. This would be a terrible use case because it would keep hdd to busy with SMR/TRIM operations. Also, this type of hdd isn't made for working on RAIDs systems!!
I recommend using this HDD for more sequential writes, such as large files like videos or image backups, which don't need to be deleted frequently and therefore need to be kept permanently in read mode.

If your hdd does a lot of noises (very busy) and you see that is getting slower, then you should stop abusing it!
I suggest to format it (do first a backup) and start using it properly as i explained.

https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/co ... h/comment/

@Michael Chiklis

Thank you for your explanation.

I understand that HDD firmware updates are usually not full firmware replacements, but rather targeted patches for specific modules. That is exactly why I am asking about an official update for this drive series.

The reason I am looking for the update is mainly related to ZFS compatibility and the known issues reported for WD60EFAX drives with firmware version 82.00A82. So I am not trying to modify or disable normal SMR background behavior, but rather to find out whether Western Digital provided a firmware fix for this series, similar to other update packages released for different WD models.

For example, I was able to find firmware update packages here:

https://files.hddguru.com/download/Firm ... 20Digital/

Such as:

* wd6251.exe
* WD50EFRX / WD60EFRX / WD50EZRX / WD60EZRX update

In addition, I have already found two versions of newer firmware. However, these appear to be only individual packages or modules, and I am not yet experienced enough with this type of firmware structure to safely evaluate or apply them myself. I would probably need to experiment on an old spare drive first.

That is exactly what I do not want to do at this point. I would rather speak with someone who really understands this professionally and can tell me whether there is a clean and safe way to patch these drives or bring them to a newer firmware version.

So far, however, I have not been able to find a clear official update or a reliable fix for my WD60EFAX series.

That is why I asked whether you happen to know if such an official update exists, or if you have seen a confirmed update path for these specific drives.

Thank you.
Soliver84

[Hardcore Games]

Shingled disks can be more noisy as they work to modify tracks by layering data fresh. This is why shingle disks are slower.

[Soliver84]

@Michael Chiklis

Thank you for your explanation.

I understand that HDD firmware updates are usually not full firmware replacements, but rather targeted patches for specific modules. That is exactly why I am asking about an official update for this drive series.

The reason I am looking for the update is mainly related to ZFS compatibility and the known issues reported for WD60EFAX drives with firmware version 82.00A82. So I am not trying to modify or disable normal SMR background behavior, but rather to find out whether Western Digital provided a firmware fix for this series, similar to other update packages released for different WD models.

For example, I was able to find firmware update packages here:

[https://files.hddguru.com/download/Firmware%20updates/Western%20Digital/](https://files.hddguru.com/download/Firm ... 20Digital/)

Such as:

* wd6251.exe
* WD50EFRX / WD60EFRX / WD50EZRX / WD60EZRX update

In addition, I have already found two versions of newer firmware. However, these appear to be only individual packages or modules, and I am not yet experienced enough with this type of firmware structure to safely evaluate or apply them myself. I would probably need to experiment on an old spare drive first.

That is exactly what I do not want to do at this point. I would rather speak with someone who really understands this professionally and can tell me whether there is a clean and safe way to patch these drives or bring them to a newer firmware version.

So far, however, I have not been able to find a clear official update or a reliable fix for my WD60EFAX series.

That is why I asked whether you happen to know if such an official update exists, or if you have seen a confirmed update path for these specific drives.

Thank you.
Soliver84

[michael chiklis]

I don't understand why you want to update the firmware.
As we said, what you're calling issue, are just normal noises theat smr drives produce when they manage tracks in background.
FW update will not fix your drive "issue".

Also, i wouldn't use any SMR drives in raid system. As i said in my 1st message, this type of drives shouldn't be used in raids because they get killed fast.
So why bother updating the firmware to use this drives in raid system?
Are you doing this?

FW updating process is always risky, i wouldn't do without doing a backup first and understanding that the drive might get bricked.
If you need to use drives in raid, i suggest to use CMR drives instead.

[Soliver84]

Thank you for your reply and for taking the time to explain the SMR background behavior. I understand your point and appreciate the advice regarding CMR drives for RAID systems.

However, I would like to clarify exactly why I am looking for the firmware update, because it is not simply about the background noise itself.

### What ZFS is and why it matters here

ZFS (Zettabyte File System) is an advanced, enterprise-grade file system and logical volume manager originally developed by Sun Microsystems and now maintained as OpenZFS. It is used in TrueNAS, FreeNAS, Proxmox, and many other NAS/server platforms. ZFS is not a traditional RAID like a hardware RAID controller — it is a software-defined storage stack that handles data integrity, checksumming, self-healing, snapshotting, and RAID-like redundancy (called RAIDZ) entirely at the software level.

ZFS is specifically designed to detect and correct silent data corruption, which is exactly why it is used in professional and semi-professional NAS storage environments.

### Why the firmware matters specifically for ZFS

The issue I am referring to is not just background noise or normal SMR housekeeping. The firmware version **82.00A82** on WD60EFAX drives has a **confirmed and documented bug** that causes the drives to behave incorrectly under ZFS workloads, specifically during **resilvering** (which is ZFS's equivalent of a RAID rebuild after a drive event).

The confirmed effects are:

- Drives cause **false resilvering notifications** with no actual data event
- Under sustained load, drives produce **IDNF errors**
- Drives can be **dropped from the ZFS vdev/pool** (effectively ejected from the array)
- In worst case: **data loss or pool corruption**

This is not about using SMR in RAID in the traditional sense. ZFS handles SMR differently than hardware RAID, but even ZFS cannot work around a firmware-level bug that causes the drive to respond incorrectly to read/write commands during rebuild operations.

This has been confirmed by iXsystems (the company behind TrueNAS) themselves, as well as the OpenZFS development team.

### Sources confirming the firmware bug

**TrueNAS Forum – WD Red DM-SMR ZFS Issue:**
https://www.truenas.com/community/threa ... ame.84436/
https://www.truenas.com/community/threa ... ame.85562/

**Reddit – iXsystems confirmed ZFS Firmware Issue:**
https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/co ... th_wd_red/
https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/co ... th_wd_red/

**ServeTheHome – WD Red SMR Firmware 82.00A82 Failed State (detailed test):**
https://www.servethehome.com/wd-red-smr ... d-red-smr/
https://www.servethehome.com/wd-red-smr ... red-smr/2/

**GitHub – OpenZFS Bug Report: WD WDx0EFAX unable to resilver:**
https://github.com/openzfs/zfs/issues/10214
https://github.com/openzfs/zfs/discussions/12973

**WD Community – Firmware Update related problems:**
https://community.wd.com/t/drive-2-appe ... ate/271676
https://community.wd.com/t/is-there-a-f ... -3tb/17646

**Synology Forum – WD Red WD40EFAX problems:**
https://www.synoforum.com/threads/probl ... efax.5699/

**QNAP Forum – WD Red issues and workarounds:**
https://forum.qnap.com/viewtopic.php?t=166476
https://forum.qnap.com/viewtopic.php?t=150784

### What firmware is needed and where

A newer firmware version such as **04.1VH0** is reported to resolve this specific bug behavior. Unfortunately, Western Digital has not made any official public update available on their website for this drive series. The update appears to be accessible only through:

- **HDDSurgery** (paid firmware database, approximately 1€ per model)
- **WD Support directly** after a support request
- Potentially NAS vendor channels (QNAP/Synology update paths)

This is exactly why I came here — I was hoping to find out whether you, with your experience and your firmware database, have seen a clean and confirmed update path for the WD60EFAX specifically, or whether such a patch exists in your Mega archive.

### Important note regarding my specific drives

I want to be very clear about my situation: I currently have **4 drives of this model** in total. Three of them are **brand new and have never been used** — they are completely empty with no data on them whatsoever. The fourth drive has only been powered on for approximately **177 hours** during occasional use, and it is also completely empty with no user data stored on it.

This means there is **no data at risk** on any of these drives at this point. My goal is to update the firmware **before** I start using them in a ZFS pool, precisely to avoid running into the known bug from the very beginning. I would rather fix this now on empty drives than deal with pool corruption or data loss later.

I fully agree with your warning about backup and brick risk — even though the drives are empty, I would still test the process on one drive first before applying anything to the others.

Thank you again for your time.

Soliver84

[ora]

All your discs have the production date printed on the label. Judging by the fact that almost all of your disks are new, and one was used for only a week, I assume that you received them recently, and they were also recently manufactured.

Now look how long ago the zfs community discussed the problems of these drives and proposed solutions in the form of a firmware update. Most likely, many years ago, when smr disks were first released, and in addition to constant clicks and crackles in the background, there were also strong drops in operating speed and random, irreproducible errors that were not recorded anywhere, but led to disks falling out of the disk array. The update file you linked to was also uploaded many years ago.

Some more interesting information:

Other hard drive manufacturers, such as Fujitsu, Maxtor, Hitachi or Seagate, produced drives in series. What does this mean: for example, Seagate had a series of Barracuda 7200.7, 7200.10 or 7200.12 drives. Each hard drive had its own unique model number, for example ST380817AS. By the model number you can tell exactly what series this disk is from, what its capacity is, how many magnetic disks and read heads it has inside, what firmware is available for it, and so on.

For Western Digital, everything was much simpler: the drives for desktop computers were the Caviar series, and for laptops the Scorpio series. Then different “colors” appeared, but the essence did not change. The essence is this - the WD2500AAKS model, for example, but released in different years - these are completely different drives, they are different even in appearance! They are all SATA, for desktop computers, with a capacity of 250 gigabytes and a rotation speed of 7200 rpm. And that's where their similarities end. This also applies to your 6 terabyte disks; disks under this model have been produced for almost 10 years. They can be distinguished by the second part of the model (WD60EFAX-68SHWN0), it distinguishes their family, but for the average consumer this means little. Other manufacturers also had different families within the same series, the Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 series, for example, had small-capacity drives in a thin case, and large-capacity drives in a thick case, and technically they belonged to different families.

Also, Western Digital hard drives do not display their real firmware version, but display a stub version, such as 01.01A01, which is the same for desktop drives, laptops, whatever. The real version looks something like this

04.1VH0

and it is hidden from the user, it can only be seen in specialized software for low-level work with the disk.

I don’t know why they did this, but I think it was precisely so that buyers would not become obsessed with the idea of ​​updating the firmware of the hard drive as soon as they feel that it is working somehow wrong.

So that’s what I’m all about: these stories about known problems in the firmware most likely don’t even apply to your disks. If you want to find out if there are updates for your drives, you can simply contact support, complaining that they are very noisy and do not work well in the storage system. Most likely, there will be no updates, since for consumer-level drives, manufacturers usually never release updates, even in cases where the firmware has bugs that lead to some problems. The cases when such updates were released are exceptional.

[Soliver84]

Hello, no, that's not the case, as they've been stored here for a long time: the production date is June 14, 2019. As I said, they've been stored here at my house in the cupboard for quite a while.

[pepe]

use CMR drives in storage units, as previously advised. SMR will give you more headache.

pepe

[ora]

I haven't found a single place on the Internet where people are discussing updating the firmware of these drives. Moreover, I did not find a mention of this firmware version (04.1VH0) anywhere at all, or updates to it. No one on the forum has heard about this update, no one has seen this file that updates the firmware, it is not found anywhere on the Internet.

If you look in the hddsurgery archive, you will see that this firmware (04.1VH0) applies to the WD60EFAX-68JH4N1 drive, and some others, but not for the WD60EFAX-68SHWN0, they run on a completely different version of the firmware, and it looks like none of these drives have been seen with this version of the firmware.