Arch Linux

sm4tik

Member

From: Finland, Jyväskylä

Registered: 2006-11-05

Posts: 248

Website

Strange HDD behavior, activity all the time?

Hi,

I just reinstalled arch on my tp x23 on a new seagate momentus hard drive. The installation went fine and I must say I'm very pleased with the performance so far.. except for the fact that the hard drive is almost constantly doing something and I have no idea what it is? The activity led turns off only to turn back on in a while.
Any ideas?

Sakari

lilsirecho

Veteran

Registered: 2003-10-24

Posts: 5,000

Re: Strange HDD behavior, activity all the time?

Housekeeping for the background packages perhaps.....

---

Prediction...This year will be a very odd year!
Hard work does not kill people but why risk it: Charlie Mccarthy
A man is not complete until he is married..then..he is finished.
When ALL is lost, what can be found? Even bytes get lonely for a little bit!     X-ray confirms Iam spineless!

peart

Member

From: Kanuckistan

Registered: 2003-07-28

Posts: 510

Re: Strange HDD behavior, activity all the time?

Could it be acpi related?  Check /var/log/acpid.log.  My laptop has a lot of acpi stuff happening.

sm4tik

Member

From: Finland, Jyväskylä

Registered: 2006-11-05

Posts: 248

Website

Re: Strange HDD behavior, activity all the time?

I don't think it's acpi. I tried booting with apm, but the behavior was the same. Currently I'm running a few apps (music, torrent, etc) which are constantly reading and writing to/from disk and the activity indicator is _less_ active than when I'm logged out? Strange indeed..
I have added noatime,commit=43200 (don't know what a good value for commit should be?) to my /etc/fstab entries (for / and /home) but neither one seems to have any effect. If it's the "housekeeping" as lilsirecho suggested, what might these apps be? Can I give an output of some sort to get me further with this one?

EDIT: Forgot to say.. When the led is "on", it literally stays on, it's not flickering like when writing or reading from disk. Also when I check the disk I/O with iostat, there is no read or write when the led is kept lit. So, this is all with the unusual "always on".. other than that, everything is acting normal so far.

Last edited by sm4tik (2008-01-18 12:38:41)

khalderon

Member

Registered: 2008-01-03

Posts: 70

Re: Strange HDD behavior, activity all the time?

I have similar problem. The hdd activity led is on constantly. This happens under Windows too. I guess it is wrongly wired somewhere.

---

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.

Wilson Phillips

Member

From: Vicksburg, MS, USA

Registered: 2007-09-24

Posts: 70

Re: Strange HDD behavior, activity all the time?

If you have beagle running on a new installation, this will be the cause of your hard drive activity. You can let beagle finish indexing your hard drive or uninstall beagle. I chose the uninstall method.

---

Guarantee does not cover shark bite, bear attack, or children under 5.

sm4tik

Member

From: Finland, Jyväskylä

Registered: 2006-11-05

Posts: 248

Website

Re: Strange HDD behavior, activity all the time?

@ Zdravko: Relieved to hear it isn't just me, though I still find it quite awkward
@ Wilson Phillips: Don't have beagle installed, I've tried to keep everything as minimal as possible

The funny thing is that the led keeps lighting when my system is idle. So it's not on all the time, but as I said earlier, the led goes on when, say, I'm logged out and basically doesn't go off until I log in and start doing something. When I stop working, the led lights up again in a while. On some other forum or was it a mailing list, someone suggested a firmware update, but I think I'll just live with it hoping it really isn't doing any reads/writes to wear the hd out before the warranty is old The most annoying part of the deal is the silence of the drive and the loudness of the fan.. one can't tell by ear whether it's doing something or not..

Wilson Phillips

Member

From: Vicksburg, MS, USA

Registered: 2007-09-24

Posts: 70

Re: Strange HDD behavior, activity all the time?

You can try unplugging the LED and flipping the plug over and plugging it back in. This will reverse the polarity and may help.

---

Guarantee does not cover shark bite, bear attack, or children under 5.

sm4tik

Member

From: Finland, Jyväskylä

Registered: 2006-11-05

Posts: 248

Website

Re: Strange HDD behavior, activity all the time?

Well, I'm on a laptop so..
I think I found a way to make the behavior more normal by setting the advanced power saving feature off with

# hdparm -B 255 /dev/sda

Now before you try this at home, be sure you are aware about the dangers that _may_ occur when playing with hdparm! For more info on how I found a solution like this, see ArchWiki: Pro Audio and ThinkWiki: Hard Drive Clicking... I'll post back if I find this solution bad, or a better one instead.
Hope this helps someone else!

Zer0

Member

From: Windsor, ON, Canada

Registered: 2006-08-25

Posts: 299

Re: Strange HDD behavior, activity all the time?

Hmm now that you mention power saving features.. I wonder if it's the hard drive going in "sleep mode" when theres little/no activity and the HDD LED lights up during spin down and spin up..  Maybe check the BIOS and disable the hard drive powerdown crap or change the timeframe.. if it works then you know where the problem lies..

then again you are on a laptop so I'm not sure the solution outweighs the LED problem (as spinning down the hard drive will help prolong your battery life)

Last edited by Zer0 (2008-01-19 22:23:02)

sm4tik

Member

From: Finland, Jyväskylä

Registered: 2006-11-05

Posts: 248

Website

Re: Strange HDD behavior, activity all the time?

Hmm now that you mention power saving features.. I wonder if it's the hard drive going in "sleep mode" when theres little/no activity and the HDD LED lights up during spin down and spin up..  Maybe check the BIOS and disable the hard drive powerdown crap or change the timeframe.. if it works then you know where the problem lies..

then again you are on a laptop so I'm not sure the solution outweighs the LED problem (as spinning down the hard drive will help prolong your battery life)

It sure seems to be something like that. I also fount this thread which is (was) discussing the issue, but didn't really find a solution. Anyway, I know now what the probable cause is and if I want to change the behavior one day, I know how to do it. So a lesson learned, great!
About the battery, I actually don't even have one at the moment, so I'm always AC-powered. But I think I'll get back to this one once I get a new battery and have a chance to test different settings. What I don't understand is that my system seems to run cooler now the power saving is turned off or at least as cool without the fan blowing all of my papers off the table Maybe it's a bug in the hd's firmware, don't know? It seems like the heads won't park properly and keep on going on and off.. That would explain the constantly lit activity led.