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#1 2014-04-04 20:03:58

tam1138
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Registered: 2007-09-10
Posts: 238

hard drive always seeking under linux but not windows

Hi there --

I've got a Seagate Momentus XT hybrid drive (ST95005620AS) in my desktop machine, dual-booting Arch Linux and Windows.  Whenever I turn the machine on, the drive seeks loudly for a bit then, once it gets to the Windows loading screen, it quiets down and stays quiet.  If I boot into Linux, however, it sounds like it's seeking 100% of the time and I can't get it to stop.  (It's super annoying.)  I've tried a bunch of things and I really don't know where to look next.

I've tried:

- turning off Advanced Power Management (hdparm -B 255)

- tweaking Automatic Acoustic Management settings (hdparm -M 0/128/254)

- a variety of spin-down commands (hdparm --idle-immediate, hdparm --idle-unload, hdparm -y)

smartctl reports that ID# 184 ("End-to-End_Error") is FAILING_NOW with a value of 097, but SeaTools under Windows claims the drive is fine.  Searching around the web indicates that SeaTools is the definitive tool for inferring errors from Seagate drives and that its results trump smartctl.

I've run "iostat -d 1" and the majority of intervals show zero I/O activity on the drive in question, despite the chronic noise.

I don't know what to investigate next.  The fact that the drive quiets down in Windows implies to me that I should be able to make it run quietly in Linux.  Halp?

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#2 2014-04-04 20:26:14

bstaletic
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Registered: 2014-02-02
Posts: 658

Re: hard drive always seeking under linux but not windows

Check file indexing. I had it on and it made HDD behave like yours. If it's not indexing, I have no idea what it could be.

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#3 2014-04-04 20:29:26

graysky
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Re: hard drive always seeking under linux but not windows

You can run `iotop -Pao` to see if any process in userland is doing it.  Is it ext4?  Is it a freshly formatted ext4?  I seem to recall reading some threads that described the same problem and the cause was some background indexing of the partition or something like that... might wanna search on it to see if my memory is right.


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#4 2014-04-04 22:58:26

Pse
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Registered: 2008-03-15
Posts: 413

Re: hard drive always seeking under linux but not windows

Check iotop. What desktop environment are you on?

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#5 2014-04-04 23:47:05

tam1138
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Registered: 2007-09-10
Posts: 238

Re: hard drive always seeking under linux but not windows

As far as I know, I don't run anything that would be indexing files, and lsof doesn't show any likely candidates.

I ran "iotop -Pao" for a while and jbd2 was moderately active on my root partition.  After jumping through a bunch of hoops [1], I turned off the journal on that partition and the constant seek noise persists.

It is indeed an ext4 device, though not at all freshly formatted.  I found the threads you mentioned and my interpretation is that, having turned off the journal and had the problem continue, they do not apply.

I'm using i3 and a very light load otherwise (ps reports fewer than 30 non-kernel threads).



[1] Because !&^*@%!@#^$&% systemd.

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#6 2014-04-05 01:57:04

Pse
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Registered: 2008-03-15
Posts: 413

Re: hard drive always seeking under linux but not windows

While hearing those noises, does the HDD activity indicator light turn on? Have you tried:

hdparm -B 254

...or other values? I seem to recall owning an HDD that ignored '255' but was happy with '254' (in fact I just checked hdparm's man page and it confirms some drives ignore '255'). Setting lower values might be worth it, too (i.e. 1, 127, 128).

Last edited by Pse (2014-04-05 01:57:21)

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#7 2014-04-05 02:36:02

tam1138
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Registered: 2007-09-10
Posts: 238

Re: hard drive always seeking under linux but not windows

I just tried a bunch of different values with "hdparm -B", to no avail.

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#8 2014-04-05 09:22:23

ooo
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Registered: 2013-04-10
Posts: 1,637

Re: hard drive always seeking under linux but not windows

Have you checked systemd's journal if it was getting flooded by some error message for example?

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#9 2014-04-05 13:57:24

R00KIE
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Posts: 4,734

Re: hard drive always seeking under linux but not windows

Post the output of 'smartctl -a /dev/sdX'.

It might be that the drive has background data collection enabled.


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#10 2014-04-05 16:08:43

WonderWoofy
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From: Los Gatos, CA
Registered: 2012-05-19
Posts: 8,414

Re: hard drive always seeking under linux but not windows

I had one of these drives a while back.  It was kind of finicky about what machine it was in, what operating system it ran, and most importantly what firmware it had.  It seemed to do great in my old MacBook with OSX and pretty well with Arch.  But when I put it in my Thinkpad it was not as happy.  It still seemed to work okay, but it definitely made a bit more noise.

You should check to make sure you have the latest firmware for this drive.  The early version were very buggy while the newer ones seem to be less so.  I remember upgrading to something that ended in '28'...

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#11 2014-04-05 18:02:38

tam1138
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Registered: 2007-09-10
Posts: 238

Re: hard drive always seeking under linux but not windows

Okay weirdness.  I turned the machine on today and it's silent in Linux now, too.  Maybe it needed a hard power-off after turning the journal off or tweaking the APM/AAM values?  I have no idea.

There is/was nothing in systemd's journal to indicate problems.

Here's what smartctl has to say about it:

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family:     Seagate Momentus XT
Device Model:     ST95005620AS
Serial Number:    5YX1NQJV
LU WWN Device Id: 5 000c50 04541a608
Firmware Version: SD28
User Capacity:    500,107,862,016 bytes [500 GB]
Sector Size:      512 bytes logical/physical
Rotation Rate:    7200 rpm
Device is:        In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is:   ATA8-ACS T13/1699-D revision 4
SATA Version is:  SATA 2.6, 3.0 Gb/s
Local Time is:    Sat Apr  5 14:00:25 2014 EDT
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
See vendor-specific Attribute list for marginal Attributes.

General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status:  (0x00)	Offline data collection activity
					was never started.
					Auto Offline Data Collection: Disabled.
Self-test execution status:      (   0)	The previous self-test routine completed
					without error or no self-test has ever 
					been run.
Total time to complete Offline 
data collection: 		(  634) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities: 			 (0x73) SMART execute Offline immediate.
					Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
					Suspend Offline collection upon new
					command.
					No Offline surface scan supported.
					Self-test supported.
					Conveyance Self-test supported.
					Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities:            (0x0003)	Saves SMART data before entering
					power-saving mode.
					Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability:        (0x01)	Error logging supported.
					General Purpose Logging supported.
Short self-test routine 
recommended polling time: 	 (   1) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time: 	 ( 103) minutes.
Conveyance self-test routine
recommended polling time: 	 (   2) minutes.
SCT capabilities: 	       (0x1001)	SCT Status supported.

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 10
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x000f   118   099   006    Pre-fail  Always       -       190375647
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0003   097   097   000    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   100   100   020    Old_age   Always       -       704
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   100   100   036    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x000f   075   060   030    Pre-fail  Always       -       32287264
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   097   097   000    Old_age   Always       -       3125
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0013   100   100   097    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   020    Old_age   Always       -       746
184 End-to-End_Error        0x0032   097   097   099    Old_age   Always   FAILING_NOW 3
187 Reported_Uncorrect      0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
188 Command_Timeout         0x0032   100   253   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
189 High_Fly_Writes         0x003a   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel 0x0022   083   063   045    Old_age   Always       -       17 (Min/Max 15/17)
191 G-Sense_Error_Rate      0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       49
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   089   089   000    Old_age   Always       -       22300
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   017   040   000    Old_age   Always       -       17 (0 5 0 0 0)
195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered  0x001a   047   044   000    Old_age   Always       -       190375647
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0012   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0010   100   100   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x003e   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0

SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num  Test_Description    Status                  Remaining  LifeTime(hours)  LBA_of_first_error
# 1  Short offline       Completed without error       00%      3117         -
# 2  Short offline       Completed without error       00%      3050         -

SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
 SPAN  MIN_LBA  MAX_LBA  CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
    1        0        0  Not_testing
    2        0        0  Not_testing
    3        0        0  Not_testing
    4        0        0  Not_testing
    5        0        0  Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
  After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.

(See the comment in my original post as to why I think the FAILING_NOW entry is a red herring.)

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#12 2014-04-05 18:25:21

WonderWoofy
Member
From: Los Gatos, CA
Registered: 2012-05-19
Posts: 8,414

Re: hard drive always seeking under linux but not windows

If the filesystem was new and it was ext4 it could be that it was just finishing up the mkfs.  It does something called lazy_itable_init and lazy_journal_init which means that it only writes out enough of the filesystem to get going and then finishes up on subsequent mounts.

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#13 2014-04-05 18:45:16

tam1138
Member
Registered: 2007-09-10
Posts: 238

Re: hard drive always seeking under linux but not windows

The filesystem is at least a year old by this point.

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#14 2014-04-05 19:01:52

WonderWoofy
Member
From: Los Gatos, CA
Registered: 2012-05-19
Posts: 8,414

Re: hard drive always seeking under linux but not windows

tam1138 wrote:

The filesystem is at least a year old by this point.

Okay... I guess that rules that out. smile

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#15 2014-04-05 19:27:04

tam1138
Member
Registered: 2007-09-10
Posts: 238

Re: hard drive always seeking under linux but not windows

Yep. smile

I'm leaning towards the hypothesis that the drive required a power-down or reboot to reflect settings made with hdparm.  Apparently, after my last round of tinkering, advanced power management was disabled and acoustic management was set to 0.  I may run further experiments to see if this hypothesis holds; on the other hand, I might just not look the proverbial gift horse in the mouth and enjoy my nice, quiet system.

Thanks for all the advice!

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#16 2014-04-06 13:03:14

R00KIE
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From: Between a computer and a chair
Registered: 2008-09-14
Posts: 4,734

Re: hard drive always seeking under linux but not windows

The line "Auto Offline Data Collection: Disabled." in the output of smartctl says my idea was wrong. The other smart values seem ok, except the one that says that it is failing.

One thing that catches my eye is the Min/Max Airflow Temperature, the range seems a bit low, unless you are taking active measures to control the HD temperature, so I'd say to take other smart values with a grain of salt. Of course that doing regular backups is always a good idea, just in case something decides to give up the ghost.

Regarding APM/AAM settings, usually they are lost after a powerdown, as far as I know these is no simple way to save "custom" values to the firmware but your drive might behave differently for some reason. Because APM/AAM settings are lost after a power down they take effect immediately, at least on the drives I have had my hands on so far, however I don't have experience with hybrid drives so something could be different.

Last edited by R00KIE (2014-04-06 13:06:58)


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#17 2014-04-06 20:07:59

tam1138
Member
Registered: 2007-09-10
Posts: 238

Re: hard drive always seeking under linux but not windows

Thanks, R00KIE.  I don't have any links handy, but wandering around the web gave the impression that the names associated with the vendor-specific attributes are not to be trusted.  That is, there is no guarantee that any given vendor implmentation of S.M.A.R.T. uses those values for their named purposes, which is why the FAILING_NOW entry is (reputedly) nothing to worry about.  Well, not quite: it's "nothing to worry about" because the official SeaTools check says the drive is okay, and my web searches told me that's what Seagate says is authoritative.

But, um, the problem is back.  Sort of.  It seems that cold-booting directly to Linux results in a quiet drive, but that warm-booting (definitely from Windows, maybe from Linux, too) results in a loud drive.  This is only a preliminary hypothesis and requires experimentation to solidify.

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