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#1 2015-12-07 16:47:10

JamieKitson
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From: UK
Registered: 2010-10-18
Posts: 161
Website

[Solved] What could be causing my hard drive to spin down?

Recently I noticed that I could hear my hard drive spinning down very frequently, like once every 10-20 seconds. At that time spin down was set to 30 minutes using the following udev rule:

hdparm -B 127 -S 241 /dev/$kernel

This was confirmed by hdparm:

$ sudo hdparm -I /dev/sda | grep level
        Advanced power management level: 127 

So I disabled power management with

$ sudo hdparm -B 255 /dev/sda
$ sudo hdparm -I /dev/sda | grep level
        Advanced power management level: disabled

But the drive is still spinning down frequently:

$ sudo smartctl -a /dev/sda | grep Load_Cycle_Count
225 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       8263
$ date
Mon  7 Dec 16:08:06 GMT 2015
$ sudo smartctl -a /dev/sda | grep Load_Cycle_Count
225 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       8265
$ date
Mon  7 Dec 16:08:16 GMT 2015

(I know this spin down count is low, I've just moved the installation to a new drive. I assume that the issue was the same with the old drive, but I just didn't notice. The cont on the older drive is 284,572 which I installed six months ago.)

What could be causing my hard drive to spin down and what can I do next to investigate?

Last edited by JamieKitson (2015-12-08 12:28:45)

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#2 2015-12-07 18:00:07

alphaniner
Member
From: Ancapistan
Registered: 2010-07-12
Posts: 2,810

Re: [Solved] What could be causing my hard drive to spin down?

Is at a WD drive? Certain models have a special idle timer that caused excessive spin-down. You can use idle3-tools (in community) if this may be the case.


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#3 2015-12-08 00:04:41

JamieKitson
Member
From: UK
Registered: 2010-10-18
Posts: 161
Website

Re: [Solved] What could be causing my hard drive to spin down?

No, it's a Seagate:

Model Family:     Seagate Samsung SpinPoint M9T
Device Model:     ST2000LM003 HN-M201RAD

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#4 2015-12-08 11:45:51

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

Re: [Solved] What could be causing my hard drive to spin down?

Try disabling APM with -B 254, some drives use that value instead of 255. Also check if acoustic management is supported, I have no idea if it would cause the disk to spin down but it doesn't hurt to check. Also try not setting any timeout value and see what the drive does.


R00KIE
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#5 2015-12-08 11:55:40

JamieKitson
Member
From: UK
Registered: 2010-10-18
Posts: 161
Website

Re: [Solved] What could be causing my hard drive to spin down?

Thank you, -B 254 seems to have done the trick. Despite the fact that at 255 hdparm reported "Advanced power management level: disabled" and at 254 it says "Advanced power management level: 254". (I already tried your other two suggestions.)

btw, I guess I misunderstood values of -B >= 128 disallowing spin down as the drive will now correctly spin down after a specified -S value at -B 254.

Thanks again.

Last edited by JamieKitson (2015-12-08 12:04:16)

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#6 2015-12-08 12:49:19

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

Re: [Solved] What could be causing my hard drive to spin down?

I'd say you understood correctly and APM levels >= 128 will prevent the disk from spinning down and above certain levels prevent the heads from parking. However certain drives, like yours, have a maximum APM level of 254 and the behaviour with 255, which should be APM disabled, will be undefined or maybe similar to the power-up setting.

About what hdparm says, it is just reading back the value and reporting the setting assuming that 255 is APM disabled, which in your case is not true/does not work.


R00KIE
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