Arch Linux

MkFly

Member

From: Mars

Registered: 2009-12-10

Posts: 141

Unloading heads via HDAPS

For my ThinkPad T410, I installed tp_smapi and hdapsd from the AUR.  Set it up following instructions from:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/HDAPS

Everything looks good:
• The representation of my laptop with hdaps-gl looks correct when I move it around.
• I installed xfce4-hdaps, which correctly shows the "lock" icon if I move my laptop around with enough acceleration.
• If I manually put 5000 into /sys/block/sda/device/unload_heads, IO on the drive is indeed blocked for 5 seconds, and the xfce4-hdaps icon again turns to a lock.

So all of that is great.  But I can't actually *hear* anything from the HDD (a Western Digital Scorpio Black), when the heads are supposed to be unloading.  Which makes me think that maybe just the IO is being blocked, but the drive itself isn't doing anything different.  Any idea if this is normal?

Last edited by MkFly (2010-11-17 00:57:15)

MkFly

Member

From: Mars

Registered: 2009-12-10

Posts: 141

Re: Unloading heads via HDAPS

Bah, nevermind.  Clearly I should have tried this in a quieter environment before posting.  Went into a dead silent room and tried this again -- I can hear a very faint 'click' now when the heads unload.

Anybody have a suggestion for the SENSITIVITY in /etc/conf.d/hdapsd?  It defaults to 15, but that's way too sensitive -- unloads with regular movement.  My goal is have something that's sensitive enough to unload the heads in case it's falling, but not so sensitive that it's unloading/loading the heads all day during movements from normal usage.

But on that note, would that frequent unloading/loading of the heads cause any kind of damage to the drive?

Last edited by MkFly (2010-11-17 01:00:49)