LMDE hard drive load cycle

Darvon · 05-21-2012, 04:51 PM

Hello to everyone on this Forum!

I have a problem with my hard drive on my Lenovo ThinkPad L520 NWB5VGE. I've bought my laptop in december 2011. I've Installed Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) 64 bit a week ago, and I've noticed a small noise from my hard drive every 10-20 seconds or so. GSmartControl says, my HDD is a Seagate Momentus 7200.4.
This was the issue with the standard 3.2 kernel that came with LMDE, but to solve another problem, I've installed a 3.3 Liquorix Kernel: 3.3.0-6.dmz.1-liquorix-amd64
I looked for this issue on the net, but most things I found were at least 3 years old, or related to Ubuntu. I've found something for Debian squeeze: http://easytofu.com/23062011215944-d...d-cycle-counts
Unfortunately I've got stuck at the fourth step, where I should find some files on my system, I don't really find them.
One thing I found was helpful though: On an Ubuntu-wiki page I found the command
sudo smartctl -A /dev/sdX | grep -E "(Load_Cycle_Count|ID)"
and I used it for sda.
On May 16th the result was

Code:

ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   099   099   000    Old_age   Always       -       2385

And it took about 90 minutes for the counter to go up 100 accesses.
Today the result is

Code:

ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   098   098   000    Old_age   Always       -       5289

which means that the number of load cycles of the last 6 months doubled in 5 days.
I've had Linux Mint 12 installed before LMDE, and as you see, the problem didn't occur there.
I'd really like to keep LMDE, but currently it eats my hard drive alive, and I don't want to see what happens if I wait six months. What could I do? Could the solution for Debian squeeze help?

syg00 · 05-21-2012, 07:40 PM

I ran into this a while back - I think I needed a hdparm "fix" to turn off the parking.
I'll have to go check an old backup (after I walk the mutt). My count is up over 100000 BTW, and still seems to chug along.

Update: no notes ... hmmmm.
I expect I merely added a "hdparm -B 254" or similar to one of the startup scripts; rc.local maybe.
Watch for resume too. I don't bother backing up the system (just user data), so I can't go look.

Darvon · 05-24-2012, 06:31 PM

Hey, thanks for the answer!
Ok, so the line hdparm -B 254 /dev/sda in a terminal solves the problem, but I have to enter it manually after bootup. I'v addet it to /etc/rc.local, but it doesn't change anything, I still have to do that in terminal. I've no idea about rc.local, so, is there something special when I add it?