Recurrent disk activity every minute

[Mayuresh <mayuresh%acm.org@localhost>]

In a couple of laptops in last 2 years I faced this problem (irrespective
of OS):

The disk makes a recurrent noise, I guess, of the head being parked nearly
every 1 minute, unless of course it's busy with some disk heavy activity
like compilation.

Wonder, being a mechanical movement, it may reduce the life span of the
hard drive.

Is there any way to override this behavior of the drive in NetBSD?

Would apm or sysutils/smartmontools be of help?

The issue was also discussed in debian maling list and may provide useful
insights:
https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2015/06/msg01029.html

Mayuresh.