Re: Recurrent disk activity every minute

[jgw%sdf.org@localhost]

Mayuresh <mayuresh%acm.org@localhost> wrote:

> On Sat, Jun 10, 2017 at 08:56:29PM +0200, Leonardo Taccari wrote:
> > No idea if that will increase/decrease disk life span but I think
> > that `atactl <device> setidle 0' and/or `atactl <device> setstandby 0'
> > is what you're looking for!
>
> Thanks. Actually setidle and setstandby to 0 did not stop clucking sound,
> to put objectively Load Cycle Count kept growing.
>
> But atactl wd0 apm set 253 did stop the nuisance completely.
> ..

Good info!  I've been listening to the disk on my old thinkpad do a similar
thing for a long time and this does seem to fix things.  As to resetting upon
reboot you could probably just use root's crontab with @reboot .

I'm wondering: is there any way to read the current APM setting for a disc
using native tools?  All I see with atactl(8) is 'identify', 'checkpower'
or 'smart status', none which gives a numerical value.  The following is
readable via smartctl(8) (smartmon pkg) after setting the apm value:

 % sudo atactl wd0 apm set 253
 % sudo smartctl -d ata -T permissive -g apm  /dev/wd0d
 ..
 APM level is:     254 (maximum performance)

Running 'sysctl hw.' or 'pcictl pci0 dump' was also a bust.

Jeff