* (laptop) harddisk firmwares and (laptop) BIOSes might set too aggressive power management (operating system independent) * The operating system and the applications running on it might cause too much unnecessary disk activity (multiple operating systems are affected. at least a couple of Linux distributions seem to have the same problem) The result : is rapid parking/unparking cycles of the harddisk's head (a rapidly increasing Load_Cycle_Count).
IMHO this is the way Ubuntu should fix this : IMHO this Load_Cycle_Count bug should be assigned critical priority. IMHO Ubuntu should make fixing unnecessary disk activity bugs a high priority. We can all help finding unnecessary disk activity bugs. IMHO Ubuntu should override too aggressive power management and make this also a high priority. IMHO smartmontools should be installed on default. smartd should run on default with sane settings hooking into a notifier to notify users. At least some people who were affected might be warned in time to buy a new harddrive. Maybe this should be a Hardy goal ? Laptop-mode with sane default settings can override too aggressive power management settings and can also prevent some unnecessary disk activity. Maybe Ubuntu should enable laptop-mode with sane default settings for laptops. What do you guys think ? What are sane default settings ? Some suggestions for laptop-mode parameters : http://www.suselinuxsupport.de/wikka.php?wakka=HowToSaveYourLaptopHD http://mishameteo.blogspot.com/2007/10/ubuntu-default-acpi-settings-decreases.html http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=294594#p294594 http://forum.mandriva.com/viewtopic.php?p=393299&sid=46e5b548a1693fcf6f7e15316f904360#393299 https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/acpi-support/+bug/59695/comments/63 http://www.nabble.com/-Cooker--Laptop-hard-drives-and-unnecessarily-high-Load_Cycle_Count-t4730198.html Regarding smartd hooking into a notifier. I'm thinking of the following example situations when to warn a user : * if the Load_Cycle_Count is increased with more than 22 cycles per hour (22 * 24 * 365 * 3 < 600.000) (to find people who are still affected) * if smartctl assesses your harddrive as not healthy * if more than X errors were found during the last self-test * if Load_Cycle_Count's WORST is within Y of Load_Cycle_Count's THRESHOLD I found the following wiki pages with similar ideas : https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDownUnder/BOFs/SMARTMonitoring https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DiskMonitoring Some bug reports about unnecessary disk activity. These bugs are possible contributors to the Load_Cycle_Count issue. * the commit interval for the ext3 filesystem should be higher than 5 seconds for laptop users https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/util-linux/+bug/160448 * ext3 partitions should be mounted with noatime or relatime for laptop users https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/util-linux/+bug/160450 * acpid : Log output far too verbose https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/acpid/+bug/31512 * liferea might cause unnecessary disk activity https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/liferea/+bug/160460 * thunderbird might cause unnecessary disk activity https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/160466 * tracker : the index delay should be set to a higher value for laptop users https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/tracker/+bug/160468 firefox might cause unnecessary disk activity when going to a new website https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/160513 hddtemp might cause unnecessary disk activity https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/hddtemp/+bug/160621 IMHO we need people to contribute to these bugs. There's more information about the Load_Cycle_Count issue in this bug report : https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/acpi-support/+bug/17216 ** Bug watch added: Mandriva Linux #35315 http://qa.mandriva.com/show_bug.cgi?id=35315 ** Also affects: mandriva via http://qa.mandriva.com/show_bug.cgi?id=35315 Importance: Unknown Status: Unknown -- High frequency of load/unload cycles on some hard disks may shorten lifetime https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/59695 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is the bug contact for Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
