Hardrive clicking / Kernel issue or daemon ?

[Gene Heskett]

On Thursday 03 June 2004 18:42, Ow Mun Heng wrote:
>On Thu, 2004-06-03 at 02:18, Peter Cannon wrote:
>> Hi Jeam-Marie
>>
>> On Thursday 03 Jun 2004 03:41, vejmarie at numericable.fr wrote:
>> > It is clicking let's say every 10 to 30 s like if the head of
>> > the hardrive where put in an off position and restarted or like
>> > if my disk was going to die.
>>
>> I don't have the answer as even after 8 months I'm still a novice
>> but, the same problem happend with FC 1 now I'm not sure of the
>> exact kernel issue I think it was about three back (FC1 Kernels
>> that is) as you said it sounded like the heads were extending to
>> far on the platters this usually indicates imminent hardware
>> failure, however on the next issue of kernel (which if memory
>> serves me, was very fast) the problem was fixed so I take the view
>> that the problem lies in the kernel.
>
>Hmm.. sound like my problem too.. D600 with factory 30GB(fujitsu),
> no clicking..
>
>Upgraded to 80GB(hitachi) and there's the clicking. Checked smartd,
> no problems with the drive.
>
>Been like 1+ months. No problems (touch wood). I thing I do notice
> is that it seems to happen is the drive's Hot. or not doing
> anything. Once I get XMMS running or reading some files or ls -laR,
> it goes off.
>
>Funny..

Not to the drive I'm afraid.

This clicking is the drive itself doing whats known as thermal 
recalibrations.  Its aware of the tempurature rise, knows that the 
disks are growing with the heat, and is relocating a few tracks here 
and there in order to keep its ability to seek up to date as the 
physical dimensions of the disk change.  When the disk gets busy, the 
seeks associated with the activity usually furnish the correction 
info it needs, or the seeks may become buried in the normal activity 
noises.

I don't mind it occasionally, say every 5 to 10 minutes as it warms 
up, but if it gets too warm, they will continue essentially non-stop.  
If after say half an hour of warmup, it is still doing it frequently, 
then consider re-arranging the drives mountings for better cooling,  
like leaving an open bay on both sides of it, or mounting it in a 
drive cooler thats then mounted in a 5.25" bay.  Additional cooling 
fans to improve the internal circulation may help, but don't make the 
mistake of adding rear panel exhaust only fans without opening up the 
fan port (putting an intake fan there is even better) on the front 
fan pad most boxes have so that the PSU fan isn't starved for air, 
and cooking the PSU.

Any drive that does this non-stop in a box thats up 24/7/365 can 
expect to have a problem, and according to Murphy's Law, will fail 10 
days after the warranty expires.  It ruins your whole day when that 
happens.

-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
99.23% setiathome rank, not too shabby for a WV hillbilly
Yahoo.com attorneys please note, additions to this message
by Gene Heskett are:
Copyright 2004 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved.