Explicit APM values in hdparm-functions cause Load Cycle Count hell

[Macil]

Release: 12.04 (development) maybe 11.10 is affected too?
Hard drive:
Model Family: Seagate Momentus 5400.6
Device Model: ST9250315AS

In recent hdparm version explicit APM values are set in /lib/hdparm/hdparm-functions. "On AC" value = 254, "on battery value" = 127. This causes load cycle hell on my disk drive. Even 128 causes the same thing, so 11.10 seems to be affected too.

Lines in question:

hdparm_options()
{
    local WANTED_DISK="$1"

    local DISC= DEFAULT= DEF_QUIET= COMMAND_LINE=
    # if the below is guaranteed to spawn a subshell, then this next line is
    # unnecessary
    local OPTIONS OPT_QUIET KEY SEP VALUE

    egrep -v '^[[:space:]]*(#|$)' /etc/hdparm.conf |
    {
        # set our default global apm policy here.
        if hdparm_try_apm "$WANTED_DISK"; then
            if hdparm_is_on_battery; then
                hdparm_set_option -B127
            else
                hdparm_set_option -B254
            fi
        fi

There obviously must be some workarounds by setting right values in /etc/hdparm.conf but I can not elaborate any further.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Daniel Swarbrick (pressureman)]

My SAMSUNG HM251JJ also suffers this problem.

If hdparm sets -B128, it sticks:

sudo hdparm -B128 /dev/sda

/dev/sda:
 setting Advanced Power Management level to 0x80 (128)
 APM_level = 128

And as per the hdparm manpage, it does not spin down. Ever.

But if it sets -B127, the hard disk assumes a value of 1:

sudo hdparm -B127 /dev/sda

/dev/sda:
 setting Advanced Power Management level to 0x7f (127)
 APM_level = 1

And it starts to spin down a lot more than it should, sometimes even during disk reads!

hdparm -i shows:

/dev/sda:

 Model=SAMSUNG HM251JJ, FwRev=2AA00_00, SerialNo=xxxx
 Config={ HardSect NotMFM HdSw>15uSec Fixed DTR>10Mbs }
 RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=34902, SectSize=554, ECCbytes=4
 BuffType=DualPortCache, BuffSize=16384kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=16
 CurCHS=16383/16/63, CurSects=16514064, LBA=yes, LBAsects=488397168
 IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:120,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}
 PIO modes: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
 DMA modes: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2
 UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5 *udma6
 AdvancedPM=yes: disabled (255) WriteCache=enabled
 Drive conforms to: ATA/ATAPI-7 T13 1532D revision 0: ATA/ATAPI-1,2,3,4,5,6,7

[Gerhard Aigner (gerhard-aigner)]

I'm affected by this too (Same Notebook: Thinkpad T500, different HD SAMSUNG HN-M101MBB):

hdparm -B127 /dev/sda
/dev/sda:
 setting Advanced Power Management level to 0x7f (127)
 APM_level = 127

so in my case it sticks to 127, but it spins down way to often (i.e. after a couple of seconds ~30? reading a web page)

hdparm -i /dev/sda

/dev/sda:

 Model=SAMSUNG HN-M101MBB, FwRev=2AR10001, SerialNo=S2R8J9HB908804
 Config={ Fixed }
 RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=4
 BuffType=unknown, BuffSize=8192kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=16
 CurCHS=16383/16/63, CurSects=16514064, LBA=yes, LBAsects=1953525168
 IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:120,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}
 PIO modes: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
 DMA modes: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2
 UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5 *udma6
 AdvancedPM=yes: disabled (255) WriteCache=enabled
 Drive conforms to: unknown: ATA/ATAPI-0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7

[Najam Safar (najam-s)]

Changing the value to 127 in 12.04 is causing heavy spin downs for me. Everything was fine with me on 11.10 where the battery default setting was 128

[Jost Menke (jmenke)]

Excessive spindowns here aswell with default value of 127 (FUJITSU MHV2100BH PL). I suggest the following fix which worked for me:

- Change line 82 in /lib/hdparm/hdparm-functions to "hdparm_set_option -B128"

- Adjust the global spindown time in /etc/hdparm.conf to your needs. (E.g. "spindown_time = 120" will make the drive spin down after 10 minutes)