[Precise] [Hardware-killer] HD restarts every few seconds
Affects | Status | Importance | Assigned to | Milestone | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
hdparm (Ubuntu) |
Fix Released
|
High
|
Steve Langasek | ||
Precise |
Fix Released
|
High
|
Steve Langasek | ||
Quantal |
Fix Released
|
High
|
Steve Langasek |
Bug Description
[Impact]
This issue has the potential to cause additional mechanical wear and tear on rotational hard drives by causing them to spin up and down more frequently than in previous Ubuntu releases. While the intent of a development change in the precise cycle was to allow drives to spin down sooner and stay spun down, in practice users report their drives spin back up quickly. Until this is resolved, an aggressive spin-down policy is dangerous for hardware and inappropriate.
[Test Case]
1. On a laptop with a rotational hard drive, unplug main power and run on battery.
2. Run sudo smartctl -a /dev/sda|grep Load_Cycle_Count repeatedly, to observe that the count increases once every few seconds.
3. Install hdparm from precise-proposed.
4. Plug the laptop back into main power, then unplug it again.
5. Run the command from step 2 again. Observe that the count is no longer increasing or is increasing much more slowly. (Note that the precise behavior will vary from hard drive to hard drive, and on some systems there will be no difference visible at all.)
[Regression Potential]
For some users the current setting does not meaningfully increase wear and tear on their drives, but changing it will increase power consumption. This seems to be a necessary evil since there's no single power saving setting that works well for all drives.
Hi,
After update from Oneiric to Precise Beta 1, kernel 3.2.0-18-generic, I notice that, when on battery, my Dell XPS M1330 laptop has its HD spin down, then restart, very, very, very often, which means several times per minute.
At this pace the HD won't live long, and this reminds to me a problem we had few years ago with "disk killers" linuxes that were unloading/reloading the HD heads much too often, killing disks in a couple of months.
So I prefer to ring the alarm bell early...
Upgrading from Oneiric to Precise I didn't change any power management parameter, but it definitely didn't do this before (and still doesn't do this on other distros I have on multiboot, so that's no hardware issue, only Precise does that on my machine...)
ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: linux-image-
ProcVersionSign
Uname: Linux 3.2.0-18-generic i686
AlsaVersion: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.24.
ApportVersion: 1.94.1-0ubuntu2
Architecture: i386
AudioDevicesInUse:
USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
/dev/snd/
CRDA:
country FR:
(2402 - 2482 @ 40), (N/A, 20)
(5170 - 5250 @ 40), (N/A, 20)
(5250 - 5330 @ 40), (N/A, 20), DFS
(5490 - 5710 @ 40), (N/A, 27), DFS
Card0.Amixer.info:
Card hw:0 'Intel'/'HDA Intel at 0xf6dfc000 irq 46'
Mixer name : 'Silicon Image SiI1392 HDMI'
Components : 'HDA:83847616,
Controls : 33
Simple ctrls : 19
CheckboxSubmission: 1ea6109db29b53f
CheckboxSystem: d00f84de8a55581
Date: Sun Mar 11 22:25:00 2012
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
HibernationDevice: RESUME=
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx" - Release i386 (20100429)
MachineType: Dell Inc. XPS M1330
ProcEnviron:
LANGUAGE=
TERM=xterm
PATH=(custom, user)
LANG=fr_FR.UTF-8
SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcFB: 0 inteldrmfb
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=
RelatedPackageV
linux-
linux-
linux-firmware 1.71
SourcePackage: linux
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to precise on 2012-03-10 (1 days ago)
dmi.bios.date: 12/26/2008
dmi.bios.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.bios.version: A15
dmi.board.name: 0N6705
dmi.board.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.chassis.type: 8
dmi.chassis.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnDellInc.
dmi.product.name: XPS M1330
dmi.sys.vendor: Dell Inc.
affects: | ubuntu-meta (Ubuntu) → linux (Ubuntu) |
tags: | added: kernel-key |
tags: | added: kernel-da-key |
Changed in hdparm (Ubuntu): | |
assignee: | nobody → Canonical Foundations Team (canonical-foundations) |
Changed in hdparm (Ubuntu): | |
status: | Confirmed → In Progress |
assignee: | Canonical Foundations Team (canonical-foundations) → Steve Langasek (vorlon) |
security vulnerability: | yes → no |
Changed in hdparm (Ubuntu): | |
status: | Fix Released → Confirmed |
Changed in hdparm (Ubuntu): | |
milestone: | ubuntu-12.04-beta-2 → ubuntu-12.04 |
tags: | added: rls-mgr-p-tracking |
tags: | removed: kernel-key |
Changed in hdparm (Ubuntu Precise): | |
status: | New → In Progress |
importance: | Undecided → High |
assignee: | nobody → Steve Langasek (vorlon) |
milestone: | none → ubuntu-12.04.1 |
Changed in hdparm (Ubuntu Quantal): | |
milestone: | ubuntu-12.04 → none |
status: | Fix Released → In Progress |
description: | updated |
Changed in hdparm (Ubuntu Quantal): | |
status: | In Progress → Fix Released |
Changed in hdparm (Ubuntu Precise): | |
status: | Fix Committed → Fix Released |
Changed in hdparm (Ubuntu Precise): | |
status: | Fix Released → Fix Committed |
tags: |
added: verification-done removed: verification-needed |
Changed in hdparm (Ubuntu Precise): | |
status: | Fix Committed → Fix Released |
Thank you for taking the time to file a bug report on this issue.
However, given the number of bugs that the Kernel Team receives during any development cycle it is impossible for us to review them all. Therefore, we occasionally resort to using automated bots to request further testing. This is such a request.
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sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
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