Strange head movement on some (= not all) hard drives. Why and how to prevent that?
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The situation: I've two perfectly healthy WD drives that exhibit strange behavior. One has a size of 6 TByte, the other has a size of 12 TByte. Both drives are in perfect condition. One of them even quite new. Both exhibit the same strange behavior: About every six seconds I get a strange tick-like noise of different loudness. This is the case even if the drive is NOT used by the operating system. And from touching the drive I've the strong feeling this is some kind of weired head movement.
Why I think it is NOT related to the drive hardware itself but to (Ubuntu) Linux:
- S.M.A.R.T. status is perfect.
- I assume that behavior existed for at least one year on the smaller drive without notice, maybe even one and a half years. As even low noise fans are typically still two load to notice that behavior by chance if the drive is mounted in a (good) computer case this noise is typically reduced that much that you won't notice it by chance.
- By chance I just removed such a drive using
echo 1 > /sys/block/sdX/device/delete. The drive is still connected to power and the SATA controller, but it now exhibits no such click-behavior any more.
Note: As I've only Ubuntu Linux on my machine here I can't check if this behavior would exist on some kind of Windows as well.
My question(s) is/are:
- Has anyone ever encountered similar behavior of hard drives?
- Has anyone any idea what aspect of Linux could cause this behavior of some WD drives?
- Older WD drives do not seem to be affected of this problem at all. Why does it not affect smaller WD drives?
- Has anyone experienced that with other drives?
I found some reports about similar behavior on other WD drives on the Internet, but none that would provide enough information to learn details about this behavior. I'd be very happy if you could share your knowledge to resolve this problem as I fear in the long run this might cause the hard drives to fail much sooner as necessary. Thanks!
hard-drive
asked May 20 at 22:03
Regis May
2091211
add a comment |Â
up vote
1
down vote
favorite
The situation: I've two perfectly healthy WD drives that exhibit strange behavior. One has a size of 6 TByte, the other has a size of 12 TByte. Both drives are in perfect condition. One of them even quite new. Both exhibit the same strange behavior: About every six seconds I get a strange tick-like noise of different loudness. This is the case even if the drive is NOT used by the operating system. And from touching the drive I've the strong feeling this is some kind of weired head movement.
Why I think it is NOT related to the drive hardware itself but to (Ubuntu) Linux:
- S.M.A.R.T. status is perfect.
- I assume that behavior existed for at least one year on the smaller drive without notice, maybe even one and a half years. As even low noise fans are typically still two load to notice that behavior by chance if the drive is mounted in a (good) computer case this noise is typically reduced that much that you won't notice it by chance.
- By chance I just removed such a drive using
echo 1 > /sys/block/sdX/device/delete. The drive is still connected to power and the SATA controller, but it now exhibits no such click-behavior any more.
Note: As I've only Ubuntu Linux on my machine here I can't check if this behavior would exist on some kind of Windows as well.
My question(s) is/are:
- Has anyone ever encountered similar behavior of hard drives?
- Has anyone any idea what aspect of Linux could cause this behavior of some WD drives?
- Older WD drives do not seem to be affected of this problem at all. Why does it not affect smaller WD drives?
- Has anyone experienced that with other drives?
I found some reports about similar behavior on other WD drives on the Internet, but none that would provide enough information to learn details about this behavior. I'd be very happy if you could share your knowledge to resolve this problem as I fear in the long run this might cause the hard drives to fail much sooner as necessary. Thanks!
hard-drive
asked May 20 at 22:03
Regis May
2091211
add a comment |Â
up vote
1
down vote
favorite
up vote
1
down vote
favorite
The situation: I've two perfectly healthy WD drives that exhibit strange behavior. One has a size of 6 TByte, the other has a size of 12 TByte. Both drives are in perfect condition. One of them even quite new. Both exhibit the same strange behavior: About every six seconds I get a strange tick-like noise of different loudness. This is the case even if the drive is NOT used by the operating system. And from touching the drive I've the strong feeling this is some kind of weired head movement.
Why I think it is NOT related to the drive hardware itself but to (Ubuntu) Linux:
- S.M.A.R.T. status is perfect.
- I assume that behavior existed for at least one year on the smaller drive without notice, maybe even one and a half years. As even low noise fans are typically still two load to notice that behavior by chance if the drive is mounted in a (good) computer case this noise is typically reduced that much that you won't notice it by chance.
- By chance I just removed such a drive using
echo 1 > /sys/block/sdX/device/delete. The drive is still connected to power and the SATA controller, but it now exhibits no such click-behavior any more.
Note: As I've only Ubuntu Linux on my machine here I can't check if this behavior would exist on some kind of Windows as well.
My question(s) is/are:
- Has anyone ever encountered similar behavior of hard drives?
- Has anyone any idea what aspect of Linux could cause this behavior of some WD drives?
- Older WD drives do not seem to be affected of this problem at all. Why does it not affect smaller WD drives?
- Has anyone experienced that with other drives?
I found some reports about similar behavior on other WD drives on the Internet, but none that would provide enough information to learn details about this behavior. I'd be very happy if you could share your knowledge to resolve this problem as I fear in the long run this might cause the hard drives to fail much sooner as necessary. Thanks!
hard-drive
asked May 20 at 22:03
Regis May
2091211
The situation: I've two perfectly healthy WD drives that exhibit strange behavior. One has a size of 6 TByte, the other has a size of 12 TByte. Both drives are in perfect condition. One of them even quite new. Both exhibit the same strange behavior: About every six seconds I get a strange tick-like noise of different loudness. This is the case even if the drive is NOT used by the operating system. And from touching the drive I've the strong feeling this is some kind of weired head movement.
Why I think it is NOT related to the drive hardware itself but to (Ubuntu) Linux:
- S.M.A.R.T. status is perfect.
- I assume that behavior existed for at least one year on the smaller drive without notice, maybe even one and a half years. As even low noise fans are typically still two load to notice that behavior by chance if the drive is mounted in a (good) computer case this noise is typically reduced that much that you won't notice it by chance.
- By chance I just removed such a drive using
echo 1 > /sys/block/sdX/device/delete. The drive is still connected to power and the SATA controller, but it now exhibits no such click-behavior any more.
Note: As I've only Ubuntu Linux on my machine here I can't check if this behavior would exist on some kind of Windows as well.
My question(s) is/are:
- Has anyone ever encountered similar behavior of hard drives?
- Has anyone any idea what aspect of Linux could cause this behavior of some WD drives?
- Older WD drives do not seem to be affected of this problem at all. Why does it not affect smaller WD drives?
- Has anyone experienced that with other drives?
I found some reports about similar behavior on other WD drives on the Internet, but none that would provide enough information to learn details about this behavior. I'd be very happy if you could share your knowledge to resolve this problem as I fear in the long run this might cause the hard drives to fail much sooner as necessary. Thanks!
hard-drive
asked May 20 at 22:03
Regis May
2091211
asked May 20 at 22:03
Regis May
2091211
asked May 20 at 22:03
Regis May
2091211
asked May 20 at 22:03
Regis May
2091211
2091211
add a comment |Â
add a comment |Â
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