Ubuntu and laptop hard drives

I take it that most of you have seen the news that Ubuntu can wreak havoc on laptop hard drives by parking/unparking them too much when it is in laptop mode and unplugged.

Apparently hard drives are designed for about 600,000 load/unload cycles. My hard drive, which is only about 8 months old, already has almost 450,000!

To check, run this command:

$ sudo smartctl -d ata -a /dev/sda

Here is the output for my drive. It is definitely disturbing for a young drive.

Code:

ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x000f   100   253   006    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0003   099   099   000    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   100   100   020    Old_age   Always       -       310
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   100   100   036    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x000f   073   060   030    Pre-fail  Always       -       4315960328
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   097   097   000    Old_age   Always       -       2773
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0013   100   100   034    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   020    Old_age   Always       -       317
187 Unknown_Attribute       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
189 Unknown_Attribute       0x003a   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
190 Unknown_Attribute       0x0022   064   057   045    Old_age   Always       -       622395428
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       298
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   001   001   000    Old_age   Always       -       444447
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   036   043   000    Old_age   Always       -       36 (Lifetime Min/Max 0/17)
195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered  0x001a   076   062   000    Old_age   Always       -       221372883
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0012   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       1
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0010   100   100   000    Old_age   Offline      -       1
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x003e   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x0000   100   253   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
202 TA_Increase_Count       0x0032   100   253   000    Old_age   Always       -       0

(You will need to install the 'smartmon' package I think it is.)
I just wanted to compare with other users. How old is your drive, and what output are you getting?

I should note that I almost always use my laptop plugged in, and the laptop mode is even turned off. So I'm not sure why this is happening.

 

Seems to be a Ubuntu only bug. Gentoo does not have the same problem.

 

Hello,

I have also remarked this with my computer and it is not a bug from Ubuntu or other distro. In fact if you did not modify hdparm or laptop-mode the default value will be the one set by default in your disk. So following the manufacturer strategy (choice of power consumption) your disk will react.

In my opinion if disk manufacturers are setting values which will shorten disks life time, they will likely be discovered and consumers/laptop manufacturers will not buy anymore their disk.

To avoid any risk with my disk I set hdparm to save less power anyway.

My one year old laptop has already reached 337 393 load cycle with the default settings.