Hard drive parking loudly? How to prevent?

[w_hairst]

I'm running FC 7 and have a Western Digital Caviar hard drive. At various times when the HDD is used, it makes a loud 'clunk click' noise. The noise is definitely coming from the hard drive itself.

I found some information on WD and parking the hard drive. Apparently their drives park a couple of different ways - when the OS tells them to, and when the drive's spindle slows down, like it would when experiencing a sudden acceleration. (Like being dropped.) I suspect the noise is the drive parking and unparking itself in a hurry. Here's my two questions:

1. Is there a way to tell the drive to park, thus confirming the source of the sound?

2. Is there a way to adjust the parameters used to park the drive, so it will park gracefully and quietly?

[oz]

Is the drive getting old?

I'm guessing that it's getting ready to go out on you. Better make some backups.

[anomie]

At various times when the HDD is used, it makes a loud 'clunk click' noise.

Not to dodge your questions, but these types of sounds from a hard drive frequently indicate that it is failing/dying.

You might consider installing the SMART tools to run an analysis of the drive. (There is probably a package available in one of the Fedora repositories -- I'm not sure.)

[w_hairst]

The drive is fully functional. I received the computer secondhand, and it has done this since I first plugged it in. The Fedora Core 7 installation went fine, and I have used it quite a bit since, with no problems.

Smartctl reports:
Model Family: Western Digital Caviar WDxxxAA series
Device Model: WDC WD300AA-60BAA0
Serial Number: WD-WMA2J1154489
Firmware Version: 10.09K11
User Capacity: 30,020,272,128 bytes
Device is: In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is: 4
ATA Standard is: Exact ATA specification draft version not indicated
Local Time is: Wed Sep 12 14:14:54 2007 EDT
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num Test_Description Status Remaining LifeTime(hours) LBA_of_first_error
# 1 Extended offline Completed without error 00% 0 -
# 2 Short offline Completed without error 00% 0 -

[anomie]

Is that the result of a long test (Extended Self Test)? If not, run that too.

If so, I'll admit I am a little surprised. Keep us posted if/when that drive dies.

(I don't have answers to your original questions though.)

[w_hairst]

I ran the long test. Here are the results (first entry):

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num Test_Description Status Remaining LifeTime(hours) LBA_of_first_error
# 1 Extended offline Completed without error 00% 196 -
# 2 Extended offline Completed without error 00% 0 -
# 3 Short offline Completed without error 00% 0 -


No disk problems found, as I said. The sound isn't a disk-shredding-itself sound, it's a part-slamming-into-place kind of sound. I'm thinking it's the head arm hitting the case too hard, either because it is being told to park the heads in a hurry, or the self-protection mechanism is getting activated.

What utility could I use to adjust drive parameters like this?

[w_hairst]

Well, I've managed to answer part of my own question. I discovered that the hdparm command can be used to force a drive into standby or sleep mode. Sure enough, if I issue a -Y (sleep) or -y (standby) command, the drive goes 'clunk', and when it reactivates, it goes 'click'.

So, back to my second original question:
Is there a way to adjust the parameters for *how* the drive goes into sleep/standby mode? Such as adjusting the deceleration rate of the spindle, for example.