Re: Recurrent disk activity every minute

[Michael van Elst <mlelstv%serpens.de@localhost>]

On Sun, Jun 11, 2017 at 09:38:54PM +0530, Mayuresh wrote:
> On Sun, Jun 11, 2017 at 07:03:42PM +0300, Jukka Marin wrote:
> > > I think it's the frequency (every minute) that is a bit annoying. I don't
> > > think it is done so by all modern drives. Only some specific models do
> > > this.
> > 
> > Does the system access the disk every minute, creating the need to
> > part the heads again and again?
> > 
> >   -jm
> 
> It's a valid question, why does once parked head come back to be parked
> again. I do not know what on the OS wakes it up, but the behavior has been
> same across OSes (NetBSD, Linux). It could also be a flaw with the drive
> firmware.
> 
> Even assuming there was some activity form OS/application side, parking it
> again within a minute is still annoying in my view.

UNIX filesystems track file access time, so even just reading cached contents
causes write activity.

Mounting the filesystems with noatime removes that load. Still, you have lots
of activity that causes disk activity every few minutes.

Linux has a special laptop mode where the filesystem isn't synched for a long
time. Obviously that's a compromise you have to agree to.



Greetings,
-- 
                                Michael van Elst
Internet: mlelstv%serpens.de@localhost
                                "A potential Snark may lurk in every tree."