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Subject: Re: hard disk behavior
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Adam Vande More <amvandemore <at> gmail.com> writes:

> ... 
> > # /usr/local/sbin/smartctl -a /dev/ada0
> >
> > 193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   001   001   000    Old_age   Always
> >     -
> >      779337
> >
> 
> Likely the noise you are hearing roughly corresponds to Load_Cycle_Count.
> Yours is quite high.  You may be able to use  sysutils/ataidle to disable
> the parking like so:
> 
> ataidle -P 0 /dev/ada0
> 
> Not entirely sure if this works on the ada driver, so if not you might want
> to ask on freebsd-stable@ or boot up in a Live CD of Linux and use the
> tools there.
> 

Dmitry and Adam,
I think your description of excessive heads parking may be very close.
I will try this remedy and will let you know.
jb