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Date: Wed, 29 Feb 2012 11:54:42 -0600
Message-ID: <CA+tpaK0=t+4R=iPRU357TmvhbfgqMuZFGtksHqpEeribHvq-NA@mail.gmail.com>
From: Adam Vande More <amvandemore@gmail.com>
To: jb <jb.1234abcd@gmail.com>
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Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: hard disk behavior
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On Wed, Feb 29, 2012 at 11:18 AM, jb <jb.1234abcd@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
> I very often hear this metallic (mechanical) clicking from my hard disk
> when
> it is active. I experience this behavior under FreeBSD only (not other
> OSs).
> Is there any way to figure out what it means ?
> Any other tools, except SMART below, to try ? What to look for ?
>
> # /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.


-- 
Adam Vande More