Ubuntu May Be Killing Your Laptop's Hard Drive

wwrmn writes "There's a debate going on over at bugs.launchpad.net on whether it's the Ubuntu, BIOS, hard-drive manufacturer, or pick-any-player's fault, but Ubuntu (and perhaps any OS) may be dramatically shortening the life of your laptop's hard drive due to an aggressive power-saving feature / acpi bug / OS configuration. Regardless of where the fault lies or how it's fixed, you might want to take some actions now to try to prevent the damage."

The Ubuntu

[bazald (886779)]

FTA:

When switching to battery power, /etc/acpi/power.sh issues the command hdparm -B 1 to all block devices. This leads to extremely frequent load cycles. For example, my new thinkpad has already done well over 7000 load cycles -- in only 100 hours. That's at least one unloading per minute. Googling for "load unload cycles notebook OR laptop" shows that most laptop drives handle up to 600,000 such cycles. As these values clearly show, this issue is of high importance and should be fixed sooner rather than later.

It definitely sounds like it is "the Ubuntu" that is at fault in this case. Where is the room for doubt?

Re:The Ubuntu

[TypoNAM (695420)]

According to gentoo-wiki.com/MAN_hdparm [gentoo-wiki.com] -B is:
Set Advanced Power Management feature, if the drive supports it. A low value means aggressive power management and a high value means better performance. A value of 255 will disable apm on the drive.

I would say blame the hard drive vendor.

Re:The Ubuntu

[timster (32400)]

Actually, if you R(TRO)TFA, you'll find that Ubuntu is not issuing that command at all. Rather, this is a default set by the drive manufacturer.

Re:The Ubuntu

[morgan_greywolf (835522)]

Exactly. See this article on thinkwiki about the problem [thinkwiki.org]. This is obviously HDD or HDD-controller specific, and is therefore a hardware vendor problem, not an Ubuntu problem. The article is FUD.

Re:The Ubuntu

[kiddygrinder (605598)]

No, i think it's fair to call this an Ubuntu problem, i mean 80% of the stories about linux these days are simply titled "Ubuntu" when they would apply to any distro at all. It's only a natural progression to start calling your computer and all the parts therein an Ubuntu :)

Re:The Ubuntu

[kebes (861706)]

First off, putting a launchpad link on the frontpage of Slashdot is bad form. Launchpad is for discussing and resolving bugs, and we're not helping by swamping that page. It might be better if people read the wiki that has been set up to summarize the issue [ubuntu.com].

In answer to your question about how this isn't Ubuntu's fault, apparently the problem is that the manufacturer sets certain default values for "aggressive power management" and enables this aggressive power management by default. Ubuntu's policy is to not change the manufacturer defaults, and simply uses them. Unfortunately these defaults are "too aggressive" and cause the hard drive to park/unpark too frequently.

But Ubuntu is not blameless. First of all, if Ubuntu can push out a patch that resets the manufacturer defaults to sane values (and this will save some people from hard drive failures), then it definitely should. Also, there is some discussion that perhaps an Ubuntu daemon is probing the hard disk too frequently, so that the hard-drive can't sit in the parked state for long enough to actually make it a useful feature.

Regardless of who is to blame, it would appear that the Ubuntu devs should push out a patch that forces systems to ignore the manufacturer values, and use settings that will protect the drive lifetime.

Re:The Ubuntu

[Kjella (173770)]

I actually disagree. Sure, if the manufacturer issues a recommendation or something to change it, then by all means. Otherwise Ubuntu should just keep their hands off and let the HDD manufacturer deal with it. Does Windows automagically disable this behavior?

Re:The Ubuntu

[kebes (861706)]

Does Windows automagically disable this behavior?

Good question. The comments in the bug report speculate that Windows either completely ignores this feature, or ignores the manufacturer values and uses its own values. (In either case, what's the point in having BIOS set defaults?)

A conspiracy theorist might suggest that the hardware manufacturers are intentionally adding a feature that causes the drives to fail eventually (but statistically outside of the manufacturer's warranty period), so that people have to buy more hardware. The more likely explanation is that the manufacturer set the defaults, but didn't notice that the values were unsafe because Windows ignores them.

Getting Ubuntu to override the defaults should be viewed as a short-term solution. Ultimately the hardware manufacturers should be setting default values that will not damage the hardware. Ideally they would design safeties into the hardware, which do sanity checks and reject ridiculous values.

Re:The Ubuntu

[Rogerborg (306625)]

God I hate incompetent comments.

Then you must be a real masochist to keep hanging around here.

Re:The Ubuntu

[PhilipMckrack (311145)]

I think the answer is they should both fix the problem. Drive manufacturers should issue a sane value and operating systems should check that the value is sane before using it. Same rule as accepting any data from an outside source, you tell them what they are supposed to do, but then you double check it to make sure they did. Pointing fingers at each other while customers hardware fries doesn't help anyone.

Re:The Ubuntu

[Score Whore (32328)]

I keep seeing people say "it's the hard drive (manufacturers) fault." No it's not. You don't ask a hard drive to go into ultra low power mode if you are planning on coming back to it in just a few seconds. Ubuntu needs to pull it's head out of it's backside and stop and think about how often it hits the drive after it suggests to the drive that it's not going to be used with any frequency. This is entirely a ubuntu problem or perhaps more generally a linux problem.

Re:The Ubuntu

[cmowire (254489)]

I tend to think that somebody ought to take a fine toothed comb through a fairly standard desktop linux setup with a fairly standard set of applications and daemons and ruthlessly examine every disk access.

It seems like most of the things that are desirable for a server that are merely OK on a desktop are probably really bad for laptops and there's optimizations to be made.

And I'm not just thinking of Linux here. When I use a Windows laptop, I notice the hard disk spinning up on a fairly regular basis, even when I'm doing something fairly lame like web browsing or word processing. And you know that pretty much nobody thinks about it without being prodded....

But with Linux, you could make "Lapbuntu" that would contain a set of apps that were modified to aggressively avoid using the disk unless it's already spun up by patching existing software.

Re:The Ubuntu

[Anonymous Coward]

I have an Dell Inspiron 6400 running Gentoo. I had this problem too. I fixed it by adding

        # -B 255 doesn't work for me
        sda_args="-B 254 -S 60"

to /etc/conf.d/hdparm. This would fix the issue on boot, but after resuming, this would be moot. For that, I added

        # redo hdparm settings on resume /etc/init.d/hdparm restart

after running /etc/acpi/suspend.sh in /etc/acpi/default.sh, though I suppose I could have put that line somwhere in suspend.sh.

The key thing here is to run hdparm on boot *and* on resume

Ubuntu FOUND the problem

[darkonc (47285)]

One of the comments notes that at least one drive had the same problem with Windows -- The difference is that, lacking ubiquitous SMART tools, Windows users would be much less likely to get to the source of the problem.

So, it comes down to: Ubuntu users were able to diagnose the problem, and have the tools to implement a workaround. Nix to either for Windows users -- they just need to remember to replace their drive once a year.

Re:Ubuntu FOUND the problem

[ivan256 (17499)]

Hard drive sleep time != ACPI aggressiveness setting.

You can set that as high as you want, and the drive will still use its internal setting to sleep more frequently if it is configured to. All the windows setting does is set how long Windows will wait before sending an explicit command to the drive to tell it to sleep.

Nice guess though.

Re:The Ubuntu

[eln (21727)]

It's only been about 10 minutes, but so far my Load_Cycle is sticking at 1 where it started.

You have to pull the knob out to get it to start the other cycles. It won't start the Spin_Cycle until you close the lid, though.

Ubuntu

[Anonymous Coward]

but Ubuntu [...] may be dramatically shortening the life of your laptop's hard drive due to an aggressive power-saving feature

I always thought that Gibbon was just a bit too gutsy!

Re:Ubuntu

[Hal_Porter (817932)]

but Ubuntu [...] may be dramatically shortening the life of your laptop's hard drive due to an aggressive power-saving feature

I always thought that Gibbon was just a bit too gutsy!

You should have waited for Apathetic Ape. I hear that doesn't bother at all with power management.

Re:Ubuntu

[It'sYerMam (762418)]

On the other hand it doesn't need it. It's permanently in Sleep mode.

no problem, really!

[loafula (1080631)]

I'll just buy another 4 hard drives with the money I saved not buying Vista!

Re:no problem, really!

[blazerw11 (68928)]

I'll just buy another 4 hard drives with the money I saved not buying Vista!

You may not have to. My Toshiba Satellite M45 has been running Ubuntu since Edgy, 6.10 and has a "Load_Cycle_Count" of 5,416. Maybe the default install does not have this issue? Maybe you have to install some other package to create the problem? It's not "laptop-mode-tools" because I have that installed. Do you have to be on battery power?

It's still 5,416.

193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 5416

Re:no problem, really!

[dlZ (798734)]

I'd rather spend the extra money on Vista/Windows than have an OS that could potentially crash my hard-drive. And given the fact that laptops are all that some of us use, it's not worth the extra effort (assuming the article is right, of course).

I'd say it's more of hard drive manufacturer issue. I have 3 notebooks all running Ubuntu, and the one with a Hitachi HD had this problem, but the other two with Fujitsu HD's didn't. Luckily it took about 5 seconds to fix it. If the manufacturer set a realistic cycle this wouldn't be an issue. Ubuntu is just telling the hard drive to do it's thing, and unfortunately the hardware is set to commit suicide it seems.

Prevent damage??

[kusanagi374 (776658)]

Yeah, sure. Whatever it is, it can't be compared to the damage done to Ubuntu's launchpad after it was slashdotted.

Once they control the fire and get the backup server online, maybe I'll be able to RTFA. :(

AHA! :D

[Killjoy_NL (719667)]

That's why I use windows. So I don't have to wonder who the culprit is ;)

^_^

Re:AHA! :D

[ajs (35943)]

That's why I use windows. So I don't have to wonder who the culprit is

Oh? Then you've never been caught in the "it's the graphics driver, no it's the motherboard, no it's the OS, no it's the graphics driver," loop.

Re:AHA! :D

[Schraegstrichpunkt (931443)]

You're a Windows sysadmin

...

Doesn't sound like you're a very good sysadmin.

Gasp!

Ubuntu?

[keithjr (1091829)]

If perhaps it could be "any OS" then why headline this as "Ubuntu" killing laptops? I can't find much in TFA that makes a compelling case that it isn't APCI. I'd read more but that page hurts my eyes.

Isn't this what is supposed to happen?

[zappepcs (820751)]

I mean, the OSS community at large finds a problem, and sets about to fix it... from the link:

Ralf Nieuwenhuijsen wrote on 2007-10-25: (permalink)

May i just warn ya all to NOT play the blame-game?

It does sound like it's the fault of the BIOS (and somebody should contact them).

To rescue a hard-drive in distress sounds like something that should have a high-priority (critical?).
Not because it's ubuntu's fault or the bios fault. But because Ubuntu can solve this issue _now_.

Doesn't sound like it is NOT being dealt with, it just isn't listed everywhere as critical and in the news all over the intarweb tubes.

Old news???

[BUL2294 (1081735)]

From the now very overloaded page...

Bug #59695, first reported on 2006-09-09.

Apparently there has been no rush to fix it. Now that /. has picked it up and the site is being bombarded, how long till it gets fixed???

Effects on Dell/Ubuntu OEM?

[kusanagi374 (776658)]

I wonder what is the effect of this bug on officially endorsed and supported Dell notebooks with Ubuntu on them? Wouldn't something like this be caught up by Dell's QA? Or is it exclusive to 7.10?

Re:Effects on Dell/Ubuntu OEM?

[internetcommie (945194)]

Considering the HD failure rate on Dell laptops, I doubt anybody will notice a difference.

Selected Excerpts

[asphaltjesus (978804)]

From Google's cache:

When switching to battery power, /etc/acpi/power.sh issues the command hdparm -B 1 to all block devices. This leads to extremely frequent load cycles. For example, my new thinkpad has already done well over 7000 load cycles -- in only 100 hours. That's at least one unloading per minute. Googling for "load unload cycles notebook OR laptop" shows that most laptop drives handle up to 600,000 such cycles. As these values clearly show, this issue is of high importance and should be fixed sooner rather than later.

The command hdparm -b 255 turn off completely APM.

Here is how I permanently fixed it:

1) make a file named "99-hdd-spin-fix.sh". The important thing is starting with "99".
2) make sure the file contains the following 2 lines (fix it if you have PATA HDD):
#!/bin/sh
hdparm -B 255 /dev/sda
3) copy this file to 3 locations: /etc/acpi/suspend.d/ /etc/acpi/resume.d/ /etc/acpi/start.d/

Voila! After that the HDD never spins down on power (looks like it actually spins down on battery at modest rate).
Sorry if the instruction is too detailed, no offense.

An alternative to the "99-hdd-spin-fix.sh" fix is to install and enable the package laptop-mode-tools,
then customize /etc/laptop-mode/laptop-mode.conf, setting

Re:Selected Excerpts

[tchuladdiass (174342)]

The main problem is a combination of the short spindown time, and something wanting to write out to the drive every 30 seconds or so. The main culprit could be the fact that by default, a files last access time (atime) gets updated on every read, even if that read comes from cache. So when the drive is spun down, it gets spun up even on cached reads (to write out the atime).
Add "-o noatime" to the filesystems in /etc/fstab, and that should clear up the issue.

Not Entirely Accurate

[marcantonio (895721)]

It's important to note that this only occurs if ENABLE_LAPTOP_MODE is enabled. By default it is NOT set. From /etc/default/acpi-support:

# Switch to laptop-mode on battery power - off by default as it causes odd
# hangs on some machines
ENABLE_LAPTOP_MODE=false

Read some of the Ubuntu forums

[bluefrogcs (656231)]

Here's the fix http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=596602 [ubuntuforums.org]

Cheap test..

[delire (809063)]

Ive tested on 3 Ubuntu laptops here and found no problem. Here's a little script to test yourselves (can't remember where i found the greppable bit - perhaps a Planet Ubuntu author).

Run this every hour and compare differences in the load count (the last value in the output written to the file 'load_count' in the current directory).. Replace /dev/sda with your own drive. Not sure which? sudo fdisk -l. You'll need smartmontools (sudo apt-get install smartmontools).

echo `sudo smartctl -a /dev/sda | grep Load_Cycle_Count` " | " `date` >> load_count

If the difference in this count is more than 90 from one hour to the next you may be in trouble if there is anything to this wear and tear fear.

Saving Power Has a Cost

[Prototerm (762512)]

The aggressive power saving settings here are perhaps a little too aggressive, but did anyone really think you could do that totally without cost? This isn't magic, you know. It's a trade-off. If you tell your computer (usually in a laptop) to spin down the hard drives to save power, you're going to cause greater wear-and-tear on the things because each time they spin down, they have to spin back up before you can use them again. If you want to save energy without the wear, turn the bloody thing off when you're not using it.

What, you're in too much of a hurry to view the latest pr0n? Chill, dude, before you go blind!

If you run a desktop, it's doubtful you'll have a problem with this, as most desktop users turn power saving features off entirely (and yeah, I also drive a big honkin' SUV. Bite me), but be careful on a laptop. If your hard drive supports SMART, you can do a quick check of the numbers (I think the one you want is # 193, IIRC), and see if you're at risk. But not all drives support SMART (I have a laptop drive that doesn't), so as usual, YMMV.

From the horses mouth

[orangesunglasses (1140459)]

http://mjg59.livejournal.com/77672.html [livejournal.com]
Matthew garret, who runs the laptop testing team. Read this, instead of just spreading FUD.

It is NOT Ubuntu

[chill (34294)]

My company just issued me a Lenovo T60 laptop *yesterday*. I installed Kubuntu 7.10 *last night*. Prior to that it has had Windows XP on it since it was purchased via a corporate sale from Lenovo. It is about 15 months old and the value in question looks like this:

193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 001 001 000 Old_age Always - 2144751

That is 2,144,751 in case the lack of commas throws you. This is just a tad more than the 600,000 that was mentioned in the original bug report, so I don't know out of who's hat that number was pulled.

For completeness, here is the drive info.

Model Family: Seagate Momentus 7200.1 series
Device Model: ST96023AS
Serial Number: 3MG06BZ3
Firmware Version: 4.06

This is not an Ubuntu problem. Read the references

[Wapiti-eater (759089)]

It's already been posted, but apparently no one's reading it

=====================
Linux-hero wrote about how Ubuntu kills your hard drive. The situation is somewhat less clear than you might think from the article, but the basic takeaway message is that Ubuntu doesn't touch your hard drive power management settings by default. In almost all cases, it's more likely to be your BIOS or the firmware on your hard drive.

The script that's executed when you plug or unplug your laptop is /etc/acpi/power.sh. The relevant sections are:

function laptop_mode_enable { ...
        $HDPARM -S $SPINDOWN_TIME /dev/$drive 2>/dev/null
        $HDPARM -B 1 /dev/$drive 2>/dev/null
}

That is, when the laptop_mode_enable function is called, we set the drive power parameters. Now, by default laptop_mode_enable isn't called:

if [ x$ENABLE_LAPTOP_MODE = xtrue ]; then
        (sleep 5 && laptop_mode_enable)&
fi

because ENABLE_LAPTOP_MODE is false in the default install (check /etc/default/acpi-support). This means that, by default, we do not alter the hard drive power settings. In other words, the APM settings that your drive is using in Ubuntu are the ones that your BIOS programmed into it when the computer started. This is supported by the fact that people see this issue after resuming from suspend. We don't touch the hard drive settings at that point, so the only way it can occur is if your BIOS or drive default to this behaviour.

If you enable laptop mode, then we will enable aggressive power management on the drive and that may lead to some reduction in hard drive lifespan. That's a fairly inevitable consequence of laptop mode, since it only makes sense if the laptop enages in aggressive power management. But, as I said, that's not the default behaviour of Ubuntu.

There's certainly an argument that we should work around BIOSes, but in general our assumption has been that your hardware manufacturer has a better idea what your computer is capable of than we do. If a laptop manufacturer configures your drive to save power at the cost of life expectancy, then that's probably something you should ask your laptop manufacturer about.
=====================

Don't fall prey to 'Digg-ish' sensationalism. You all are supposed to know better over here.

Don't use -B 255, use -B 254 instead

[fifirebel (137361)]

Since this story hit the front-page I've been monitoring hard drives on three laptops that I can remotely access from work (hi boss).

• Disk 1:
  • Seagate ST96023A (Seagate Momentus 7200.1 series)
  • Power_On_Hours 1438
  • Load_Cycle_Count 187925
  • 130 load/unload per hour (roughly 2 per minute)
• Disk 2:
  • Hitachi HTS721010G9SA00
  • Power_On_Hours 818
  • Load_Cycle_Count 90539
  • 110 load/unload per hour (roughly 2 per minute)
• Disk 3:
  • TOSHIBA MK6006GAH
  • Power_On_Hours 2896
  • Load_Cycle_Count 199757
  • 68 load/unload per hour (roughly 1 per minute)

Then I've been monitoring the hard drive with this one-liner.

lcc() { smartctl -a /dev/hda | grep 'Load_Cycle_Count' | awk '{print $10}'; }; n=$(lcc); while :; do nn=$(lcc); echo "$(date) $((nn-n))"; n=$nn; sleep 60; done

Before you ask, it is only one line, as you only press enter once :-). And that's a short one-liner for me.

This shows on all three laptops that the load counts increases by 1 to 4 every minute.

Now I issued:

hdparm -B 255 /dev/hda

This has stopped load cycles on two drives.
The third one (the TOSHIBA MK6006GAH) still continues loading and unloading like hdparm did not help at all.

However, setting the power-management level to "lowest power savings mode" with:

hdparm -B 254 /dev/hda

did prevent any more load/unload cycles from happening.

So in summary:

1. Use hdparm -B 254 at boot.
2. Re-issue it after every suspend/wake-up cycle as this setting seems to be lost on suspends.

Re:Thanks for slashdotting launchpad, guys.

[FudRucker (866063)]

here is a good workaround: http://www.debian.org/ [debian.org]

Re:Thanks for slashdotting launchpad, guys.

[squiggleslash (241428)]

Workaround #1. Edit /etc/hdparm.conf, add the following to the end (or modify the existing /dev/sda area, etc. This assumes your primary disk is your only disk and you're using SATA):

/dev/sda {
apm = 255
spindown_time = 0
}

Then enter "sudo update-rc.d hdparm defaults" to ensure the changes take effect.

Workaround #2, edit /etc/apm/event.d/20hdparm, find the line "APMD_SPINDOWN=18" and add a zero to it (APMD_SPINDOWN=180). Again enter "sudo update-rc.d hdparm defaults".

The first of the options disables the whole spinning down thing. The second changes it so it spins down less (every 15 minutes rather than every minute and a half.)

At least, that's what the Launchpad contributors claim.

Re:This thread sucks...

[jmorris42 (1458)]

> I mean, if it was Windows that was destroying laptop hard drives, this would have been a
> legendary thread, with viciously bashing comments, insightfully (40%) funny (20%) attacks
> against MS, Vista drama etc.

Of course, because all laptops are DESIGNED for Windows so if it doesn't work abuse and ridicule should be heaped on them if it was hitting multiple hardware vendors with the only common factor the OS vendor.

But this case is tricky. I just read through the thread and most people there are paniced sheep just turning off all power management because they don't EVER want the hdd to unload. They don't understand the three year replacement cycle all PC hardware is designed around, it is BUILT to FAIL. Looks like there IS a problem of some sort though because some people are reporting unload followed almost instantly by a load. But power management remains one of the areas of PCs that vary wildly in totally undocumented ways not only from vendor to vendor and model to model but from minor BIOS revisions. It is a non-trivial problem.

Missing the point...

[msimm (580077)]

With Vista it's Microsoft's fault. With Ubuntu (or any open source project) technically, it's our fault. So if you're confused about the missing flames maybe you need to rethink what Open means.

fudmuffin

[EmbeddedJanitor (597831)]

proposed new autotag for all kdawson stuff.

Re:Confused....

[Joebert (946227)]

Is that a button only for subscribers or somthing ?
I can't find the Uncheck Crappy Authors option.

Re:Ubuntu? Slashdot!

[geminidomino (614729)]

Doesn't compare to what Video did... the scene at the Radio Star's apartment was BRUTAL.

Re:My experience

[ChrisJones (23624)]

You are assuming that the raw numbers (142886 and 143016) are actual counts of head unparks. they may not be. It is very common for laptop drives to spit out uncalibrated numbers (e.g. my laptop claims to unpark the heads 80,000 times a second, which physically isn't possible and would wear out the disk (if the highly dubious 600,000 figure is correct) in under a minute)

far more useful in SMART are the VALUE WORST THRESH and TYPE columns. Since Load_Cycle_Count is an Old_age value, and the THRESH is 0, it means that it starts at 100 and goes down as the drive ages. When it reaches 0 it means the drive manufacturer believes that is roughly equivalent to the useful duty life of the drive.

Currently yours is on 86, so it's actually only down 14%, which gives you nearly 3 more years of likely life from it. That is about typical of modern laptops afaics.

A far more useful test here would be to run the same test on Ubuntu and Windows on the same hardware (there is a smartctl port at http://hdparm-win32.dyndns.org/hdparm/ [dyndns.org] )
Given that Ubuntu does not change the disk power management settings in your BIOS and/or hard disk firmware, the only variable here is whether or not Windows overrides those settings with more or less conservative values than the existing defaults (and of course it's possible that your OEM pre-installs with other settings than Windows would natively choose on a vanilla install).

For all of the screaming and wailing about Ubuntu killing disks I have not seen a single post anywhere where anyone has posted any kind of hard data that Ubuntu is behaving in any way differently to other operating systems. Ergo this is still very very much unproven - unless anyone can link to something that says otherwise?

Cheers,

Re:My experience

[ChrisJones (23624)]

Please post the outputs of your testing to the bug on launchpad so the relevant developers can assess the results.