Is OSX killing your harddisk?

[hzxu]

When I was using Ubuntu, there was a problem which causes Load_Cycle_Count increasing too fast, here's some background from ubuntudemon's blog:

If your harddrive spins down and spins up again your Load_Cycle_Count increases by one. If your harddrive head parks and unparks again your Load_Cycle_Count increases by one.

You don’t want your Load_Cycle_Count to increase too fast.

Harddrive manufacturers seem to claim most harddrives can handle at least 600.000 Load_Cycles but this is probably an average under ideal circumstances. My harddrive started to die slowly when at a Load_Cycle_Count of 200.000.

Ubuntu is NOT causing aggressive power management.

The following things might instead cause aggressive power management settings :

* your (laptop) harddrive firmware might have aggressive power management defaults (operating system independent)
* your (laptop) BIOS might set your harddrive to use aggressive power management (operating system independent)
* you might have enabled laptop-mode in /etc/default/acpi-support (disabled by default) which will set your harddrive to use aggressive power management

These aggressive power management settings are set by your BIOS or harddrive firmware. Windows and/or Mac OS X might be overriding these settings which might make Ubuntu look bad if Ubuntu doesn’t override these settings.

I downloaded and installed MacPorts, then use "sudo port install smartmontools" to install smartmontools, then check LCC by "sudo smartctl -a /dev/disk0" for first harddisk, if you have several harddisks, change '0' at the end to 1, 2, ...

Then you should see lots of output message, among which, there is a Load_Cycle_Count, and Power_On_Hours, here are mine:

9 Power_On_Hours 0x0012 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 326
193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0012 098 098 000 Old_age Always - 27691

I've been using my Macbook Pro 13" for nearly a month, I think LCC is some value above 0 when I bought it, but don't know how much, I calculated 27691/326 and get 84 something, then use 600000/84=7142.85, the total amount of hour before LCC reaches 600000, subtract 326: 7142-326=6816, 6816/24=284(days)

I am scared, I searched and found other people having the same problem:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8490855

His case is better than mine:
Power_On_Hours 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always -109
Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always -2205

In Ubuntu I can use hdparm -B 254 /dev/sda to solve the problem, in OSX there is a tool called hdapm, download its dmg file, copy the program to /usr/local/bin and optionally if you want to launch it every time you machine starts, copy the plist attribute file to /Library/LaunchDaemons, you may also change its programarguments's item2 from max to value between 0-255( max is 255). Usually I use 255 when the machine is on AC, 192 when on battery, manually in Terminal:
for AC:
hdapm disk0 max
for Battery:
hdapm disk0 192

However, it seems the problem persists, LCC is still increasing(but not that fast), I guess it is the Sudden Motion Sensor ignores hdapm's setting and keep parking the head to protect harddisk. I'll investigate more about this.

I want to hear you macbook users, do your machines have the problem?

 

[J the Ninja]

sudo pmset -a disksleep 0 sms 0

^OS X will NEVER put your drive to sleep except for a full system sleep. I suggest you read the pmset man page, you are REALLY overthinking what it takes to solve this.


Also, I might be wrong on this, but I thought the load cycle count went up whenever the drive spun up for any reason, including just booting up the machine, much less resuming from sleep.

 

[zbasarab]

i have aboslutely no clue what you are talking about.

this is why i dont use GNU/Linux

 

[J the Ninja]

i have aboslutely no clue what you are talking about.

this is why i dont use GNU/Linux

You aren't helping.

 

[maflynn]

I use Ubuntu, and I've never heard of this or even cared about it.

I'm content with how OSX [and Ubuntu] handles disk i/o and the hard drive. I agree with the other poster. I think the OP is over thinking about this and it isn't really a problem.

 

[pprior]

the questions begs another: do we see abnormally high disk failure rates in mac computers?

the answer is no.

Therefore the original question is irrelevent, despite its academic interest to those that enjoy mucking around in obscure terminal commands.

Me, I just pay, plug it in, and use it.

 

[mac2x]

The energy saver pref. pane has an option to put all hard disks to sleep whenever possible. I select that only for when running on battery power on my machine. Don't think there's any need to worry about load cycles. HDD's were meant to be used, and modern ones are better than ever. I'd worry more if it was an old HDD. And of course, back up your important data!

 

[m0no]

I guess if you're worried you could just get a SSD, no?