Loud HDD could be fixed by firmware

[wesleyh]

Apparently, dell's already done it.

I have a Latitude D830 which included the Seagate ST9120823AS 120GB hard drive. Occasionally, I hear clicking noises from the drive. Usually it is several (maybe 10-25?) successive clicking noises, spread over nearly as many seconds.

Not sure if this will help any one else out there with this problem, but I just noticed that Dell released some updates for other Seagate 7200 rpm drives ... might be of use, so check the model number you have. My drive was the ST9250421ASG so no fix, but this update is supposed to fix ST980412ASG, ST9160412ASG, ST9250410ASG, ST9320423ASG, ST9500420ASG. There was also another release for ST9160418ASG and ST9250464ASG

Responses?

Works great!
No more marble sounds

"Worked great for me as well.

If dell can do it, apple can do it.

You can read the thread here: http://en.community.dell.com/forums/p/19248285/19548257.aspx

Also interesting:

As far as I can tell, the problem is a direct result of the APM setting on the hard drive, causing an excessive number of spin downs, and therefore an excessive load cycle count. This isn't something that is unique to Seagate drives, or Dell computers either, as I've read reports from a wide range of people with different configurations. Check out this thread, it provides some pretty good information, and it's where I started when I began to try and diagnose the noise.

Now, there are tools out there that allow you to modify the AAM / APM. Unfortunately, AAM is not available on seagate drives, but APM is.

Would someone please test this software and change the APM to 255 and report back? You need to do this in windows (boot).

http://sites.google.com/site/quiethdd/


Here's some more info on AAM from apple discussion forum:

Here's an interesting bit of info I found on another site. Hope it's ok to post it here, because I thought it was very informative. The conversation is about external hard drives, but I would think it applies to internal one's too.

" There are two kinds of noise mostly, the spinning noise that the drive makes when it's running and the "seek" noise as the heads move about. Seek noise is usually in the form of rapid clicks.

Motor noise has come down a LOT in the last few years. Some drives make very little motor noise, some make more. Those with fewer platters inside often make less motor noise as do those that turn more slowly.

Seek noise is often adjustable! Many drives have a feature called "AAM" or "Automatic Acoustic Management". This is nearly always "OFF" by default. Most drives made by Samsung, Hitachi and Western Digital have this feature. It can be turned "ON" and adjusted to various levels in many cases by using Hitachi's Feature Tool, Samsungs Hutil (Samsung drives only) or windows-based tools like HDDScan or HDparm. Turning AAM ON vastly reduces the Seek noise but will slow down access time a little.

For example, a Caviar Black 1TB makes moderately loud Seek noise with AAM OFF but almost none with AAM ON.

Here's my favorites for low noise operation:

WD Green Power. Very little motor noise. These are pretty quiet even with the AAM OFF. Also, they run very cool which is important in an external enclosure.

Samsung. Little Motor noise, AAM is fully adjustable with Hutil. Usually a great silence choice.

WD Caviar Blue Single Platter drives- (160, 320, etc) Little Motor noise, virtually silent with AAM ON. Run cool.

WD Caviar Black with AAM ON. Little Motor noise, slight Seek noise. (Lots of Seek noise with AAM OFF)

Hitachi - Some Motor noise, especially when spinning up. Virtually no Seek noise with AAM ON. Hitachi Feature Tool allows AAM to be fully adjusted.
Drives that make a TON of noise:

Seagate 7200.10, 7200.11. Noticeable Motor noise, plenty of Seek noise, AAM not supported. Also, they run hot.
I'm sure the 10,000rpm Raptors do too!

WD models not supporting AAM or having AAM OFF tend to make plenty of Seek noise. WD doesn't appear to have a AAM tool. HDDScan works OK, sometimes Hitachi Feature Tool will work on WDs too. WD usually only offers AAM "ON" or "OFF" with no fine-tuning like Hitachi and Samsung."

 

[wesleyh]

I'm increasingly convinced that apple will release a firmware update, in fact, they did so in the past already. Apparently the macbook pros mid 2009 had a similar problem:

http://support.apple.com/downloads/Hard_Drive_Firmware_Update_2_0

And instead of using that quiethdd program, I'm going to try this method: http://www.hardmac.com/news/2009/07...th-the-7200-rpm-hard-disks-of-the-macbook-pro

Will let you know how it goes.

 

[wesleyh]

Well, I just tried the hdapm utility. This is what I get:

imacplus:bin wesley$ /usr/bin/hdapm disk0 max
disk0: ST31000528ASQ
Setting APM level to 0xfe: FAILED: APM not supported

Is everyone getting the same error message? Either the utility does not work on newer drives or the seagates have no way to access the APM? Which to me would be a serious fault.. Someone should still try quiethdd though.

 

[wesleyh]

Also made a thread on seagate's forums: http://forums.seagate.com/stx/board/message?board.id=ata_drives&thread.id=17365

Perhaps you guys can reply so they know the severity of the issue.

 

[wesleyh]

All these views and not a single reply. Maybe I shouldn't bother any more.

 

[frenchie0101]

wes i changed to the hitachi 2TB and im getting exactly the same grumbling noise, so it's some kind of an acoustic problem imo

 

[wesleyh]

Yeah well either it's to do with mac os x and it's severe power management features, or with the HDs themselves, or with the enclosure. If you think it's the third someone should just remove the HD from the imac and test it in an outside enclosure.

 

[wesleyh]

I just tried smartctl to see if anything is wrong. Output below. Anyone see anything wrong? Have had it for just a few days.

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Device Model: ST31000528ASQ
Serial Number: xxx
Firmware Version: AP24
User Capacity: 1.000.204.886.016 bytes
Device is: Not in smartctl database [for details use: -P showall]
ATA Version is: 8
ATA Standard is: ATA-8-ACS revision 4
Local Time is: Thu Dec 31 10:33:02 2009 CET
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
See vendor-specific Attribute list for marginal Attributes.

General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status: (0x82) Offline data collection activity
was completed without error.
Auto Offline Data Collection: Enabled.
Self-test execution status: ( 0) The previous self-test routine completed
without error or no self-test has ever
been run.
Total time to complete Offline
data collection: ( 600) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities: (0x7b) SMART execute Offline immediate.
Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
Suspend Offline collection upon new
command.
Offline surface scan supported.
Self-test supported.
Conveyance Self-test supported.
Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities: (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering
power-saving mode.
Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability: (0x01) Error logging supported.
General Purpose Logging supported.
Short self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 1) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 194) minutes.
Conveyance self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 2) minutes.
SCT capabilities: (0x103f) SCT Status supported.
SCT Feature Control supported.
SCT Data Table supported.

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 10
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x000e 119 100 006 Old_age Always - 230616364
3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0003 100 100 000 Pre-fail Always - 0
4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 100 100 020 Old_age Always - 30
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 100 100 036 Pre-fail Always - 0
7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x000f 100 253 030 Pre-fail Always - 4295850986
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 22
10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0013 100 100 097 Pre-fail Always - 0
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 020 Old_age Always - 66
184 Unknown_Attribute 0x0032 100 100 099 Old_age Always - 0
187 Reported_Uncorrect 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
188 Unknown_Attribute 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
189 High_Fly_Writes 0x003a 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel 0x0022 076 041 045 Old_age Always In_the_past 24 (0 44 24 20)
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 024 059 000 Old_age Always - 24 (0 9 0 0)
195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered 0x001a 044 039 000 Old_age Always - 230616364
197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0012 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0010 100 100 000 Old_age Offline - 0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x003e 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0

SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
No self-tests have been logged. [To run self-tests, use: smartctl -t]


SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
SPAN MIN_LBA MAX_LBA CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
1 0 0 Not_testing
2 0 0 Not_testing
3 0 0 Not_testing
4 0 0 Not_testing
5 0 0 Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.

 

[wesleyh]

So no one wants to try the hdapm / quiethdd tools? No one wants to see this fixed? Come on.. it requires team effort.

 

[wesleyh]

I would also like someone to do smartctl. Even if you don't have the clicking, would love to compare. I don't quite understand how to read these values though. For example, first row: value = 108. Worst = 100. Does this mean it can't go below 100 or it's already way too high? (starts at 0 or what?)

You can find a smart reading utility here:
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/system_disk_utilities/smartutility.html

Attached is the smart output.

 

[wesleyh]

These people also used APM to get rid of this problem in the past (on macs):

http://ocroquette.wordpress.com/2008/11/07/how-not-to-kill-a-brand-new-hard-disk/
http://dougitdesign.com/blogs/blog_12_08_mac-clicking-hdd-hard-drive-noise-hdapm_old.html

My most recent and fresh complaint with Apple has to do with an annoying clicking sound coming from the hard drive (HDD) of my early 2008 Macbook. This is not to be confused with a much louder and constant clicking sound of a soon-to-fail HDD. This is a more subtile, yet annoying click that is most obvious when the computer is not under heavy processing use. I just purchased this product directly from Apple as a refurbished unit. Although the machine is technically a refurb., it is actually completely new, at least the HDD was, as that is easy to check. This "click" sound is yet another example of when a "bug" is actually considered a "feature."

It turns out that this "clicking" is part of a "power management system" that functions to save energy and, more importantly, generate less heat. For every "click" what is happening is the heads of the HDD are parking, and the disk platters begin to stop spinning. But then the HDD's heads quickly unpark, and then park again, and then unpark, and sometimes this happens every couple of seconds and becomes very annoying. It is most especially annoying when using a notebook computer in a very quiet setting. The click(s) can sound just like a ping pong ball being dropped on a hard surface.

Unfortunately it looks as if APM or AAM are not available on these seagate drives. Even tried a ubuntu live cd. APM not supported. Would love if someone else tried.

 

[wesleyh]

Here's some commands you can do in terminal for anyone who wants to investigate this further:

sudo iotop
ps wwaxr -o pid,stat,%cpu,time,command | head -10
iostat -w 1 disk0
sudo fs_usage -f filesys

 

[Ptyger]

My i7 iMac is still on order, so I don't have a loud one with which to check out these various things you've discovered, but if it is a problem when I receive it, I will be happy to put it through the wringer.

I would, also, like to thank you for your efforts in finding information as to the nature of the problem, and the various potential solutions you've posted. Looking through this thread, I can't believe that more people haven't responded in any way whatsoever in regards to this information.

At any rate, should the hard drive in my new machine prove to be troublesome in this regard, you can be sure of my support in experimenting with these (potential) fixes.

 

[spoonerist]

I reinstalled the OS the other day.* Before this, my hard drive was completely silent. After the reinstallation, I can hear it making noises when I do anything at all, from opening a Finder folder to transferring files. It sounds pretty normal for a hard drive - I have a really loud external hard drive on my desk, so I'm used to the sound - but the iMac hard drive has never been loud since my re-install.

*The Mac OS X install disc that came with my iMac was faulty. I had to wait 10 days for Apple to send me out a new one. Check that yours isn't faulty!

 

[wesleyh]

I haven't reinstalled os x so i doubt it has anything to do with the installation disk. The os that is preinstalled on the macs is the same (duplicate) everywhere.

Anyway, ptyger, thank you for your comments. I suspect it has something to do with the holiday season. We'll see in a few days if there are more replies or not.

 

[wesleyh]

Guys, I've asked this before and no one did it, so could someone please do this. It only takes a minute.

Download this application: http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/system_disk_utilities/smartutility.html

It will show you your SMART values. Please upload a screenshot and add it to this thread.

Here is mine about a week ago.

As you can see, the "raw" value for "Raw read error rate" is 15687547. Seek error rate is "25770991096" and Hardware ECC recovered is the exact same value as raw read error rate.

Airflow temperature has a raw value of 41 and a value of 59. In red.

Yet when I test this in disk utility it shows SMART as OK. I also tested with seatools and it also said everything is fine.

Is this within spec? These kinds of errors? Keep in mind that at the time the screenshot was taken there were only 27 power on hours (as detailed in the SMART report).

Now, I've heard that this is normal for seagate drives:

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/page-224921_14_0.html

They basically say that raw values can contain whatever, and you should only look at the value and worst column compared to threshold. If it goes under threshold, then you're in trouble. I don't know if this is true.

To compare, let's check my old imac G5.

Now, it seems to have some problems of it's own, but lets ignore those.

This one has 18518 power on hours. 0 raw read error rate. 0 seek error rate. Airflow temperature raw value is 17, value is 89. Red.

I have done a couple of hardware tests and today I did another smart test on my new imac.

This is the updated figure:

This is one minute later:

Keep in mind I'm not doing much of anything. Just writing this message. The errors seem to be increasing very fast.

So, if someone could please add their smart output as well, that would be very much appreciated.

I also did a couple of hardware tests with hdtune pro for windows. You can see some graphs here:

The reading seems to have a downward trend and sometimes sudden spikes lower. Is this normal? Average read is only 98MB/s.

I did the test once more to confirm:

Here i also tested the smart:

I admit, I don't know much about these smart tests, what does the "value", "worst", and "treshold" column signify? What is the difference between value & raw value?

Any help would be much appreciated.

 

[doug in albq]

I wrote a new blog about a clicking, loud, seeking, grumbling, HDD in my Dell Mini 10v running 10.6.2...no real answers except HDAPM will not work at all on this configuration!

Apple only fixes (some of) the clicking HDD's that come in their standard laptop configurations...

many clicking HDD's out there.

 

[wesleyh]

Yeah, for the standard seagate in the imac, neither APM nor AAM are available. AAM I can understand because seagate doesn't do this. But APM? My guess apple removed it because they use their own custom firmware on these drives.

I would really like it though if they made some option in system preferences for accoustics management..

Btw, still no responses to my earlier question? 2 minutes of someone's time (who's got a seagate)? Come on...

 

[Ptyger]

Here is my SMART Utility capture from today:

 

[wesleyh]

Thanks for posting! Do you have a noisy HD or not?

 

[Michieli5]

Its funny.. Overall SMART status says failing :/ with a yellow background. Im running the test now. but nothing seems to happen.

ok here it is

And its kinda noisy. but not all the time. more when im downloading. and sometimes when im browsing the web.
Hope this helps solve the problem ! keep it up.

cheers Michiel

 

[Ptyger]

Thanks for posting! Do you have a noisy HD or not?

Quiet as a mouse, actually. Though I understand the problems could creep up with further use, so I was going to wait a week or so to be definitive about it.

 

[wesleyh]

Ok,so it seems those values are normal. Darn. Hoped there would be an anomaly but there doesn't appear to be one. Thanks for posting though.

 

[Ptyger]

Let me know if there's anything else you'd like me to look at. I'm definitely interested in helping the community out.

 

[wesleyh]

I'm fresh out of ideas. since these seagate drives don't have access to AAM or APM there's not much that can be done about the HD sound. The only thing to hope for is that apple updates the HD firmware to get rid of these issues.

Of course, if anyone else has any ideas, please do contribute!