From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Tejun Heo Subject: Re: regarding crazy head unloads Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2008 14:36:16 +0900 Message-ID: <48E1BAD0.5040608@gmail.com> References: <48361F88.7040400@gmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: Received: from ti-out-0910.google.com ([209.85.142.188]:18642 "EHLO ti-out-0910.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751273AbYI3FiB (ORCPT ); Tue, 30 Sep 2008 01:38:01 -0400 Received: by ti-out-0910.google.com with SMTP id b6so1090309tic.23 for ; Mon, 29 Sep 2008 22:37:59 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: Sender: linux-ide-owner@vger.kernel.org List-Id: linux-ide@vger.kernel.org To: Bruce Allen Cc: roland.kletzing@materna.de, Smartmontools Developers List , IDE/ATA development list , Jeff Garzik , Mark Lord , Alan Cox , scott@ubuntu.com Bruce Allen wrote: > Hi Tejun, > > Sorry, this is a really really slow reply. This email came at an > unusually busy time and I did not reply before it got buried in the deluge. Well, you were slow but I'm slower. :-) >> 2. This is from Roland. Make smartd aware of the problem and warn user >> if load/unload count per powered on hours goes too high. Maybe the >> warning can direct the user to linux-ata.org page? > > It would be easy to implement this in smartd. But I'm concerned about > three things: > > -- most people don't run smartd (I think by default it is off on > the main Linux distros). Those wise enough to run smartd will > probably be aware of the issue, since it's gotten lots of buzz. And > even if smartd is turned on in the distro it is normally not > configured to send warning emails. We only have to hit one instance of each configuration where such problem is occurring. I think adding warning message out smartctl output or letting smartd warn it to users via email or log messages should be good enough for this problem. > -- I'm not sure if the attribute used for head load/unload is a standard > one. On my current laptop Hitachi disk it is attribute 193. Does > anyone know if this is standard? I have no idea whatsoever. Maybe implement a regexp matching on attribute name? > -- I'm not sure at what threshold to send warning emails. If we send > too many false alarms, they will be ignored by users. To get it correct completely, I think we'll need per-device database. Not easy.... :-( Thanks. -- tejun