Here's my (dirty) fix.
http://j.wuffgirl.com/ubuntu_kills_discs.txt
I have not modified the drive's default APM setting in any way, and reinstalled
Windows Vista Home Premium (the OS that came with the computer) to establish a
baseline for comparison:
Using a port of hdparm for Windows I checked my drive's APM value:
ATA device, with non-removable media
Model Number: Hitachi HTS541616J9SA00
Serial Number: SB2401SJGTG1JB
Firmware Revision: SB4OC7BP
--snip!--
Advanced power management level: 128 (0x80)
Using a Windows port of smartctl, over a period of exactly five minutes
the Load_Cycle_Count went from 46190 to 46197 for a total of 7 load
cycles. 7 load cycles every 5 minutes means 84 load cycles in an hour
(unless my tryptophan-addled mind is incapable of basic math). A second
five-minute test showed 6 load cycles, for a total of 72 in an hour
(assuming again that six load cycles is constant).
Compared with my original findings (see URL above), editing /etc
/laptop-mode/laptop-mode.conf and changing CONTROL_HD_POWERMGMT=0 to
CONTROL_HD_POWERMGMT=1 showed a differece of 8 load cycles after 5
minutes, so again, assuming that the rate of load cycles remains
constant, that's 96 in an hour.
As a footnote, disabling APM entirely *does* cause an increase in heat-
smartctl displays the temperature min/max for my drive as 22/52C, but
Hitachi's own temperature monitoring tool says to keep the drive between
X/60C, where X is the lower value I can't remember at the moment. The
temperature problem might not be as big an issue as some people are
making it out to be.
I'm now going to reinstall Gutsy and start messing around with settings
in laptop-mode.conf to see if I can get intervals between increments
down.
--
High frequency of load/unload cycles on some hard disks may shorten lifetime
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/59695
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