USB HDD High Load_Cycle_Count

Help and Support Raspberry Pi
1

I am running the latest OSMC on my RPi2 and very happy with everything except my USB HDD keeps on going into stanby mode and increasing the Load_Cycle_Count.

07:45:38 root@osmc ~# hdparm -I /dev/sda

/dev/sda:

ATA device, with non-removable media
        Model Number:       ST1000LM024 HN-M101MBB
        Serial Number:      S2RUJ9BDB06689
        Firmware Revision:  2AR20003
        Transport:          Serial, ATA8-AST, SATA 1.0a, SATA II Extensions, SATA Rev 2.5, SATA Rev 2.6, SATA Rev 3.0
Standards:
        Used: unknown (minor revision code 0x0028)
        Supported: 8 7 6 5
        Likely used: 8
Configuration:
        Logical         max     current
        cylinders       16383   16383
        heads           16      16
        sectors/track   63      63
        --
        CHS current addressable sectors:   16514064
        LBA    user addressable sectors:  268435455
        LBA48  user addressable sectors: 1953525168
        Logical  Sector size:                   512 bytes
        Physical Sector size:                  4096 bytes
        Logical Sector-0 offset:                  0 bytes
        device size with M = 1024*1024:      953869 MBytes
        device size with M = 1000*1000:     1000204 MBytes (1000 GB)
        cache/buffer size  = 16384 KBytes
        Form Factor: 2.5 inch
        Nominal Media Rotation Rate: 5400
Capabilities:
        LBA, IORDY(can be disabled)
        Queue depth: 32
        Standby timer values: spec'd by Standard, no device specific minimum
        R/W multiple sector transfer: Max = 16  Current = ?
        Advanced power management level: 254
        Recommended acoustic management value: 254, current value: 0
        DMA: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5 *udma6
             Cycle time: min=120ns recommended=120ns
        PIO: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
             Cycle time: no flow control=120ns  IORDY flow control=120ns
Commands/features:
        Enabled Supported:
           *    SMART feature set
                Security Mode feature set
           *    Power Management feature set
           *    Write cache
           *    Look-ahead
           *    Host Protected Area feature set
           *    WRITE_BUFFER command
           *    READ_BUFFER command
           *    NOP cmd
           *    DOWNLOAD_MICROCODE
           *    Advanced Power Management feature set
                Power-Up In Standby feature set
           *    SET_FEATURES required to spinup after power up
                SET_MAX security extension
                Automatic Acoustic Management feature set
           *    48-bit Address feature set
           *    Device Configuration Overlay feature set
           *    Mandatory FLUSH_CACHE
           *    FLUSH_CACHE_EXT
           *    SMART error logging
           *    SMART self-test
           *    General Purpose Logging feature set
           *    64-bit World wide name
           *    IDLE_IMMEDIATE with UNLOAD
           *    WRITE_UNCORRECTABLE_EXT command
           *    {READ,WRITE}_DMA_EXT_GPL commands
           *    Segmented DOWNLOAD_MICROCODE
           *    Gen1 signaling speed (1.5Gb/s)
           *    Gen2 signaling speed (3.0Gb/s)
           *    Native Command Queueing (NCQ)
           *    Phy event counters
           *    Idle-Unload when NCQ is active
           *    NCQ priority information
                DMA Setup Auto-Activate optimization
                Device-initiated interface power management
           *    Software settings preservation
           *    SMART Command Transport (SCT) feature set
           *    SCT Read/Write Long (AC1), obsolete
           *    SCT Write Same (AC2)
           *    SCT Error Recovery Control (AC3)
           *    SCT Features Control (AC4)
           *    SCT Data Tables (AC5)
Security:
        Master password revision code = XXXXX
                supported
        not     enabled
        not     locked
        not     frozen
        not     expired: security count
                supported: enhanced erase
        208min for SECURITY ERASE UNIT. 208min for ENHANCED SECURITY ERASE UNIT.
Logical Unit WWN Device Identifier: 50004cf20ba310b6
        NAA             : 5
        IEEE OUI        : 0004cf
        Unique ID       : 20ba310b6
Checksum: correct

I made sure APM was disabled with:

07:45:44 root@osmc ~# hdparm -B /dev/sda

/dev/sda:
 APM_level      = 254

APM level 254 is correct, if I change it to 255, the Load_Cycle_Count increases quicker.

After making sure the drive has APM disabled, I am still seeing the Load_Cycle_Count increase around 1 digit every 30 minutes. The USB HDD also has a blue LED which I see power off during standby.

Any advice?

Thanks in advance.

2

We automatically run hdparm on external spinning drives to enable idle spindown. (After about 20 minutes I think) This is done on the fly by udisks-glue:

3

Thank you for sharing that information.

Is there a way to disable this permanently? I would like my USB HDD to continuously run without going into standby.

Thanks.

4

No easy way at the moment, no. You could edit udisks-glue.conf but it would be overwritten in a future update.

5

Thanks again.

Being a novice user, I am not confident enough to edit the udisks-glue.conf

As a workaround, I have created a Cron Job which appends a file on the USB HDD every 10 minutes.