nobody at SuSE reads this forum or if they do then they couldn't be bothered to come up with the answer.
Well we've gone over this at some length - it's a SuSE user list, occasionally some SuSE staff read part of it, but in general it's a self-help list. They don't have dedicated support staff sifting these lists and most people don't want to pay the extra that would put on to the distro price.
This being a SuSE mailing group then it would be safe to assume that everybody here must be running SuSE. May I then ask how /your/ system is behaving? Is your HD being accessed every 5 seconds, or in some other regular pattern?
Yes, they all tend to tap away at the disk on a frequent basis paging things out and doing little jobs. Some do it more than others, and on some it's louder and you notice more. I don't think you should worry about it, though those with greater expertise may be able to put you straight on that. HTH Fergus