[opensuse] System Slow Hard Drive Churning
Hi, I am noting a new issues for the last two days. Some times my system goes slow and all I hear is HDD noise as if its trying to access data. The entire PC almost hangs and have to do a hard reboot. PC configuration: Intel i5 8GB RAM 3 HDDs. The same issue is on Ubuntu as well. One change that I did make to my system was replaced the stock CPU fan with CoolMaster 212 fan and changed BIOS settings to silent as it was running at full speed. Swapnil -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On 03/01/12 18:26, Swapnil Bhartiya wrote:
Hi,
I am noting a new issues for the last two days. Some times my system goes slow and all I hear is HDD noise as if its trying to access data. The entire PC almost hangs and have to do a hard reboot.
Backup your data. run a smart test (smartctl --test=long /dev/sdX..) and replace your hard disks, cracking sounds are almost always a sign that the disk is doomed. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On 1/3/2012 1:26 PM, Swapnil Bhartiya wrote:
Hi,
I am noting a new issues for the last two days. Some times my system goes slow and all I hear is HDD noise as if its trying to access data. The entire PC almost hangs and have to do a hard reboot.
PC configuration: Intel i5 8GB RAM 3 HDDs.
The same issue is on Ubuntu as well. One change that I did make to my system was replaced the stock CPU fan with CoolMaster 212 fan and changed BIOS settings to silent as it was running at full speed.
Swapnil
If two different Distros agree that your hard disk is failing then it is a good bet that your hard disk is failing. Do what Cristian says and immediately take a backup if you have any data on that device that you need. This is exactly the behavior you would expect when a drive has developed major problems from which the OS can't recover. Tail /var/log/messages and you will probably see a flood of disk problems. -- _____________________________________ ---This space for rent--- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On 01/03/2012 10:38 PM, John Andersen wrote:
On 1/3/2012 1:26 PM, Swapnil Bhartiya wrote:
Hi,
I am noting a new issues for the last two days. Some times my system goes slow and all I hear is HDD noise as if its trying to access data. The entire PC almost hangs and have to do a hard reboot.
PC configuration: Intel i5 8GB RAM 3 HDDs.
The same issue is on Ubuntu as well. One change that I did make to my system was replaced the stock CPU fan with CoolMaster 212 fan and changed BIOS settings to silent as it was running at full speed.
Swapnil
If two different Distros agree that your hard disk is failing then it is a good bet that your hard disk is failing.
It's a new HDD (I know it doesn't matter) but works fine under Windows. Ran the smart test two days ago and everything was clean.
Do what Cristian says and immediately take a backup if you have any data on that device that you need.
Data is all backed up. In fact tested the HDD under Windows and it was clean. Use this HDD only for Linux OS.
This is exactly the behavior you would expect when a drive has developed major problems from which the OS can't recover.
Tail /var/log/messages and you will probably see a flood of disk problems.
I can make any sense out of the log message. Can you help? Uploaded here: https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B-ALfi5glBeCOGFmYTE4M2ItMmQ1MS00YmI5LWI0M2Y...
-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On 1/3/2012 1:45 PM, Swapnil Bhartiya wrote:
Tail /var/log/messages and you will probably see a flood of disk problems.
I can make any sense out of the log message. Can you help? Uploaded here:
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B-ALfi5glBeCOGFmYTE4M2ItMmQ1MS00YmI5LWI0M2Y...
No, not the log. As root, key in exactly: tail -f /var/log/messages and watch that while the disk is grinding and being slow. It may be spitting out messages. -- _____________________________________ ---This space for rent--- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On 03/01/12 18:45, Swapnil Bhartiya wrote:
It's a new HDD (I know it doesn't matter) but works fine under Windows. Ran the smart test two days ago and everything was clean.
Above you said that the box had 3 HDDs, are you sure it is not one of the other disks ?
I can make any sense out of the log message. Can you help? Uploaded here:
dmesg -k says ? -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
Above you said that the box had 3 HDDs, are you sure it is not one of the other disks ?
It is the noisy one. Yes. As I notice the issue when accessing this drive. Note it doesn't happen all the time. It happens once in a while day (once in two days maybe) only. This on has the Linux OSes and also selected the storage folder of Thunder bird with runs 5-6 accounts (some heavy traffic ones). It is also where I save the Liferea feeds are saved and there must be around 200-400 feeds which are updated once in a while. I use this 1TB HDD for tem file and move them to other hard drives.
I can make any sense out of the log message. Can you help? Uploaded here:
dmesg -k says ?
Here is the message: https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B-ALfi5glBeCYjBjOTQ1MTItNDI2Mi00MDdjLTk3M2Q... -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 4:45 PM, Swapnil Bhartiya <swapnil.bhartiya@gmail.com> wrote:
On 01/03/2012 10:38 PM, John Andersen wrote:
On 1/3/2012 1:26 PM, Swapnil Bhartiya wrote:
Hi,
I am noting a new issues for the last two days. Some times my system goes slow and all I hear is HDD noise as if its trying to access data. The entire PC almost hangs and have to do a hard reboot.
PC configuration: Intel i5 8GB RAM 3 HDDs.
The same issue is on Ubuntu as well. One change that I did make to my system was replaced the stock CPU fan with CoolMaster 212 fan and changed BIOS settings to silent as it was running at full speed.
Swapnil
If two different Distros agree that your hard disk is failing then it is a good bet that your hard disk is failing.
It's a new HDD (I know it doesn't matter) but works fine under Windows. Ran the smart test two days ago and everything was clean.
Do what Cristian says and immediately take a backup if you have any data on that device that you need.
Data is all backed up. In fact tested the HDD under Windows and it was clean. Use this HDD only for Linux OS.
This is exactly the behavior you would expect when a drive has developed major problems from which the OS can't recover.
Tail /var/log/messages and you will probably see a flood of disk problems.
I can make any sense out of the log message. Can you help? Uploaded here:
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B-ALfi5glBeCOGFmYTE4M2ItMmQ1MS00YmI5LWI0M2Y...
I don't see any disk errors reported in that log, so I don't think failing disks is your problem. Per your log you 3 1 TB plus WD drives: WDC WD1001FALS-00J7B0 WDC WD15EARS-00Z5B1 WD10EALX-009BA0J I'm betting at least one of those has 4KB physical sectors and you have a misaligned partition on it that is used by openSUSE and Ubuntu, but not by Windows. Misalignment is a configuration issue, not a malfunction. So step 1 use hdparm to determine the physical sector sizes: ie. sudo /sbin/hdparm -I /dev/sda | head -25 should show the Sector sizes near the end of the output. Once we know if any of your drives have 4KB sectors, we can proceed from there. === option 2 WD Green drives are notorious for having a very aggressive power saving mode that parks the heads right in the middle of doing work. Try testing by using hdparm -B 255 and hdparm -B 254 If either of those solve your problem, then there is a package you can install to set that on boot. Can't think of the name offhand. Greg -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
I'm betting at least one of those has 4KB physical sectors and you have a misaligned partition on it that is used by openSUSE and Ubuntu, but not by Windows.
Misalignment is a configuration issue, not a malfunction.
So step 1 use hdparm to determine the physical sector sizes:
ie. sudo /sbin/hdparm -I /dev/sda | head -25
should show the Sector sizes near the end of the output.
Once we know if any of your drives have 4KB sectors, we can proceed from there.
Here is the output: https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B-ALfi5glBeCOTc0ODlkM2MtMzRhMS00ZTc0LTkwNmE...
=== option 2
WD Green drives are notorious for having a very aggressive power saving mode that parks the heads right in the middle of doing work.
I have one Green but I use it for back-up which is not used. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 5:15 PM, Swapnil Bhartiya <swapnil.bhartiya@gmail.com> wrote:
I'm betting at least one of those has 4KB physical sectors and you have a misaligned partition on it that is used by openSUSE and Ubuntu, but not by Windows.
Misalignment is a configuration issue, not a malfunction.
So step 1 use hdparm to determine the physical sector sizes:
ie. sudo /sbin/hdparm -I /dev/sda | head -25
should show the Sector sizes near the end of the output.
Once we know if any of your drives have 4KB sectors, we can proceed from there.
Here is the output:
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B-ALfi5glBeCOTc0ODlkM2MtMzRhMS00ZTc0LTkwNmE...
Per that, they all have 512byte logical and physical sectors. But I googled your EARS drive and see lots of complaints about performance. One message says: ================= Recomendations: If you have a new hdd wdc wd15ears and ability to copy data from old hdd to new one, it's better to set jumpers to enable advanced format and set up new system. Using of utility wdalign takes a lot of time! In my case with 1,5Tb hdd it takes more than 30 hours! =================== Back to Greg talking: advanced format is WD speak for 4KB sectors. So my guess is that your EARS drive has 4KB sectors, but is lying about that fact to linux. It may be there is a jumper that will at least get it to tell the truth to hdparm. Solving that is your first step. The trouble is you already have a filesystem with valid data on there. Getting hdparm to see the real physical sector size just means the NEXT time you partition the drive the partitions will be aligned with the physical sectors, but until then you are screwed. FYI: there should be a jumper that sets the 4KB sector alignment between 1MB aligned and sector 63 aligned. DON'T change that jumper unless you are ready to re-partition and re-format. It has the effect of moving all of your data by a couple sectors. Which means your current filesystems will quit working. If it were me, I'd get another new drive and replace the EARS one. If you want to get another EARS drive, then make sure you have the jumpers set right before you do any partitioning. Then move your filesystems from the old, likely misaligned drive, to the new, hopefully properly aligned, one. HTH Greg -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
So my guess is that your EARS drive has 4KB sectors, but is lying about that fact to linux. It may be there is a jumper that will at least get it to tell the truth to hdparm. Solving that is your first step.
The trouble is you already have a filesystem with valid data on there. Getting hdparm to see the real physical sector size just means the NEXT time you partition the drive the partitions will be aligned with the physical sectors, but until then you are screwed.
I don't mind formatting the drive. All of my data is backed up. So, what is your suggestion.
FYI: there should be a jumper that sets the 4KB sector alignment between 1MB aligned and sector 63 aligned. DON'T change that jumper unless you are ready to re-partition and re-format. It has the effect of moving all of your data by a couple sectors. Which means your current filesystems will quit working.
If it were me, I'd get another new drive and replace the EARS one.
Well, I have 3.5 TB + another 2TB so, I won't be buying another HDD any soon. However, I am thinking of getting SDD for OS. But that will be later and not now (burned a lot of money on a DSLR this Xmas ;-), so I am willing to spend sometime in fixing it, if possible. If
you want to get another EARS drive, then make sure you have the jumpers set right before you do any partitioning. Then move your filesystems from the old, likely misaligned drive, to the new, hopefully properly aligned, one.
I can format this drive if that solves the problem. Swapnil -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
Here is the output:
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B-ALfi5glBeCOTc0ODlkM2MtMzRhMS00ZTc0LTkwNmE...
Per that, they all have 512byte logical and physical sectors.
But I googled your EARS drive and see lots of complaints about performance.
One message says:
================= Recomendations:
If you have a new hdd wdc wd15ears and ability to copy data from old hdd to new one, it's better to set jumpers to enable advanced format and set up new system.
Using of utility wdalign takes a lot of time!
In my case with 1,5Tb hdd it takes more than 30 hours! ===================
Back to Greg talking:
advanced format is WD speak for 4KB sectors.
So my guess is that your EARS drive has 4KB sectors, but is lying about that fact to linux. It may be there is a jumper that will at least get it to tell the truth to hdparm. Solving that is your first step.
The trouble is you already have a filesystem with valid data on there. Getting hdparm to see the real physical sector size just means the NEXT time you partition the drive the partitions will be aligned with the physical sectors, but until then you are screwed.
FYI: there should be a jumper that sets the 4KB sector alignment between 1MB aligned and sector 63 aligned. DON'T change that jumper unless you are ready to re-partition and re-format. It has the effect of moving all of your data by a couple sectors. Which means your current filesystems will quit working.
If it were me, I'd get another new drive and replace the EARS one. If you want to get another EARS drive, then make sure you have the jumpers set right before you do any partitioning. Then move your filesystems from the old, likely misaligned drive, to the new, hopefully properly aligned, one.
Just checked the EARs one is not the one causing problem. It has two partitions and used as back-up for music and images. The one which has OS on it is WDC WD1001FALS-00J7B0 Thanks Swapnil -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 5:53 PM, Swapnil Bhartiya <swapnil.bhartiya@gmail.com> wrote:
Here is the output:
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B-ALfi5glBeCOTc0ODlkM2MtMzRhMS00ZTc0LTkwNmE...
Per that, they all have 512byte logical and physical sectors.
But I googled your EARS drive and see lots of complaints about performance.
One message says:
================= Recomendations:
If you have a new hdd wdc wd15ears and ability to copy data from old hdd to new one, it's better to set jumpers to enable advanced format and set up new system.
Using of utility wdalign takes a lot of time!
In my case with 1,5Tb hdd it takes more than 30 hours! ===================
Back to Greg talking:
advanced format is WD speak for 4KB sectors.
So my guess is that your EARS drive has 4KB sectors, but is lying about that fact to linux. It may be there is a jumper that will at least get it to tell the truth to hdparm. Solving that is your first step.
The trouble is you already have a filesystem with valid data on there. Getting hdparm to see the real physical sector size just means the NEXT time you partition the drive the partitions will be aligned with the physical sectors, but until then you are screwed.
FYI: there should be a jumper that sets the 4KB sector alignment between 1MB aligned and sector 63 aligned. DON'T change that jumper unless you are ready to re-partition and re-format. It has the effect of moving all of your data by a couple sectors. Which means your current filesystems will quit working.
If it were me, I'd get another new drive and replace the EARS one. If you want to get another EARS drive, then make sure you have the jumpers set right before you do any partitioning. Then move your filesystems from the old, likely misaligned drive, to the new, hopefully properly aligned, one.
Just checked the EARs one is not the one causing problem. It has two partitions and used as back-up for music and images.
The one which has OS on it is WDC WD1001FALS-00J7B0
Thanks Swapnil
I'm running out of ideas. I guess you could try smartctl (sudo /usr/sbin/smartctl -a /dev/sda), but the output is not easy to really understand. Looking at my current drive, I see lots of large numbers which would make me think it is on death's door, but the drive seems to be working fine. At my lab, I'd swap out that drive and see if the problem goes away. If so, I'd RMA the drive back for a new one. Sorry not to be more helpful, Greg -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
I guess you could try smartctl (sudo /usr/sbin/smartctl -a /dev/sda), but the output is not easy to really understand.
Looking at my current drive, I see lots of large numbers which would make me think it is on death's door, but the drive seems to be working fine.
At my lab, I'd swap out that drive and see if the problem goes away. If so, I'd RMA the drive back for a new one.
What I will do is try to install openSUSE on another drive and see if the problem exists. Will RMA if needed.
Sorry not to be more helpful,
Hey, I appreciate the time and effort you made in helping me out in this. I can never thank you enough. THANKS :-) Swapnil -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
swapnil.bhartiya wrote:
Here is the output: https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B-ALfi5glBeCOTc0ODlkM2MtMzRhMS00ZTc0LTkwNmE...
As an aside, I can't see that output. The site requires me to create an account, which I'm not about to do. Please use http://www.susepaste.org/ instead next time. Greg Freemyer wrote:
At my lab, I'd swap out that drive and see if the problem goes away. If so, I'd RMA the drive back for a new one.
To do that with a WD disk, you need to run their diagnostics. In my experience, they fail to identify errors even when the disk fails in use. That's one reason why I no longer buy WD. Disks that lie about sector sizes and the whole TLER fiasco are other reasons. Cheers, Dave -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
As an aside, I can't see that output. The site requires me to create an account, which I'm not about to do. Please use http://www.susepaste.org/ instead next time. Thanks. Here you go http://www.susepaste.org/4170684
To do that with a WD disk, you need to run their diagnostics. In my experience, they fail to identify errors even when the disk fails in use. That's one reason why I no longer buy WD. Disks that lie about sector sizes and the whole TLER fiasco are other reasons.
I switched from Seagate to WD as it was failing on my laptops :-) Hope the output might help. The issue happens once in a day. I had to hard reboot when it started churning. I think I was trying to open home in Dolphin and it froze. Swapnil -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On 2012/01/04 10:43 (GMT) Dave Howorth composed:
At my lab, I'd swap out that drive and see if the problem goes away. If so, I'd RMA the drive back for a new one.
To do that with a WD disk, you need to run their diagnostics. In my experience, they fail to identify errors even when the disk fails in use. That's one reason why I no longer buy WD. Disks that lie about sector sizes and the whole TLER fiasco are other reasons.
My first HD purchase was a Seagate. It began to randomly fail to spin up just after age 12 months when its warranty expired. I then began a long period of buying Quantum exclusively. That lasted until Maxtor took it over, at which time I switched to IBM. That didn't last long, as IBM disgorged all its involvement with HD manufaturing to Hitachi, at which point few alternatives to WD remained, and I went mostly to Seagate mainly because of its longer warranties, never yet having tried Fujitsu and only twice Samsung. In over a decade I had never bought a WD drive before discovering http://lists.mandriva.com//expert/2002-05/msg00948.php . That reinforced my understanding of WD's insistence on marketing EIDE (a proprietary superset of PATA) devices while all others marketed only pure (P)ATA devices. All others made do with a compatible two jumper arrangement (master=single vs. slave), while WD required three separate options (master only, single only, slave). Mixing "EIDE" with non-EIDE was an invitation for obscure and not so obscure performance problems. I only bought WD for the first time after Seagate PATA production was halted, and to date have only ever bought three, none of which SATA. It's a shame alternatives to WD have all but disappeared. Have you tried to replace a PATA drive lately? Many proprietary devices like DVRs use them, and in many cases PATA to SATA adapters will not fit into available space, forcing either adapation to more expensive 2.5" drives or abandoning an other wise good, and likely non-replaceable, device entirely after a drive failure. In retailers like Best Buy WD is all there is, and with no material size selection. Now on top of that, Seagate's longer warranties are history too, conformed to or even shorter than WD's recently announced warranty reductions. :-( http://www.storagereview.com/western_digital_and_seagate_cut_hard_drive_warr... -- "The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation) Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
WD Green drives are notorious for having a very aggressive power saving mode that parks the heads right in the middle of doing work.
Try testing by using hdparm -B 255 and hdparm -B 254
If either of those solve your problem, then there is a package you can install to set that on boot. Can't think of the name offhand.
Greg
Greg thanks. I think the culprit was MotherBoard which (as I said in another thread) was detecting only 1/2 RAM. I have replaced the MoBo with a spare one and its working fine. The possibility is I had 8GB RAM and since I was running resource hungry applications such as Thunderbird, Liferea and sometimes copys data in GBs the RAM was full (I was getting only 4GB out of 8 and most of the times the resources were using around 3+GB RAM). Is that a possibility that low RAM can lead to HDD churning? Seems I can mark this thread solved. BTW, loving openSUSE more and more everyday. Swapnil -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On Monday 09 January 2012, Swapnil Bhartiya wrote:
I was running resource hungry applications such as Thunderbird, Liferea and sometimes copys data in GBs the RAM was full (I was getting only 4GB out of 8 and most of the times the resources were using around 3+GB RAM). Is that a possibility that low RAM can lead to HDD churning?
When system starts swapping then you'll get high HD load. If you even run fully out of memory could be that your system becomes unusable at all and you may come to the wrong conclusion "My system freezes because of the HD noise". But who knows ... could also be you have some bad blocks on swap partition causing problems when system is swaping only. Just check it to be sure: badblocks -s /dev/sda cu, Rudi -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On 01/03/2012 03:38 PM, John Andersen wrote:
If two different Distros agree that your hard disk is failing then it is a good bet that your hard disk is failing.
Do what Cristian says and immediately take a backup if you have any data on that device that you need.
This is exactly the behavior you would expect when a drive has developed major problems from which the OS can't recover.
Tail /var/log/messages and you will probably see a flood of disk problems.
And pray it isn't a hard-drive. With flooding in Thailand hard drive street prices have almost doubled over the past 60 days... Also, if it is a new system built with old drives, make sure you don't have conflicting jumper settings on the old drives. That should be caught automatically and prevent drive recognition, but I haven't tested in on anything in the past 3+ years... -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
participants (8)
-
Cristian Rodríguez -
Dave Howorth -
David C. Rankin -
Felix Miata -
Greg Freemyer -
John Andersen -
Ruediger Meier -
Swapnil Bhartiya