So, I bought the MK8009GAH Toshiba 1.8” hard drive for my TR3 and I noticed a new clicking sound that wasn’t present with the old drive. At first I suspected that the new mechanism was just louder (and this does seem to be the case), but after I moved to linux and started tweaking my config files, I found something pretty shocking. Using some SMART diagnostic tools, I noticed that my Load_Cycle_Count was above 70,000 and I’ve only had the drive since September.
To give you an idea of what this means, the Load_Cycle_Count increments whenever the drive spins down or the heads park. Generally, these things are done to help save power, so notebook drives are built to a higher spec to accommodate this. However, the maximum number for notebook drives generally stands at ~200,000 which should correspond to 3-4 years of use. If I climbed to 70,000 in less than 3 months, this is definitely problematic.
And one of my biggest complaints with the TR series has been the use of these expensive, short-lived 1.8” drives. I’m on my 3rd and I’ve had the computer for 3 years, 4 months. By the usual schedule, I should be on #2.
If you’d like a bit more info on this, there are a few threads open where people are blaming this problem on Ubuntu 7.10, but that seems very unlikely to me. Mostly because I can confirm that I experienced the same level of head parking while running Windows XP, because I could hear it.
http://ubuntudemon.wordpress.com/2007/10/30/ubuntu-is-not-causing-aggressive-power-management/
http://www.advogato.org/person/mjg59/diary/82.html
http://ubuntudemon.wordpress.com/2007/10/26/laptop-hardrive-killer-bug/#comment-31234
