From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Aug 28 06:11:43 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3AF47106567A for ; Sun, 28 Aug 2011 06:11:43 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Received: from mx01.qsc.de (mx01.qsc.de [213.148.129.14]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id F10268FC14 for ; Sun, 28 Aug 2011 06:11:42 +0000 (UTC) Received: from r56.edvax.de (port-92-195-72-156.dynamic.qsc.de [92.195.72.156]) by mx01.qsc.de (Postfix) with ESMTP id C36783CA09; Sun, 28 Aug 2011 08:11:41 +0200 (CEST) Received: from r56.edvax.de (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by r56.edvax.de (8.14.5/8.14.5) with SMTP id p7S6BfcG027766; Sun, 28 Aug 2011 08:11:41 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2011 08:11:41 +0200 From: Polytropon To: Warren Block Message-Id: <20110828081141.880862f5.freebsd@edvax.de> In-Reply-To: References: <20110828073051.1ec5b66a.freebsd@edvax.de> Organization: EDVAX X-Mailer: Sylpheed 3.1.1 (GTK+ 2.24.5; i386-portbld-freebsd8.2) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: FreeBSD Questions Subject: Re: Identifying disk activity X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: Polytropon List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2011 06:11:43 -0000 On Sat, 27 Aug 2011 23:54:32 -0600 (MDT), Warren Block wrote: > On Sun, 28 Aug 2011, Polytropon wrote: > > > Since I have installed my new system (FreeBSD/i386 8.2-STABLE), > > I have found some kind of disk activity I've never had before > > on my home system. As this PC is a very cheap product, it doesn't > > have a HDD LED. Instead I have to listen to the disk. > > > > This is the strange sound: four groups of short "brrrrt" sounds > > within a second, with a short pause between them. > > > > #####-----#####-----#####-----#####----- = 1 s > > > > This can be heared over several seconds, then silence. From > > time to time, a "brrrt" sound appears for 3 seconds in one > > long rush. > > That could be a "t-cal", thermal calibration. Depends on the age and > model of the drive, some drives don't do it. Could be other internal > drive activity. WD drives like to park heads often, loudly, and for no > good reason. I didn't mention it's a WD, how did you guess? :-) % dmesg | grep ^ad ad4: 305245MB at ata2-master UDMA100 SATA 1.5Gb/s Strangely, I didn't hear that sound when the system was running AMD64, it seems to have appeared on i386 and _sometimes_ in conjunction with Opera. I have removed the side panel of the PC box, but the sound still sometimes can be heared. The disk doesn't become spectacularly hot, but thermal problems are quite common to "modern" home consumer hardware - and this special PC seems to be _very_ "modern". I have used _many_ WD drives in the past, but none of them has even made such sounds. Seems to be a "modern" feature. > > Is there a way to force "synchronous disk activity"? > > Turning off soft updates will help, but not make disk writes > totally synchronous. Can this be done easily (e. g. "tunefs -n disable