Seagate ST2000DM001: Chirping Noise

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MayuraDeSilva

MayuraDeSilva

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Hello,

Recently I've purchased a Seagate ST2000DM001 2TB drive and observed a chirping noise now and then. The drive is working perfectly and all SeaTools tests were passed too - including SMART.

When I perform the Acoustic Test (in SeaTools for DOS), the chirping noise was observed as the drive gets idle (spin down) and starts to spin up.

I read online that the same drive with different part number (9YN164) had a new firmware to fix this chirping noise. Unfortunately, it doesn't apply to mine and no firmware updates specific to my drive either (Confirmed by Seagate support).

As a workaround, I've come across a fix online which disables the APM Head Parking - http://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=32044

Is it safe to disable APM Head Parking and does it affects the longevity of the drive?

HDD: ST2000DM001-1ER164

Firmware: CC46


Thanks.
 
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R
I'm glad to be of help.

You'd probably be fine changing the settings and it probably won't affect the drive's life. The WD drive could just not have APM. I believe it's considered an added feature. The concern really is whether the current APM setting help mask or improve the reliability of the drive. Manufacturers are known to use firmware features to increase production yield by making up for marginal hardware in certain areas.
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rkzhao

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It can potentially affect the longevity of the drive. That's not to say the reliability will drop for sure, more that it's just untested. You are essentially disabling the low power idle states of the drive. That may or may not affect things like the spindle motor life and the head assembly. Only thing for sure is that it would increase your average power consumption.

Then again, the act of loading and unloading heads on a disk is also an action that could potentially cause wear so by reducing it, you could also be reducing wear on those parts.

The way I see it though, forcing the drive to always be in a high power state is similar to using a drive in a way it wasn't designed for. Generally speaking, using a drive outside of it's intended workload is not good on reliability.
 
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MayuraDeSilva

MayuraDeSilva

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Thanks for your response, rkzhao :) Much appreciate your input!

In Windows, I'm using the High Performance Power profile and all my HDDs are set NEVER to turn off. Isn't it the same thing?

I'm fine with the power draw as long as it doesn't have this chirp noise.
 
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rkzhao

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It's not quite the same. Windows power modes indicate an external input. There are specific commands to tell a drive to go into different low power states. You're telling Windows not to send those commands.

Modifying the drive APM is changing the firmware settings so that the drive never automatically goes into a low power mode on it's own. Depending on the intended use, the drive comes preset with various timers that has it automatically lower its power state depending on how long it has been left idle. Windows would still be able to command the drive to enter a specific low power state regardless.

You're just wanting to change the APM settings to force the heads to remain over the spinning disk even during prolonged idle periods so that it never automatically load/unloads the heads to cause the chirping noise.
 
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MayuraDeSilva

MayuraDeSilva

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Glad I asked Tom's prior to the trick ;) Thanks a bunch for the information.

I have a WD Caviar Blue 1TB too, and it doesn't have any APM features listed (according to CrystalDiskInfo). Now I'm wondering if APM matters that much for HDD's life - or it's just we have no control over it on WD HDD?

I've also pointed out the trick to Seagate Support and their response:

"Based on your query, please be informed that Seagate does not recommend to change any setting of internal component setting but as a last part of troubleshooting, please try the troubleshooting that was mentioned the link and check if the issue is resolved.

If the issue still persists then, please re-enable the APM Head Parking again and get back with the results."

Seems Seagate implies if it's resolved, I can keep APM disabled.

PS: Instead of applying the permanent fix, I've used CrystalDiskInfo to disable APM temporarily and couldn't observe the noise after that :)
 
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rkzhao

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I'm glad to be of help.

You'd probably be fine changing the settings and it probably won't affect the drive's life. The WD drive could just not have APM. I believe it's considered an added feature. The concern really is whether the current APM setting help mask or improve the reliability of the drive. Manufacturers are known to use firmware features to increase production yield by making up for marginal hardware in certain areas.
 
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MayuraDeSilva

MayuraDeSilva

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Instead of the permanent fix, now I'm using CrystalDiskInfo to change the current APM value (80h) to C0h at startup - frequent head parking noise has gone and it's just fine :)

Thanks for all the help regarding this issue, rkzhao. Even Seagate Support backed off when I asked about the workaround.

 
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