constant HD activity?

Author	Message
scsimodo Send message Joined: 17 Sep 04 Posts: 12 Credit: 54,554 RAC: 0	Message 7266 - Posted: 28 Apr 2005, 9:17:59 UTC Anyone else experiencing a constant (every second) HD activity when running those new LHC units? On my PC (Athlon XP 2600+, Win2k), LHC seems to write to disk every(!) second (on other PCs too). It's quite annoying. All other other projects (S@H, E@H, P@H) run "quiet", an update is made at most every minute. Older LHC WUs (a few weeks ago) didn't show this behaviour) ID: 7266 · Reply Quote

Seventh Serenity Send message Joined: 27 Sep 04 Posts: 51 Credit: 72,804 RAC: 0	Message 7267 - Posted: 28 Apr 2005, 9:35:25 UTC The drive I have LHC@Home running off (Seagate Medalist 3GB 5200RPM 256KB cache) does the same thing you describe. It doesn't bother me, as the drive isn't used by anything else (so LHC@Home has the whole drive) and it lets me know that it's running when I'm doing something else. Is it possibly a checkpoint on the new WU's? ID: 7267 · Reply Quote

Paul D. Buck Send message Joined: 2 Sep 04 Posts: 545 Credit: 148,912 RAC: 0	Message 7273 - Posted: 28 Apr 2005, 10:40:35 UTC Hmmm, I don't see this. I jsut see the normal "flash" once a second ... Is this an older drive? Could it be going bad? Do you have other programs running? Remember, by default Microsoft wants to index disk drives, even though that does not seem to speed up access (in my experience), and with constant changes to the drive this may drive the indexing service crazy. ID: 7273 · Reply Quote

Petu Send message Joined: 17 Sep 04 Posts: 1 Credit: 16,031 RAC: 0	Message 7278 - Posted: 28 Apr 2005, 12:02:37 UTC I have noticed the same thing. I can tell by the sound of my HD (a fairly new Seagate SATA-drive) when LHC is running...crunch,crunch,crunch... Other projects run silently. ID: 7278 · Reply Quote

STE\/E Send message Joined: 2 Sep 04 Posts: 352 Credit: 1,393,150 RAC: 0	Message 7280 - Posted: 28 Apr 2005, 12:10:57 UTC can tell by the sound of my HD (a fairly new Seagate SATA-drive) when LHC is running...crunch,crunch,crunch... ========= Thats just the sound of a happy computer ... hehe ... ;) ID: 7280 · Reply Quote

littleBouncer Send message Joined: 23 Oct 04 Posts: 358 Credit: 1,439,205 RAC: 0	Message 7283 - Posted: 28 Apr 2005, 12:20:36 UTC Last modified: 28 Apr 2005, 18:12:43 UTC Since(one and half month ago) the HD of my Notebook crashed, I let run the client on an external HD-drive(Western Digital). For that I noticed: When "show graphic" is active then the HD is in permanent use. In 'still processing-mode without graphic': there is every sec. (not how it is set in the prefs.) access to the HD. greetz littleBouncer ID: 7283 · Reply Quote

PeteHow Send message Joined: 1 Sep 04 Posts: 3 Credit: 28,554 RAC: 0	Message 7294 - Posted: 28 Apr 2005, 14:33:44 UTC I commented on this disk activity 2 months ago: http://lhcathome.cern.ch/forum_thread.php?id=1160 Markku Degerholm suggested that since Sixtrack predates BOINC, it does not recognise any BOINC settings. I still find the constant Tick Tick Tick... of the hard drive a little annoying, and wonder if it is adversely affecting the disk's lifetime. Earlier WUs (or is it client?) did not exhibit this characteristic. ID: 7294 · Reply Quote

Paul D. Buck Send message Joined: 2 Sep 04 Posts: 545 Credit: 148,912 RAC: 0	Message 7298 - Posted: 28 Apr 2005, 15:50:20 UTC - in response to Message 7294. > I commented on this disk activity 2 months ago: > http://lhcathome.cern.ch/forum_thread.php?id=1160 > > Markku Degerholm suggested that since Sixtrack predates BOINC, it does not > recognise any BOINC settings. I still find the constant Tick Tick Tick... of > the hard drive a little annoying, and wonder if it is adversely affecting the > disk's lifetime. Earlier WUs (or is it client?) did not exhibit this > characteristic. If the drive is up and spinning that is one of the most common failure modes, the bearing die. But, I run my computers 24x7x365 and the drives are never sleep ... I have never had one die on me yet ... ID: 7298 · Reply Quote

Comet_SL9 Send message Joined: 18 Sep 04 Posts: 1 Credit: 31,192 RAC: 0	Message 7299 - Posted: 28 Apr 2005, 17:25:01 UTC I have the same thing here; Athlon XP 2600+ with RAID 0 HD System (~70 GB). The HD is flashing every second although the BOINC setting says "Write to disk at most every 60 seconds"... It seems to be a real bug, LHC@home ignores BOINC settings... ID: 7299 · Reply Quote

adrianxw Send message Joined: 29 Sep 04 Posts: 187 Credit: 705,487 RAC: 0	Message 7300 - Posted: 28 Apr 2005, 18:04:34 UTC I see this as well. 3 month old SATA Seagate Barracuda with 8MB Cache - flash flash flash. Suspend project, (all other projects are suspended at the moment), disk returns to the once a second, resume project, constant activity. Wave upon wave of demented avengers march cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream. ID: 7300 · Reply Quote

Travis DJ Send message Joined: 29 Sep 04 Posts: 196 Credit: 207,040 RAC: 0	Message 7302 - Posted: 28 Apr 2005, 21:34:55 UTC Same behavior here. Preferences are set to write to disk at most 300 seconds (5 minute intervals). Sixtrack is not honoring the preferences for some unknown reason. My Hardware: Biostar M7NCD nForce2 250 AMD AthlonXP 3200+ (not OCed) Corsair XMSPro DDR400 2-2-2-5-1T Seagate 7200.6 120GB PATA HDD WinXP Pro SP2/UpToDate etc.. ID: 7302 · Reply Quote

Bruno G. Olsen & ESEA @ greenh... Send message Joined: 17 Sep 04 Posts: 52 Credit: 247,983 RAC: 0	Message 7305 - Posted: 28 Apr 2005, 22:44:16 UTC I'm not seeing this (boinc 4.32, sixtrack 4.67, MQonly-wu's) ID: 7305 · Reply Quote

grumpy Send message Joined: 1 Sep 04 Posts: 57 Credit: 2,832,517 RAC: 95	Message 7308 - Posted: 29 Apr 2005, 1:42:00 UTC Last modified: 29 Apr 2005, 1:43:57 UTC it's writing about every seconds to the fort.** files I don't get activity like that with seti/einstein 6 21:35:04 sixtrack_4.67_w:424 WRITE C:Program FilesBOINCslots1fort.90 SUCCESS Offset: 106840 Length: 148 7 21:35:04 sixtrack_4.67_w:424 WRITE C:Program FilesBOINCslots1fort.88 SUCCESS Offset: 106840 Length: 148 8 21:35:04 sixtrack_4.67_w:424 WRITE C:Program FilesBOINCslots1fort.85 SUCCESS Offset: 106840 Length: 148 9 21:35:05 sixtrack_4.67_w:424 WRITE C:Program FilesBOINCslots1fort.91 SUCCESS Offset: 0 Length: 15 10 21:35:05 sixtrack_4.67_w:424 WRITE C:Program FilesBOINCslots1fort.90 SUCCESS Offset: 106988 Length: 148 11 21:35:05 sixtrack_4.67_w:424 WRITE C:Program FilesBOINCslots1fort.88 SUCCESS Offset: 106988 Length: 148 12 21:35:05 sixtrack_4.67_w:424 WRITE C:Program FilesBOINCslots1fort.85 SUCCESS Offset: 106988 Length: 148 13 21:35:06 sixtrack_4.67_w:424 WRITE C:Program FilesBOINCslots1fort.91 SUCCESS Offset: 0 Length: 15 14 21:35:06 sixtrack_4.67_w:424 WRITE C:Program FilesBOINCslots1fort.90 SUCCESS Offset: 107136 Length: 148 15 21:35:06 sixtrack_4.67_w:424 WRITE C:Program FilesBOINCslots1fort.88 SUCCESS Offset: 107136 Length: 148 16 21:35:06 sixtrack_4.67_w:424 WRITE C:Program FilesBOINCslots1fort.85 SUCCESS Offset: 107136 Length: 148 ID: 7308 · Reply Quote

Juerschi Send message Joined: 26 Oct 04 Posts: 12 Credit: 8,909 RAC: 0	Message 7324 - Posted: 29 Apr 2005, 18:12:22 UTC No I have noticed this behavior too. Runing sixtrack 4.67 on XP SP2 with MQonly WU's Preferences set to write every 300 seconds ID: 7324 · Reply Quote

ksba Send message Joined: 27 Sep 04 Posts: 40 Credit: 1,742,415 RAC: 0	Message 7327 - Posted: 29 Apr 2005, 20:48:53 UTC - in response to Message 7324. > No I have noticed this behavior too. Jep, the new WU thake down my raid5 :-) If 30 fast p4 run all on the same (gigabitswitched) network share (at night) than goes the network ;-) and cpu/raid processor some happy percents higher ... At the "MD5 - WU error" my raid5 was near of overheating.. and the servercpu goes up to the limit. lhc is a great test for the new raid processor ;-) ID: 7327 · Reply Quote

ca_grufti Send message Joined: 23 Oct 04 Posts: 2 Credit: 117,212 RAC: 0	Message 7369 - Posted: 1 May 2005, 1:04:49 UTC Non stop. It needs to get fixed. It's one thing to donate cycles, it's totally another to risk HD failure. ID: 7369 · Reply Quote

grumpy Send message Joined: 1 Sep 04 Posts: 57 Credit: 2,832,517 RAC: 95	Message 7377 - Posted: 1 May 2005, 16:06:33 UTC HD fragmentation will exacerbate this "problem" and make it noisier. I don't like the idea of having my HD actuator motor behaving like that. ID: 7377 · Reply Quote

littleBouncer Send message Joined: 23 Oct 04 Posts: 358 Credit: 1,439,205 RAC: 0	Message 7383 - Posted: 1 May 2005, 22:18:02 UTC Try to let the client run from a MP3-Player, used as a USB-Drive! greetz littleBouncer ID: 7383 · Reply Quote

Aurora Borealis Send message Joined: 18 Sep 04 Posts: 59 Credit: 317,857 RAC: 0	Message 7387 - Posted: 2 May 2005, 4:32:59 UTC - in response to Message 7383. > Try to let the client run from a MP3-Player, used as a USB-Drive! > > greetz littleBouncer > A warning. I believe, I read somewhere, that USB-Drive, and I presume any MP3-Players also, have a finite number of erase/write cycles. Continuous usage in this way could have a negative effect on its life expectancy. Can anyone confirm or refute this. Questions? Answers are in the BOINC Wiki. Boinc V6.10.56 Recommended WinXP C2D 2.1G 3GB ID: 7387 · Reply Quote

Alex Send message Joined: 2 Sep 04 Posts: 378 Credit: 10,765 RAC: 0	Message 7388 - Posted: 2 May 2005, 4:35:56 UTC - in response to Message 7387. Last modified: 2 May 2005, 4:38:26 UTC > > Can anyone confirm or refute this. > > I've heard this, but cannot confirm or refute this. I think the main cause of USB drives 'failing' is that the FAT table gets fouled up when unplugging from a host I also ran Boinc on my usb drive for a while on my old laptop, and moved it from pc to pc. So I was able to confirm that moving from a pentium1 to a pentium 2 to a AMD k6 to a 2.2G celeron was able to have a validated work unit. I actually doubt the read/write cycle thing. Samsung is coming out with a hybrid flash/hard disk drive to have lower energy drives. I'm not the LHC Alex. Just a number cruncher like everyone else here. ID: 7388 · Reply Quote

LHC@home