If you have a newer drive, you may be able to set it to quiet mode using hdparm. In quiet mode, the hard drive heads move more slowly, and so make less noise. I enabled quiet mode on my Maxtor (it was OVERPRICED) 120 gig hard drive, and i have not heard any head noise from it since then. I can open programs simultaneously like Firefox and Opera while scanning the Win drives for viruses and running updatedb, with no head noise at all.
Theroretically, the drive should be working a little more slowly, but i do not notice any difference in speed.
There is a warning in Puppy's documentation for hdparm:
THIS FEATURE IS EXPERIMENTAL AND NOT WELL TESTED. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK.
This warning is not in the latest hdparm ver. 6.6 ... however, it does include a text file in the source called README.acoustic, which has at the top o the file:
Automatic Acoustic Management
=============================
BIG BIG WARNING: THIS FEATURE IS EXPERIMENTAL AND NOT WELL TESTED. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK!!
I HAVE ONLY TESTED IT WITH MY OWN HARDDRIVES AND HAD NO PROBLEMS USING IT. BUT AS I AM
NO IDE EXPERT AND THIS IS ONLY BASED ON WHAT I HAVE READ IN THE KERNEL SOURCES I GIVE
NO GUARANTEE FOR ANYTHING!!
Anyway, it seems to have worked ok for me. Maybe the drive will last longer too.
If you do try this, do not blame me if anything goes wrong.
If there is a management program for your drive, often a boot floppy, it might have the ability to set your hard drive to quiet mode.
Quiet hd drives with hdparm
where to store hdparm settings in 2.10 HD install?
where in puppy 2.10 (full HD install) can I place the hdparm line so that it runs at every boot? I am using:
hdparm -X34 -d1 -u1 -m16 -c3 -S60 -M190 /dev/hda
Thanks,
Paul
hdparm -X34 -d1 -u1 -m16 -c3 -S60 -M190 /dev/hda
Thanks,
Paul
i do not think i posted the hdparm line i used to make my drive quiet ... it was:
hdparm -M128 /dev/hda
many drives seem to have only 2 settings, 128 or 254
you do not seem to need to set this each time you boot ... the hard drive seems to remember to use the quiet setting, and runs in quiet mode whether you are running Linux or Windows or tudos
it seems to work, i have not heard any head noise from my hard drive since i applied the quiet setting
i put hdparm commands in /etc/rc.d/rc.local
i have a script that burns data cd's and i turn on dma for the burner in the script, in case the kernel decided to turned dma off
hdparm -M128 /dev/hda
many drives seem to have only 2 settings, 128 or 254
you do not seem to need to set this each time you boot ... the hard drive seems to remember to use the quiet setting, and runs in quiet mode whether you are running Linux or Windows or tudos
it seems to work, i have not heard any head noise from my hard drive since i applied the quiet setting
i put hdparm commands in /etc/rc.d/rc.local
i have a script that burns data cd's and i turn on dma for the burner in the script, in case the kernel decided to turned dma off