Linux file system Ext4, makes Hard drive work too hard?

[newbie4]

It's been about 3 months now since installing Ubuntu's new release, and has been okay so far except lately (started 2 weeks ago) my hard drive started producing a louder winding mechanical sound for about a second when starting or waking back up from sleep.

I've done a lot of asking around regarding this, and finally was able to get the best clue to what happened. I talked to a tech from a tech shop and explained and described the symptom of my hard drive. He asked me how it was mounted, age, airflow, temperature, partitions, installed OS and usage. I told him exactly how it is on my system which is mounted regularly/horizontally, about 1 1/2 year old now, intake fan right in front of it (max ave. temp is 32degrees Celsius), three partitions for 2 linux OS's and Data, and regular usage (email, office, web browsing, and lots of streaming and stored multimedia, and occasional bleachbit blank space cleaner).

He immediately said that it's the start of the HDD showing wear n' tear, and it was the ext4 file system used by Linux that's wearing out my hard drive due to the file system being more scattered compared to NTFS, which NTFS can also be defragged while ext4 cannot, thus creating a fragmented way of reading and writing and heavy back n' forth movement of the hdd's arm into the spindle.

Everything made sense and though I'm not ready to give up my linux partition, I'm thinking of deleting one of the Linux partition reinstalling Ubuntu using a smaller partition, so maybe it wouldn't be so much for my poor old HDD.

I'm not in a place to buy anything right now, so does anyone have a better solution than what I'm going to try, to save and continue using this HDD? Or my idea of deleting the other OS partition and resizing to a smaller partition for a fresh Ubuntu install good enough and will help reduce the wear n' tear?

[Vladlenin5000]

There's not a nice way to say it: What that "tech" from the tech shop told you about EXT4 is a huge pile of bovine manure.
There are much more knowledgeable people here than me so I let them debunk that.

Meanwhile, you can keep the system as it is. A smaller partition won't wear less the disk. The usage, ie, the amount of read/write operations, is what matters regardless of the size and amount of partitions in the the same physical unit.

Please post the brand/model of the HDD. I doubt it is only 1 1/2 years old as you mentioned.

[capscrew]

It's been about 3 months now since installing Ubuntu's new release, and has been okay so far except lately (started 2 weeks ago) my hard drive started producing a louder winding mechanical sound for about a second when starting or waking back up from sleep.

I've done a lot of asking around regarding this, and finally was able to get the best clue to what happened. I talked to a tech from a tech shop and explained and described the symptom of my hard drive. He asked me how it was mounted, age, airflow, temperature, partitions, installed OS and usage. I told him exactly how it is on my system which is mounted regularly/horizontally, about 1 1/2 year old now, intake fan right in front of it (max ave. temp is 32degrees Celsius), three partitions for 2 linux OS's and Data, and regular usage (email, office, web browsing, and lots of streaming and stored multimedia, and occasional bleachbit blank space cleaner).

He immediately said that it's the start of the HDD showing wear n' tear, and it was the ext4 file system used by Linux that's wearing out my hard drive due to the file system being more scattered compared to NTFS, which NTFS can also be defragged while ext4 cannot, thus creating a fragmented way of reading and writing and heavy back n' forth movement of the hdd's arm into the spindle.

Everything made sense and though I'm not ready to give up my linux partition, I'm thinking of deleting one of the Linux partition reinstalling Ubuntu using a smaller partition, so maybe it wouldn't be so much for my poor old HDD.

I'm not in a place to buy anything right now, so does anyone have a better solution than what I'm going to try, to save and continue using this HDD? Or my idea of deleting the other OS partition and resizing to a smaller partition for a fresh Ubuntu install good enough and will help reduce the wear n' tear?

None of it makes sense. Ext4 causes no more practical wear than any other file system formatting. The disk is spinning all the time whether you are accessing data or not unless it has been put on stand by. Ext4 doesn't need defraging, but it does have a tool to check the integrity called fsck. If you want to check the HDD condition you can use smartmon tools. See here for information on how to do this.

From my own experience I can say my oldest disk with ext4 is over 5 years old and it performs perfectly. I have an even older disk that I formatted with ext4 about 3 years ago that also works with no problems or noise.

[capscrew]

There's not a nice way to say it: What that "tech" from the tech shop told you about EXT4 is a huge pile of bovine manure.
There are much more knowledgeable people here than me so I let them debunk that.

Meanwhile, you can keep the system as it is. A smaller partition won't wear less the disk. The usage, ie, the amount of read/write operations, is what matters regardless of the size and amount of partitions in the the same physical unit.

Please post the brand/model of the HDD. I doubt it is only 1 1/2 years old as you mentioned.

My experience is that the bearings start to wear and the disk starts to wobble causing noise and head crash.

[newbie4]

SEAGATE 500GB BARRACUDA 7200 RPM SATA 6Gb/s is the HDD, and it was purchased September of 2012, so yeah you're right it's a little over 1 1/2 year old. It's 1 year and 10 months to be precise since purchasing it.

[newbie4]

It's never ever been even close to a bump. The noise isn't constant by the way. It's just for a second or a fraction, when starting up or waking up from sleep.

[Vladlenin5000]

SEAGATE 500GB BARRACUDA 7200 RPM SATA 6Gb/s is the HDD, and it was purchased September of 2012, so yeah you're right it's a little over 1 1/2 year old. It's 1 year and 10 months to be precise since purchasing it.

Probably much older than that and, coincidentally, I recently replaced a similar drive whilst much older drives (Seagate and others) are still working fine. Perhaps we got a bad batch. Is yours made in Thailand too? I never had an issue with Seagates made in China or Singapore.

[grahammechanical]

A hard disk is not actually a disk but several disks called platters that are stacked one on top of the other and there is no start or end to a disk just an inner and an outer edge. If anything is going to cause excessive wear it is the need to regularly defragment the data on the disk to improve the performance of Microsoft Windows.

The Linux Ext4 files system is a journalling file system. So this is not true

the ext4 file system used by Linux that's wearing out my hard drive due to the file system being more scattered compared to NTFS,

these filesystems employ allocation techniques designed to keep fragmentation under control at all times. As a result, defragmentation is not needed in the vast majority of cases.

The fact that Windows file system needs degragging to improve performance is also proof that it is the windows file system that is scattering data all over the disk/plattters. So, if you have Windows on this disk then look no further for your culprit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defragmentation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journaling_file_system

Regards.

[stalkingwolf]

i have a 160 gb maxtor that is 8-9 years old. it still works but reads bad so i quit using it. it has had ext 3 and 4 on it for years. i also have a very old 10 gb that still works.

Most "techs" in shops will tell you that what ever issue you are having is the fault of linux/ubuntu. Ive even had a couple tell me that linux was a virus and would cause catastrophic failures. I guess they figure if they get you back to windows they gain a new customer.

[Bucky Ball]

Thread moved to Ubuntu, Linux and OS Chat.

Find a new 'technician' (and I use the term loosely). What they've told you is known in the business as 'FUD'. Here's a loose description of what that is:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_...inty_and_doubt

What we don't know about makes us frightened so we want others to feel the same. Unless we are willing to learn, that is. Why would your techie want to know anything about 'EXT' partitions (whatever the heck they are) when they're safe, secure and comfortable making a living out of NTFS, HFS and FAT? Best to work up some FUD to put others off these EXT things and then maybe they won't ask pesky questions I'm not qualified to answer.