constant noise from idle usb HD with FC5

[marko]

I have a external usb hard disk (acomdata USB2 disk of 160 GB)
that was formated with ext3. I've noticed that with fedora core 5
if the disk is mounted and idle for a long time, the drive will eventually
start making a 'click click ..." sound kind of like a periodic disk
access. I can stop this noise by doing anything that makes the OS
look at the drive. The easiest is to just do an 'ls' command against
a file on the drive:

ls /media/acomdata/somefile

The sound will stop immediately but eventually
it starts the access sound again.

It's possible this is a firmware problem so I could try looking
in acomdata's support area but I wanted to ask here first.

To try something, I moved all the files to a different disk and
reformated the drive to XFS and moved the files back. I
plan to see if the noise quits with a different FS. I may also
try leaving it powered but unmounted/unplugged to the
usb port ... maybe there has to be USB communications
going on.

It sounds sort of like the drive is doing some kind of recalibration
but I can't see a reason for it to do that continually. Also, the
drive runs very cool so it's not overly hot.

Mark

[Seve]

I have a external usb hard disk (acomdata USB2 disk of 160 GB)
the drive will eventually
start making a 'click click ..." sound kind of like a periodic disk
access.
Mark
Hello:
It may not be the case, however, usually the 'click click ..." sound is an omen of a failing hard drive.
Seve

[marko]

I know but I doubt that's it, the drive is very new and the clicking of
general decrepitude would not stop if you just access a file. I think
it would click all the time no matter what you'd do. I tend to think
it's a firmware quirk because doing the "ls" on the file kicks it
out of that maintanence mode and puts it back to work.
I guess what I still need to do is let the drive sit turned on but
with the usb port unplugged, then it can't be acting in response to
usb commands.

Mark

[marko]

I reformatted the disk to XFS, it's silent now which is weird.

Mark