Is the hard drive cycle count increasing so fast

I would like to understand why SMART is reporting my HGST hard drive's load cycle count raw value as increasing, and if there is anything I should do to minimize this to extend the life of my hard drive.

I'm running Debian Jessie on my laptop, and I've been plugged-into A/C power for the past several hours. I have smartctl installed:

# apt-get install smartmontools

My hard drive is an HGST Travelstar:

$ sudo smartctl -a /dev/sda
...
Model Family:     HGST Travelstar 7K1000
Device Model:     HGST HTS721010A9E630
...

I have a script periodically capturing some stats of interest:

  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0012   089   089   000    Old_age   Always       -       5236
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   099   099   000    Old_age   Always       -       1598
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0012   070   070   000    Old_age   Always       -       305107

My script is grabbing these values and storing them in a file so I can plot them over time with gnuplot:

Timestamp,PowerOnHoursValue,PowerOnHoursRawValue,PowerOnHoursWorst,PowerOnHoursThreshold,PowerCycleCountValue,PowerCycleCountRawValue,PowerCycleCountWorst,PowerCycleCountThreshold,LoadCycleCountValue,LoadCycleCountRawValue,LoadCycleCountWorst,LoadCycleCountThreshold
2017-06-10T11:02:18,089,5235,089,000,099,1598,099,000,070,304747,070,000
2017-06-10T11:17:01,089,5235,089,000,099,1598,099,000,070,304795,070,000
2017-06-10T12:17:01,089,5236,089,000,099,1598,099,000,070,305195,070,000
2017-06-10T12:27:03,089,5236,089,000,099,1598,099,000,070,305304,070,000

I have no cmd_line option set in my /etc/hdparm.conf file setting the hdparm option to configure the spin-down time; nor do I have any -e apm option set in my /etc/smartd.conf file.

I'm running MATE but I'm not sure if it has any configuration options set for the spin-down time other than the Spin down hard disks when possible checkbox under System > Preferences > Power Management. (By the way, it's currently unchecked when On AC Power and checked when On Battery Power.

From around 11:05 a.m. till around 12:00 p.m. I left my laptop alone but did not put it into standby or sleep; it was still on with the screen locked.

At 12:00 p.m. I started using it again and have been at the keyboard till 12:27 p.m.

Here are my current APM settings:

$ sudo smartctl --get=apm /dev/sda
...
APM level is:     128 (minimum power consumption without standby)

$ sudo hdparm -I /dev/sda | grep level
    Advanced power management level: 128

$ sudo hdparm -B /dev/sda

/dev/sda:
 APM_level  = 128

Per the description of the -S option to hdparm, 128 means the standby (spindown) timeout for the drive is 128*5=640 seconds, or just over 10 minutes, if I understood this correctly.

Update: I disabled APM on the drive by editing my /etc/smartd.conf and changing -e apm,241 to -e apm,off, and then restarting smartmontools.

This looks like it helped stop the increase:

Timestamp,PowerOnHoursValue,PowerOnHoursRawValue,PowerOnHoursWorst,PowerOnHoursThreshold,PowerCycleCountValue,PowerCycleCountRawValue,PowerCycleCountWorst,PowerCycleCountThreshold,LoadCycleCountValue,LoadCycleCountRawValue,LoadCycleCountWorst,LoadCycleCountThreshold
2017-06-10T11:02:18,089,5235,089,000,099,1598,099,000,070,304747,070,000
2017-06-10T11:17:01,089,5235,089,000,099,1598,099,000,070,304795,070,000
2017-06-10T12:17:01,089,5236,089,000,099,1598,099,000,070,305195,070,000
2017-06-10T12:27:03,089,5236,089,000,099,1598,099,000,070,305304,070,000
2017-06-10T13:17:01,089,5237,089,000,099,1598,099,000,070,305585,070,000
2017-06-10T14:17:01,089,5238,089,000,099,1599,099,000,070,305864,070,000
2017-06-10T14:59:17,089,5238,089,000,099,1600,099,000,070,305868,070,000
2017-06-10T14:59:24,089,5238,089,000,099,1600,099,000,070,305868,070,000
2017-06-10T15:00:05,089,5238,089,000,099,1600,099,000,070,305868,070,000
2017-06-10T15:01:06,089,5238,089,000,099,1600,099,000,070,305868,070,000
2017-06-10T15:02:08,089,5238,089,000,099,1600,099,000,070,305868,070,000
2017-06-10T15:03:09,089,5238,089,000,099,1600,099,000,070,305868,070,000
2017-06-10T15:04:10,089,5238,089,000,099,1600,099,000,070,305868,070,000
2017-06-10T15:05:11,089,5238,089,000,099,1600,099,000,070,305868,070,000
2017-06-10T15:05:26,089,5238,089,000,099,1600,099,000,070,305868,070,000
2017-06-10T15:15:27,089,5238,089,000,099,1600,099,000,070,305868,070,000
2017-06-10T15:17:01,089,5238,089,000,099,1600,099,000,070,305868,070,000

If no one has any better ideas, the next thing I can try is playing around with the 241 value to see how that makes a difference. According to the hdparm man page:

• 0: timeouts are disabled
• 1..240: multiples of 5 seconds, yielding timeouts 5s..20m
• 241..251: 1..11 units of 30 minutes, yielding timeouts 30m..5.5h
• 252: 21-minute timeout
• 253: vendor-defined timeout period 8h..12h
• 254: reserved
• 255: 21-min plus 15-sec

I wanted 241 for my laptop specifically for a 30-minute timeout, so I would expect the load cycle count to increment by 1 no less than every 30 minutes; however, it appears I was seeing counts increase 300-400 times per hour before I disabled APM, which would average to 5-7 times per minute, or once every 8-12 seconds.

Please correct me if I'm interpreting these incorrectly.

Update: I just picked up the laptop and took it out of Suspend. In the last update, I never examined the APM level after restarting smartmontools. I'll do that this time.

Since coming out of Suspend, I noticed my cycle count only increased by 1 this time since my laptop went into Suspend and now came out of Suspend:

...
2017-06-10T15:17:01,089,5238,089,000,099,1600,099,000,070,305868,070,000
2017-06-10T15:25:28,089,5238,089,000,099,1600,099,000,070,305868,070,000
2017-06-10T15:35:29,089,5239,089,000,099,1600,099,000,070,305868,070,000
2017-06-11T00:56:09,089,5239,089,000,099,1601,099,000,070,305869,070,000
2017-06-11T01:04:24,089,5239,089,000,099,1601,099,000,070,305869,070,000
...

What's funny is now it kept increasing again:

...
2017-06-11T01:04:24,089,5239,089,000,099,1601,099,000,070,305869,070,000
2017-06-11T01:14:25,089,5239,089,000,099,1601,099,000,070,305918,070,000
2017-06-11T01:17:01,089,5239,089,000,099,1601,099,000,070,305918,070,000
2017-06-11T01:21:35,089,5239,089,000,099,1601,099,000,070,305918,070,000
2017-06-11T01:24:26,089,5239,089,000,099,1601,099,000,070,305918,070,000
2017-06-11T01:33:48,089,5239,089,000,099,1601,099,000,070,305963,070,000

I checked the APM level and it's back to 128:

$ sudo hdparm -I /dev/sda | grep level
    Advanced power management level: 128
$ sudo smartctl --get=apm /dev/sda
...
APM level is:     128 (minimum power consumption without standby)
$ sudo hdparm -B /dev/sda

/dev/sda:
 APM_level  = 128

My /etc/smartd.conf settings still specified -e apm,off so I simply restarted smartmontools and then checked the APM level again:

$ sudo service smartmontools restart
$ sudo smartctl --get=apm /dev/sda
...
APM feature is:   Disabled
$ sudo hdparm -I /dev/sda | grep level
    Advanced power management level: disabled
$ sudo hdparm -B /dev/sda

/dev/sda:
 APM_level  = off

I purposely put the laptop into Suspend again and took it back out. I checked the APM level and it was 128 again just like above; when I restarted smartmontools, the APM level again was disabled just like above.

Again my cycle count is holding after disabling APM:

...
2017-06-11T01:33:48,089,5239,089,000,099,1601,099,000,070,305963,070,000
2017-06-11T01:34:27,089,5239,089,000,099,1601,099,000,070,305971,070,000
2017-06-11T01:42:06,089,5239,089,000,099,1601,099,000,070,306048,070,000
2017-06-11T01:42:58,089,5239,089,000,099,1602,099,000,070,306050,070,000
2017-06-11T01:43:24,089,5239,089,000,099,1602,099,000,070,306050,070,000
2017-06-11T01:44:32,089,5239,089,000,099,1602,099,000,070,306050,070,000
2017-06-11T01:45:00,089,5239,089,000,099,1602,099,000,070,306050,070,000

Following information in Bug #1248012, I tried enabling the APM options in /etc/hdparm.conf:

...
# -B apm setting
#apm = 255
apm = 255
# -B apm setting when on battery
#apm_battery = 127
apm_battery = 255
...

I restarted hdparm:

$ sudo /etc/init.d/hdparm restart

After putting the hard drive into Suspend and bringing it back out, I noticed the APM level is back to 128.

I opened Question #1218107 for this.