Internal HDD thrashing when using Transmission

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better.

There are a couple of possible reasons for this that I can think of. The primary one is that Linux's NTFS drivers do not play particularly well with p2p, as described at <http://wiki.fon.com/wiki/Fonera_Troubleshooting#Why_are_NTFS_disk_slow_with_the_Fonera>. So my first question would be if the problems go away if you stop using NTFS partitions with Transmission.

A second possibility is that Transmission added a memory cache in 2.10 to reduce overall disk IO. 10.04's repositories are still on 2.0x, but if you're feeling adventurous you can give 2.1x a try from the ppas at https://edge.launchpad.net/~transmissionbt/+archive/ppa

If you give either of these suggestions a try, please let me know via the ticket. Thanks!

Thanks for your email and comment, Jordan.

I'll have to wait for my "Linux Expert" friend to help me (I'm going to be busy for the next few days anyway).

I forgot to mention in the previous report that the drive buzzed for about 5 - 10 seconds every minute (a repeating cycle).

I tried using 3 torrents.
I saved:
One to the external HDD (EXT format).
One to the 1 TB WD internal HDD (NTFS format).
One to the 1.5 TB WD internal HDD (NTFS format).
That made the problem worse.

When I tried the scenario above the drive constantly buzzed.
"Transmission" didn't "grey out", but the window was totally empty (no menu, no toolbar & no torrent list, only the titlebar and borders were present).
I had to crash "Transmission" to stop the HDD buzzing/thrashing.

Wait, I don't understand what you're saying. All three drives buzzed and thrashed?

Once again, thanks for your email and comment, Jordan.

Sorry poor phrasing by me.

The external HDD (EXT format) did NOT buzz (the EXT formatted drive has NEVER made any strange noises).
I'm not sure if both internal HDD were buzzing, but there was a continuous high-pitched buzzing from my PC tower.
The HDD indicator LED was lit constantly (on the PC tower).

I was only able to apt-get the same version (1.93) of Transmission that was already installed.
It was strange, since I included the version number from the list of versions that were supposedly available.

Synaptic was able to retrieve an earlier version (1.92).
I haven't tested this version to see if it behaves the same way (when attempting multiple downloads to the same partition).

I tried this combination of 3 torrents (2x downloads + 1x upload).
One download to the external HDD (EXT format).
One download to the 1.5 TB WD internal HDD (NTFS format).
One upload from the 1.5 TB WD internal HDD (NTFS format).

There are NO buzzing noises using this combination of torrents and version 1.92 (Transmission).
I have run this combination for many (30+) hours, with no sign of any problems.

Peter,

I wish I had a more helpful answer to give you, but all of this sounds consistent with my previous comments --

(1) Linux's NTFS drivers do not play nicely with high volumes of random disk reads and writes, such as those generated by p2p applications. You may want to use a different filesystem than NTFS. (The same holds true for encrypted filesystems, by the way.)

(2) You can also try to reduce the frequency of disk reads and writes by using Transmission 2.10 or higher, which has a memory cache for this purpose. I know about the ppa URL listed above, but I'm not an Ubuntu user myself, so I don't know how to use that URL in Ubuntu. Your Linux Expert friend might have better ideas on this.

(3) If the hard drive is literally buzzing from the strain of all the disk reads and writes, it also may be a sign of impending disk failure. You might want to make a backup of that disk before doing anything else.

Thanks for taking an interest in my problem, Jordan.

I have never noticed any weird behaviour in either of my Windows OS sessions.
Ubuntu behaves exactly the same as Windows (except in the situation that I previously described).
I've never noticed it during any other Ubuntu activities.

I generally try to avoid performing multiple disc operations on the same HDD (when I can).
Sometimes it can't be avoided.

My HDD monitor reports no problems with either of my WD internal HDDs.
WD 1 TB internal HDD (NTFS format) - rated 85% due to Spinup time.
WD 1.5 TB internal HDD (NTFS format) - rated 92% due to Spinup time.

I can't say that I've noticed any HDD slowness when using Ubuntu (i.e. when reading or writing to NTFS partitions).

Update

The Transmission problem may have been caused by my WD HDD.
Apparently WD screwed up the firmware.
Some of the symptoms seem similar to my problem.

Here are some links about the WD problem:

WD Caviar Green HDDs Suffer from a Critical Design Flaw
http://news.softpedia.com/news/WD-Caviar-Green-HDDs-Suffer-From-a-Critical-Design-Flaw-196159.shtml

Critical Design Flaw Found in WD Caviar Green HDDs
http://www.ngohq.com/news/19805-critical-design-flaw-found-in-wd-caviar-green-hdds.html

This problem could be responsible for this (compare with my previous post):
WD 1.5 TB internal HDD (NTFS format) - rated 71% due to Spinup time.