I use an old laptop as a DIY NAS with Debian 9.6 with a HGST HTS541010B7E610 HDD. The HDD had Power_On_Hours of more than 37k with a Load_Cycle_Count of only 380. After doing a short smart test with smartctl the Load_Cycle_Count started to increase rather fast and within only a few hours it increased by approx. a 100. The loading/unloading cause audible clicking also. The constant loading/unloading stops only if I change the APM value with hdparm to 254. Originally it was set to 128. I am not sure yet changing the APM value how much will increase the temperature but it would be better if it didn't. Is there anything else I could try to stop the HDD constantly loading/unloading? If it is possible I would rather avoid to restart the computer.
Edit: The disk is approximately 4-5 years old. Since changing the APM value the disk runs 3°C warmer.
SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x002f 200 200 051 Pre-fail Always - 0
3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0027 192 190 021 Pre-fail Always - 1400
4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 80
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 200 200 140 Pre-fail Always - 0
7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x002e 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 049 049 000 Old_age Always - 37652
10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 253 000 Old_age Always - 0
11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 253 000 Old_age Always - 0
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 80
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 56
193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 489
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 109 099 000 Old_age Always - 34
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0030 100 253 000 Old_age Offline - 0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x0008 100 253 000 Old_age Offline - 0