[SOLVED] Scheduling hard drive spin down

lonesoac0 · 09-24-2011, 10:36 PM

hello all,

I would like to know if I can schedule standby/sleep with crontab. I am specifically trying to spin down the hard drive for a while and then spin up the hard drive at a specified time. I found the command of

Code:

 hdparm -y /dev/sda

but it does not look like it does anything. All I see it does is:

Quote:

/dev/sda:
issuing standby command

Any help would be appreciated!

rknichols · 09-25-2011, 10:03 AM

That's exactly what the output from hdparm should look like when it successfully spins down the drive. You were expecting something else??

In most cases you don't have to explicitly spin up the drive. The next time something tries to access the drive, the kernel will spin it up automagically.

TobiSGD · 09-25-2011, 10:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rknichols

The next time something tries to access the drive, the kernel will spin it up automagically.

And exactly that may be the case when the command doesn't work for you, may be a program accesses the disk when you try to spin it down (for example the syslog daemon).

lonesoac0 · 09-25-2011, 10:39 AM

Daemons maybe why the command seemingly does not work then. I have lighttpd and samba running just to name a couple off of the top of my head. So, I need to figure out how to find all active processes, kill them, and then

Code:

hdparm -y /dev/sda

Right?

rknichols · 09-25-2011, 11:11 PM

Are you trying to spin down a drive that contains mounted file systems? It may be difficult to get that to "stick" -- too many things that can cause an access.

lonesoac0 · 09-26-2011, 07:46 AM

yes, I am trying the command while both / and Swap are mounted.

Mr. Alex · 09-26-2011, 07:56 AM

Read `man hdparm` and see hdparm -S and hdparm -B. You won't need cron. But I don't recommend you to spin down your HDDs - it's bad for the motor.

lonesoac0 · 09-26-2011, 04:19 PM

How in the world can spining down hard drives be bad for my monitor??

Mr. Alex · 09-27-2011, 03:57 AM

lonesoac0, please read more carefully what I wrote. It's "motor", not "monitor". I am talking about motor of HDD, it's better to keep it spinning constantly.

lonesoac0 · 09-28-2011, 04:15 PM

Ahhhhh! Sorry about that! I will reconsider using hdparm since it could directly do the oposite of what I want. I want to try to place less strain on the hard drive not more.

Mr. Alex · 09-29-2011, 03:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lonesoac0

I want to try to place less strain on the hard drive not more.

In this case you definitely should keep them spinning and not to turn off (unless you keep your PC off for 24 hours or more). And make sure HDDs are 35-45 °С. That is also important.