Here is a good example tool that does things I need:
http://plextor-tool.sourceforge.net/
But it is only for Plextor drives.
Is there some generic way to keep drives from spinning down too early? My system is having to constantly spin up and spin down. I did a temporary fix to show that spinning up is the cause of pauses in music:
So if I constantly keep it at 1x it will not spin up or spin down and plays music smoothly. Now I just need to figure out how to set a reasonable spin down delay.(because 1x is not tolerable for normal use such as file transfer)
I also came across this:
http://web.njit.edu/all_topics/Prog_...er/cd-dvd.html
Changing buffer size technically does the same thing above, but I cannot make those changes either - I don't have /proc or /proc/ide...
There must be a way to do this (setting spin down delay).
Anyone?

Try using the -S option.