How to stop hard disk access?
 

After trying several floppy-disk based distributions that turn an old 486 into a nice little router, I moved to Slackware 10, because I *very* occasionally need to run an FTP and a Web server (and eDonkey and some compiling). Everything works fine, except that the hard disk keeps spinning, which feels rather noisy in the middle of the night.

What I'd like to do is to set a timeout value for the hard disk, say 1 minute, and if nothing happens when the time is up, the hard disk goes into the stand-by mode.

I used "hdparm" to spin down the hard disk after a predefined timeout value, but it kept waking up even though I didn't touch anything and turned off "/etc/rc.d/rc.syslog".

Is there anything else I need to turn off so that it doesn't try to access the hard disk when nobody touches any files? Does turning on "rc.ip_forward" affect hard disk access? Is there something I can do short of getting a new ultra-quiet hard disk?
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sol

Maybe you need to put /var/log on a ram disk or something??? I don't know. My router drive spins 24/7 :) I quite like the gentle hum of two pc's and three hdds whirring beside my bed at night and tend to wake up during a power outage :)

Mind you I have serious insomnia and also run a tv/dvd/cable through the night to switch my brain off...