On Wed, 28 Mar 2012 09:46:59 -0400, Stefan Monnier wrote: >>>>>> My USB-connected drive spins up every hour (or even half-hour). >>>> (...) >>>>>> Any idea what it might be and how to find out and fix it? IIRC, >>>>>> this setting can be defined using hdparm ("-M" flag and also "/usr/ >>>>>> share/doc/hdparm/README.acoustic") but as the man page/doc says, >>>>>> the possible options for this value depend on the hard disks model. >>>>> hdparm only sets the timeout for spin DOWN. My drives spins down >>>>> just fine, the problem is that it spins *UP* even though I don't use >>>>> it. >>>> I think both settings can be tweaked. "man hdparm" is long but worth >>>> for a slow reading. >>> You're confused. Spin up happens when the drive is accessed and >>> that's all there is to it. >> Well, that's not always the case. There are external drives which have >> embeded in their firmware the power saving routines and spin-down/up >> automatically based on that, regardless the disk is being accessed or >> not. > > Regardless of where the code responsible for the spin-up resides, if the > drive spins up when the drive is not accessed, it's a bug.
I don't think so. The hard disk can have set (by default) embbeded routines that make the disk to be "awaked" at a regular interval and external disks (those that come with USB enclosures or NAS/SAN appliances) tend to do it to speed up things (e.g., to run scheduled backup tasks). >> Mmm... if you so sure the disk is awaked by an external application, >> then don't mount it unless you need it, that way the disk can be still >> powered on but it will inaccessible for the system and programs. > > Even when not mounted (and with its LVM volumes deactivated) it still > spins-up. Then I would contact the manufacturer. If the disk is not mounted and no external program is accessing to it and still spins-up, it can be something wrong in the firmware. Greetings, -- Camaleón -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/jkva93$hqr$9...@dough.gmane.org