Re: Meaningless to spin down the harddisk
On 12 Jun 2000, Anders Torger wrote:
>
> I would like to spin down the harddisk (hdparm -Y) to save battery power, but
> it has turned out to be meaningless, since the harddisk is accessed in a
> fairly periodical manner, about 5 times a minute. So, if I spin down the disk
> (hdparm -Y /dev/hda) the disk starts running again in about ten seconds, even
> if the swap is turned off, and only the very basic processes are running.
>
> Is it normal that the disk is accessed so often, or do I have a configuration
> problem? Is it the filesystem (ext2) causing the accesses? Is there a solution,
> or is it impossible to have the disk in sleep mode for long periods of time in
> Linux? My kernel is 2.2.14.
>
> --
> /Anders Torger
>
> "Lascia la spina, cogli la rosa"
>
>
Have a look at /etc/init.d/checkroot.sh and see how often /sbin/update
is running (I think the default is 5 seconds. The man page for update
explains about altering this.
If this isn't what is doing it, run top and see if there is anything
else running that keeps accessing the disk.
Anthony
--
Anthony Campbell - running Linux Debian 2.1 (Windows-free zone)
Book Reviews: http://www.pentelikon.freeserve.co.uk/bookreviews/
Skeptical articles: http://www.freethinker.uklinux.net/
"To be forced by desire into any unwarrantable belief is a calamity."
I.A. Richards
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