Which OS for drive on demand spin up?

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KuniD
Posts: 78
Joined: Fri Feb 25, 2005 6:49 am
Location: UK

Which OS for drive on demand spin up?

Post by KuniD » Wed Apr 01, 2009 1:13 am

I know Windows can spin down your hard drives if the system has been inactive for certain amount of time, but can it do this on a drive by drive basis?

I've got a file server which has about 8 drives in it. I want to set it up so that a particular drive will only spin up if someone tries to access it.

As it's a fileserver I'm not too fussed what I install, will consider anything.

tobsco
Posts: 7
Joined: Wed Apr 15, 2009 12:57 pm
Location: UK

Post by tobsco » Wed Apr 15, 2009 1:16 pm

I do exactly this using Ubuntu. Simply type into the terminal

sudo hdparm -S60 /dev/sda

and it will set your first hard drive to power down after 5 minutes (S60 x 5 seconds = 600s + 5 minutes), you can then do the same for /dev/sdb /dev/sdc ect.
You can also put a drive to sleep on command with

sudo hdparm -y /dev/sda

I run this plus a few other commands at start up in a little script, it all seems quite daunting at first but once you get your head round a few things it's much simpler and more logical then trying to find the right option in the right menu of windows. Ubuntu forums is a great place to find the answers to any other questions and

man hdparm

is the manual for the hdparm command.

Pipps
Posts: 70
Joined: Tue Jun 16, 2009 3:06 am
Location: UK

Post by Pipps » Tue Jun 16, 2009 4:11 am

Ubuntu or one of its variants is definitely the way forward in this respect.

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