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.
Which OS for drive on demand spin up?
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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.
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.