Spin down hard disks when possible?

[efflandt]

Does Kubuntu normally have anything in its Power Management settings to "Spin down hard disks when possible" if you have drives on your system not being used at the time? Ubuntu has a checkbox for that, although, I do not know what the timing is for it.

The last time I used KDE was SuSE 8.2 and I have not run Kubuntu before. So I was just trying out Kubuntu natty installed on 8 GB USB and was not sure if that just was not implemented yet in that, or if Kubuntu does not normally have that setting.

It is simple enough to add /sbin/hdparm -S 60 /dev/sda to /etc/rc.local if you are familiar with Linux and that command, but novices may not be aware of that. I don't really need to do that with sdb anyway which is an SSD (currently Ubuntu natty).

[dibl]

Re: Spin down hard disks when possible?

24 hours, no answer -- OK, I'll offer an opinion instead.

I had almost forgotten about the old "spin-down when not needed" option for hard disk drives -- I guess I remember it from Win95? Or maybe before that. I don't remember seeing it in KDE 3 or KDE 4, ever. I did run a Ubuntu system for a while, but I didn't notice (or need) that option.

I think the reasons why this "feature" may have kind of withered away would be something like these:

1. Technology #1 -- so many desktop distributions (like anything-KDE) go onto laptops and netbooks. These have the "laptop-mode" setting, which I believe includes enabling disk spindown automagically when it's not being used. You can research the specs for laptop-mode and see whether I'm correct on that point.

2. Technology #2 -- look at the MTBF and power consumption figures for the newer hard disk drives. What exactly would you be saving by spinning it down for 20 minutes? My calculator says "not much".

3. Technology #3 -- you have already mentioned it -- SSD. I installed my newest OS on an OCZ Revodrive 120GB SSD. No spindown savings there, either.

4. Desktop User Target -- KDE is really targeted to the desktop user, moreso than Gnome, IMO. Can you use it to run a server? Sure. Just like you can use a dumptruck to bring the groceries home. But it's designed for one user to do his/her productivity work, playing multimedia, IM-ing, etc. etc. As such, efficiency is of course a design goal, but not a high-priority one, compared to the needed performance functions which are often fulltime for desktop users. And, the preponderance of "desktop" computers, be they laptops, netbooks, or mid-size towers, have a single largish disk drive in them. Can't spin it down if you're doing normal desktop stuff.

That's my opinion (at least you didn't go unanswered .....).

[efflandt]

Re: Spin down hard disks when possible?

That checkbox in Ubuntu Power Management does not seem to do anything anyway. I tried that spin down checkbox in both Ubuntu natty from SSD and maverick from USB hard drive, and neither one spun down my internal hard drive after being on for hours. You usually cannot spin down a hard drive you are running from anyway due to logging. And it may be harder on a hard drive spinning it up than letting it run.

I have a headless PC in my basement that has been running obsolete SuSE 8.2 continuously without rebooting since July 2006. I use hdparm to spin down its 2nd and 3rd drives which are rarely used. But its main drive has been spinning continuously for over 4 years.

So I suppose it is not really an issue, and if someone wants to, they can do it the old fashioned way with hdparm. Is there a way on this forum to mark a post as solved?

[dibl]

Re: Spin down hard disks when possible?

Is there a way on this forum to mark a post as solved?

If, while logged in to the forum, you go to your original post and click "Modify", you can edit the title line by inserting "SOLVED" in front of the title, and thanks.