USB HDD spindown

[leeshep]

Hi,

Can someone please help me configure my USB hard drive to spindown when not in use. I really don't think it's doing it any good running all the time.

Thanks

Lee
Ps I'm using beta 0.3 on a rpi2

[hondagx35]

Hi Lee,

as far as i know hdparmis the only thing that works.

Frank

[leeshep]

Thanks Frank,

That looks like just the ticket. Can you give me an idiots guide to how to install and run it please?

Many thanks.

Lee

[Tinitus]

Hi Lee,

I did the following:

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Pacman -S hdparm

installed the package and then

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hdparm -S /dev/sda

answer was

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bad/missing stanby interval value (0..255)

positive thinker that I am I did

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hdparm -S 60 /dev/sda

got the answer

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/dev/sda:
setting standby to 60 (5 minutes)

did

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hdparm -S /dev/sda

again answer was

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bad/missing stanby interval value (0..255)

but now after approximately 5 min HHD spun down

Maybe after reboot

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hdparm -S /dev/sda

would have given the right answer

First time I tried it, it did not work at all

probabaly because when the HDD was hooked up to the W7 laptop the last time I had energy saving (spin down) disabled altogether.

Enjoy

Tinitus

[Tinitus]

Hi,

Just found out that the installation seems to forget the setting. Today no spin down. When I queried the settings, I got the bad/missing standby value .. message. I had to redo

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hdparm -S 60 /dev/sda

and only then the HDD spun down after approximately 5 minutes.

Any possibility to make the change permanent?

Regards

Tinitus

[hondagx35]

Hi Tinitus,

the best way is to use udev like described here.

Frank

[Tinitus]

Hi Frank,

should have read the whole page. I still have one question. I did what is written on that page, I edited

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/etc/udev/rules.d/50-hdparm.rules

ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="block", KERNEL=="sda", RUN+="/usr/bin/hdparm -B 255 -S 60 /dev/sda"


-B 255 because this disables APM and -S 60 for spin down after 5 minutes

but that does not work

I presume that RUN+= ...... should start hdparm yet when I run top it is not listed as a task
may it be that /usr/bin/hdparm is simply the wrong path and that is the reason why it does not work?
I installed hpparm via pacman -S and I have not got the slightest clue of the path it gets installed to.

Or the other suspicion I have is that -B 255 disables APM and the spin down is included in the APM?

I will try to omit -B from the udev rule although I do not know whether that is possible

Best Regards

Tinitus

[Tinitus]

Hi,

omiting the -B option from the udev rule did not solve the problem, it still does not work.
Starting hdparm and setting the spin down to 5 min works fine. I guess the problem with the udev rule is either the path to hdparm or the fact that hdparm does not belong to the correct user group or something like that.

Regards

Tinitus

[hondagx35]

Hi Tinitus,

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/usr/bin/hdparm

Should be the right path.
You can find the path by:

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which hdparm

- is sda the right device?
- is this

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/etc/udev/rules.d/50-hdparm.rules

part of your file?

should start hdparm yet when I run top it is not listed as a task

hdparm runs only for a very short time, so you can see it in top.

I tried this "/etc/udev/rules.d/50-hdparm.rules"

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ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="block", KERNEL=="sda", RUN+="/usr/bin/hdparm -B 255 -S 60 /dev/sda"

and it works without problems.

Frank

[Tinitus]

Hi Frank,

so it does in my installation, too now. I realise that using GUI for a long time cripples ones attention to details, if there is only a virtual button to press, the mouse pointer leaves some margin, is you forget " at the end of a command line it just does not work.

Thanks for your help

Tinitus