> In recent kernel (2.4.20pre...), an option (commit) is available. > >> have crashes only when experimenting with the kernel, I think this is >> not as bad as it might look at first glance. But, you know, no >> guarantees of mine, your filesystem might become garbled, your hard >> disk might become fried! > > In my opinion this is not a solution. First I am still not convinced > that it is normal for ext3 to touch the disk when there is no other > activity on the system. Then spinning the disk for 5 minutes seems very > bad from the powersaving point of view and also from the life of the HD. > > That said if you have done nothing else, I am not sure if your disk > enter in a powersaving state. Have you tweaked it with hdparm or are you > using noflushd?
I have just disabled noflushd, after seeing all the interesting information in this thread and after some estimations. My Inspiron 4100 has a battery with 59Wh. With my kind of work, I can expect that this is enough for about 3h, so it needs about 20W. The disk needs about 2W. So if I was able to half that, my consumption would fall to 19W, or I would gain about 10 minutes. In my case, I think this is not worth the disadvantages for the disk, which I overlooked first. Harry -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
