On Fri, Mar 06, 1998 at 12:26:29AM +0100, Jonas Bofjall wrote: > I would like my IDE disks (I'd very much appciate a general solution too > which can be used on SCSI systems) to spin down when unmounted. Mounting > them would cause them to spin up again. Is this possible and how?
Well, I don't think it's impossible. But why do you want to spin down your drives anyway? Ok, more silence (Oh, silence *is* important, I set up a server outside the room and all work is done on a disk(and noise-) less machine). Ok, less power consumption (good for environment). But what would be the price? I had an email discussion with a technician at a well known hdd manufacturer (was about summer 95, maybe things have changed) about spinning down hdds. I was asking for SCSI commands to spin down an old (and noisy) 5,25" full height piece of storage. He explained that he cannot recommend to spin down any hdd: Within power-on spin-up process a hdd `ages' hundreds of hours and while spinning down the heads polish the parking zone until it's impossible to spin up due to (what's english for `Adhaesion'?) a `glue effect'. I experienced this myself while working for library with small PC desktops, which were switched on in the morning and powered off for the night. One of the hdds got stuck after 3 years. The technician mentioned hdds they built (even in early 90s) they couldn't give any promises after 2000 power-on-spin-ups. Finally I got the SCSI commands. Today the 5,25" full height hdd looks very well with it's case removed on my side board ;-) Of course this all is much better today. But still far away from being perfect. Good luck, --Bjørn -- E-mail the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST. Trouble? E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
