Soren Schmidt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, said on Mon Feb 26, 2001 [09:10:43 PM]:
} It seems Stephen Rose wrote:
} > A couple of us on the questions list have asked for a way to spin down ide
} > disks when idle. Is there any chance that this utility could lead to
} > something useful there?
}
} Well, of cause it could, but I'm not sure I see the usefullness of
} the spindown at all, a spinup costs several units of idleness power,
} so you have to keep it spun down for long periods to make it worth
} the effort, and you wear significantly more on the mechanics this
} way too...
Others have posted from their experiments that they were able to maintain
a spun down state for upwards of an hour (admittedly, with some care and
planning).
There are also lots of odd uses where one might have long periods of
inactivity, such as a laptop on which you log in to a "real machine" to
do some kind of work, and want to leave the display going without having to
listen to the disk (for whatever reason). I often leave mine listening
for incoming messages for hours at a time, and appreciate being able to
shut up the disk. I'm using a different method to accomplish the goal, but
the desire that led me there is what's important for purposes of this
discussion. Are there other ways to accomplish the same thing? Sure.
But this desire isn't per se unreasonable on its face. It's not a good fit
for lots of systems, but there are cases where it's desirable.
--
Jon Hamilton
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