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#1 2009-08-28 21:44:55

jalu
Member
Registered: 2009-04-05
Posts: 140

Should I spin down my laptop HDD?

I have been using Arch on my laptop for a few months, but only recently realized the importance of having hard drives spin down. I am currently using three drives - one laptop internal, and two external. I don't believe that any of them are set to spin down, despite the fact that my laptop is sometimes idle for hours at a time.

Should I have any/all of these drives spin down? How would I do so?

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#2 2009-09-01 23:24:17

apollokk
Member
From: Please delete me!
Registered: 2009-03-23
Posts: 157
Website

Re: Should I spin down my laptop HDD?

I 'd want an answer to this question, too.


/me wants you to detele this account... please delete it.

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#3 2009-09-01 23:32:38

userlander
Member
Registered: 2008-08-23
Posts: 413

Re: Should I spin down my laptop HDD?

You could add something like /sbin/hdparm -S 120 /dev/sdx to /etc/rc.local.

I've heard conflicting reports on powering down laptop hdds, with some people claiming it actually kills the hard drive sooner. I forget who I read that from (Dusty?), but it was convincing enough that I don't power down anymore.

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#4 2009-09-01 23:38:37

Square
Member
Registered: 2008-06-11
Posts: 435

Re: Should I spin down my laptop HDD?

Same thing here. I read an article somewhere with detailed analysis about hard drive spin downs and the life of the drive... blah blah blah... and evidently it stuck enough that I'm firmly against having my hard drive spin down often in order to preserve the life of the drive (or at least avert the risk any sort of shortening to the life span).

Last edited by Square (2009-09-01 23:39:13)


 

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#5 2009-09-01 23:40:11

eldragon
Member
From: Buenos Aires
Registered: 2008-11-18
Posts: 1,029

Re: Should I spin down my laptop HDD?

you will definately kill the hdd sooner if done wrong..

spinning down the hdd should always come acompanyed with good cache management (writeback set to minutes), firefox profile in ram if constantly open like people usually do)... those are some examples...

ive set my laptop mode to aggresively spin down the hdd when on battery, this comes with remounting partitions with a writeback of 5minutes (you might lose data if battery dies) and my firefox profile is on a ramfs which is being written to disk every 10 minutes.

this makes the laptop cooler and saves power. how much i cannot tell..

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