Re: Does Linux support powering down SATA drives?

Stefan Seyfried
2005-11-21T08:49:08Z

Pavel Machek wrote:
> On Sat 19-11-05 20:25:07, Alan Cox wrote:

>> The latest kernels support command passthrough for SMART and the like
>> but hdparm -S does not "switch off" anything. It may spin a drive down
>> but the power consumption of 23 hours a day of "spun down" is
>> significant, probably more than the hour it is powered up.
>
> Really? Harddrive does not contain AC/DC converters, so situation should be slightly
> better there, no?

it is 7.5W vs. 0.9W (idle vs standby or sleep) on a Barracuda 120GB
7200rpm desktop drive. Notebook drives are doing better:

0.65W vs 0.25W (idle vs standby) or
0.65W vs 0.1W (idle vs sleep) on some Hitachi Travelstar.

Better than nothing, but pulling the plug is even better :-)
--
Stefan Seyfried \ "I didn't want to write for pay. I
QA / R&D Team Mobile Devices \ wanted to be paid for what I write."
SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Nürnberg \ -- Leonard Cohen