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Spinning down USB hard drive
Posted: Sat May 21, 2011 11:34 am
by holmes
Hi,
I have installed Ubuntu 10.10 on a USB hard drive and run Squeezplay and Squeezebox server.
I would like the drive to spin down when it is idle. I tried the Ubuntu power-management settings and HD-idle without success.
Does anyone have any experience or idea on this topic?
Many thanks,
Re: Spinning down USB hard drive
Posted: Wed Jan 04, 2012 1:36 pm
by Jarv_77
Holmes,
A bit late but your post came up on a search I was doing......
I have an externally powered Western Digital hard-drive connected to my joggler. It spins down automatically when not in use.
David
Re: Spinning down USB hard drive
Posted: Wed Jan 04, 2012 2:00 pm
by Mevi
I think it's down to the hdd whether it spins down when idle. I have a samsung portable drive that does and a generic enclosure that does, another 2 generic ones that don't. I added an app to my XP build to enable spin down on some drives, but without firmware support, no fix that I could find.
Re: Spinning down USB hard drive
Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2012 12:08 pm
by Jarv_77
I've been looking into this and have found that, for some, the hard drive spinning down is a big problem as it can get 'lost' from /mnt and not wake up again! At the moment I am suspecting that it is the root of my problems with mp3 files not loading in squeezeserver/player.
David
Re: Spinning down USB hard drive
Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2012 7:17 pm
by BuZz
drives can be set to spin down when idle via some power management settings. some usb controllers may do this automatically. if it doesn't you first need to see whether the controller support SAT (SCSI-ATA Command Translation) as without this you will not be able to send commands via hdparm for example.
first you could try something like
sudo hdparm -y /dev/sdX
and see if that works.
(should put the drive in standby)