Discovering list of open files from "kernel level" without using utils like lsof

youshi10 at u.washington.edu youshi10 at u.washington.edu
Mon Apr 9 20:25:32 UTC 2007




On Mon, 9 Apr 2007, Rick C. Petty wrote:

> On Sun, Apr 08, 2007 at 11:05:48AM -0700, Garrett Cooper wrote:
>> 	I'm trying to see if there's a simple tool that I could code in C/C++
>> if necessary to spin down disks automatically to save power and disk
>> life. Plus, I think that lsof actually would probe the devices and 'wake
>> them up' instead of keeping them as-is. However, I could be wrong so if
>> I am please let me know.
>
> I read somewhere once that keeping disks spinning makes them last 10x
> longer.
>
> Personally, I've seen more disk failures on workstations which are
> power-cycled regularly than on systems which are always running.
>
> I've also seen disks work just fine while powered that just plain quit
> immediately after a power cycle.
>
> So you may save power by spinning the disks down, but I doubt you're
> saving disk life (unless they're powered down for weeks at a time).
>
> -- Rick C. Petty

Hence the followup post.
-Garrett




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