Automatic means for spinning down disks available?

[Gary Kline]

On Tue, Apr 10, 2007 at 09:06:15PM -0400, Jules Gilbert wrote:
> Boy, do I want answers too!
> 
> We have HD's that run 24X7.  And I don't want to turn them off, I  
> just want them to sleep quietly until needed.  We have lot's of RAM,  
> thus plenty of cache space.
> 
> Our machines are all blades.  (Does this matter?  I don't know.)   
> IBMs and Super-Micros.
> 
> We spend zillions of bucks on electricity;  We use these machines  
> 24X7 now, but soon will only need them about 12 hours a day.  Is 24X7  
> operation the optimal strategy?
> 
> What's the best course here, wrt electric costs, and wrt disk failures?
> 

	Re disc failures, I recommend investing as many hours/days as 
	necessay to decide what it (abs) critical.  Config files from 
	as many lcations as reqired, e.g.  If you have a  tape drive,
	copy the critical files there.  Buy as many 200-300GB dics as
	required to cross-backup your important, but not necessarily
	critical files.  And cron ssh backups N times daily...  N >=1.
	(I bup some files twice a day.)

	Power is not going to do anything but get more costly; at the
	same time, if you lost all your data in a *poof*, how much would
	you be willing to pay to have things back?  

	--A parenthetical note: yes, cross-backing up does  pay off.
	Recently, I mv'd a file (innocently, I thought) *over* another 
	files and lost a few hour technical work.  LUCKILY, I had the 
	original file on my laptop!!!!  {Whew}  I almost lways save mods
	by RCS { ci -l <foo>}... but .... --

> --jg
> 
> 
> 
> On Apr 8, 2007, at 2:10 PM, Yuri Grebenkin wrote:
> 
> >Just wonder if it's better for an HDD not to spindown at all.
> >Maybe it's safer to spin in peace than to park/launch?
> >What do you think?
> >
> >>Hello again all,
> >>	I was wondering if there was an automatic, and possibly timed  
> >>means to
> >>spin down disks available in either ports or the base system, by  
> >>chance.
> >>	Just trying to cut down on energy use, and increase my disks'  
> >>lives :).
> >>TIA,
> >>-Garrett
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-- 
  Gary Kline  kline at thought.org   www.thought.org  Public Service Unix