<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 TRANSITIONAL//EN"> <HTML> <HEAD> <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; CHARSET=UTF-8"> <META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="GtkHTML/3.18.3"> </HEAD> <BODY> I guess I should have submitted this to Ubuntu forums, since the question is not xubuntu-specific. Anyway, for anyone who is interested, I did some more scratching around .. According to the following, I may not be saving much power, anway. These figures are for a laptop drive, though - a regular drive presumably will use more power. <A HREF="http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/hal/2005-August/003116.html">http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/hal/2005-August/003116.html</A> Here the power consumption data for a notebook harddisk (ide/sata): <PRE> Startup (peak, max.) 5.5W NC Seek 2.3W 2.7W Read (avg.) 2.0W 2.3W Write (avg.) 2.0W 2.3W Active idle (avg.) 1.1W 1.2W Low power idle (avg.) 0.85W 0.9W Standby (avg.) 0.2W 0.25W Sleep 0.1W NC </PRE> It would be nice to have consumption figures on a regular IDE drive. Maybe I'll look for a power usage meter to measure this stuff directly ? If a drive really is only using about 1 watt when it is in Active/Idle mode, then the main benefit of putting the drive in 'standby' would be to increase the life expectancy of the drive. (As long as the start/stops didn't negate this.) My original aim could be achieved using 'hdparm -S' (by modifying /etc/hdparm.conf). $ sudo hdparm -S 240 /dev/sdb /dev/sdb: setting standby to 240 (20 minutes) $ sudo hdparm -C /dev/sdb /dev/sdb: drive state is: active/idle $ date Mon Sep 1 10:49:14 EST 2008 .... more than 20 minutes .... $ date Mon Sep 1 11:14:36 EST 2008 $ sudo hdparm -C /dev/sdb /dev/sdb: drive state is: standby Regards, David Collins <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE> <PRE> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Sun, 31 Aug 2008 11:00:52 +1000 From: David Collins <<A HREF="mailto:db.collins@yahoo.com.au">db.collins@yahoo.com.au</A>> Subject: [xubuntu-users] Shutdown Hard Disks when Server Inactive? To: <A HREF="mailto:xubuntu-users@lists.ubuntu.com">xubuntu-users@lists.ubuntu.com</A> Message-ID: <1220144452.5937.13.camel@localhost> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hello, I would like to leave my Xubuntu PC/Server running 24 hours a day in my home. If I do this, then I would set up DNS, Squid and Apt-Cacher on it and configure all the other PCs in the house to use these services. I would like to minimise power consumption, though, by turning of the monitor (I can do this manually, of course) and also by turning off the hard disks when they are not being actively used (which would amount to more than 50% of the time). The disks would then resume when a client request was made to the server through the network. This is quite different to the usual 'suspend' on a desktop PC that is resumed by pressing a key or clicking the mouse. Is this idea possible in Ubuntu/Linux ? Regards, David Collins </PRE> </BLOCKQUOTE> </BODY> </HTML>