Re: Notebook disk spindown

From: Pavel Machek (pavel@suse.cz)
Date: Wed Sep 13 2000 - 21:19:59 EST


Hi!

> o developpers,
>
> this is a short description of a particular wish of notebook
> users. Since kernel 2.2.11 the buffer flushing deamon is no longer
> a user space program but part of the kernel (in fs/buffer.c).
>
> Before this kernel release it was the bdflush-program which
> could be called with certain command line parameters in order
> to control flushing of file system buffers. In particular in
> combination with the hdparm-program it could be used to
> spin down the hard disk (e.g. of laptops) if it was not accessed.
>
> I know that by writing to /proc/sys/vm/bdflush relevant kernel
> paramters may be modified. But there are certain limits compiled
> into every kernel, which have the consequence that
>
> *a silent hard disk hard disk is no longer feasible since kernel
> 2.2.11*.

Well, with noflushd daemon, it works for me.

> I have modified the constants used in fs/buffer.c to allow for
> bigger time intervals between forced buffer flushings. The "patch"
> may be found at http://www.hmi.de/people/brunne/Spindown .

Can you mail me the patch? [I do not have way to access web easily.]

> Shouldn't Linux support hard disk spindown during periods of
> inactivity? Is the tiny patch worth of being included into standard
> kernels?

Noflushd is little hacky. If your patch is really tiny, post actual patch to
l-k for discussion. [Can you gracefully handle case of few active and few
inactive disks?]
                                                                Pavel

-- 
Philips Velo 1: 1"x4"x8", 300gram, 60, 12MB, 40bogomips, linux, mutt,
details at http://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~pavel/velo/index.html.

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