Re: Disk access *every* 5 seconds?

[paul j botelho <pbotelho@Princeton.EDU>]

> I am using reiserfs for months now and I never had this effect before. 
> Is it reiser specific? Access time handling is implemented in ext2 
> also...


from the reiserfs faq on their site:

*  Why, when I'm working on files (i.e. having open files) on my laptop, 
does ReiserFS access the disk every 5 seconds? This effectively prevents 
the disk from spinning down, i.e. APM modes to take over, even when I'm 
not writing anything.
    Brent Graveland <bgraveland@hyperchip.com> answers:

    It's the atime update. Every time you run sync, the sync program's 
atime is updated. The next sync writes this atime update, then sync gets 
updated again...

What's the downside to mounting with -noatime?