Re: HD spindown and fs cache writeback

[Dan Christensen <jdc@jhu.edu>]

Heather <star@betelgeuse.starshine.org> writes:
> > Any ideas?  I would love to get this working again with a 2.2.15 or
> > 2.3.x/2.4.x kernel, as it made a fair difference to the battery life
> > and a large difference to the noise generated on some machines...
> 
> Ok, I've been looking at different (past) flavors of this same thread
> recently trying to figure out the real root of the problem.

In my experience, there is something with more recent kernels which
makes disks spin up.  Without any other changes in my set-up, 2.0.36
allowed my disk to spin down and 2.2.13 did not.  At least one person
investigated this further and found (I think) that 2.2.10 works for
him but 2.2.11 doesn't.  

Note:  I have also heard that some people are able to keep their disks
spun down with more recent kernels, and these people sometimes insist
that I have a config problem not a kernel problem.  But, as I said,
just changing the kernel causes the problem, and I've looked into
various other fixes without success.

I hope this information helps someone.

Dan

-- 
Dan Christensen
jdc@math.jhu.edu