Re: Detect what is causing the hard drive to spin up

[Jeff <jcoppock1@attbi.com>]

Enrico Zini, 2003-Mar-23 16:56 +0100:
> Hello,
> 
> I've just setup noflushd and finally can enjoy to hear that damn hard
> drive to spin down after a while it's not in use.  However, a few
> seconds after spin down, to my great frustration it spins up again,
> resuming that fastidious noise.  Obviously, I wasn't doing anything to
> justify that spin up: I wasn't even touching the laptop.
> 
> I've already tried to shut down the services that I thought could be the
> cause for this, but the spinups continue.
> 
> Do you know if there's a way, like some kernel facility, to track what's
> doing these disk accesses?  I would avoid me some long trial and error,
> and it would be the definitive tool to use in this investigation: I'd be
> really happy to use it.

I had the same problem on my noisy older Dell Latitude.  I was
informed that using the find command, shown below, will help narrow
down the field:

Find all the files that have been accessed in the last 5 minutes:

# find / -mount -type f -amin 5

Find all files that have been modified in the last 5 minutes:

# find / -mount -type f -mmin 5

Find all the directories accessed in the last 5 minutes:

# find / -mount -amin 5

Find all the directories modified in the last 5 minutes:

# find / -mount -mmin 5

I ran into issues with CUPS and Postfix.  I was able to change CUPS,
and ended up moving from Postfix to Exim.

jc



-- 
Jeff Coppock		Systems Engineer
Diggin' Debian		Admin and User