Re: [9fans] Intel 815 question

[jmk@plan9.bell-labs.com]

On Mon Feb 12 05:46:23 EST 2001, gwyn@arl.army.mil wrote:
> It's actually the IDE controller light.  I think what you
> really want to know is whether Plan9 spins down disk drives
> to conserve power, which helps on a notebook computer but
> not on a desktop.  I think the answer is, No.  Note that no
> harm is done to the disk drive by leaving it spinning, and
> in fact many computer engineers think that reliability is
> enhanced thereby.

I recently added some basic power-control control to the ATA
driver:

	If supported by the unit, the standby timer may be enabled:

		% echo 'standby T'>/dev/sdC0/ctl

	where T is the standby timer period in seconds.  T must be
	between 30 and 1200, or can be 0 to disable the timer.

There are actually finer levels of control available on many
laptop drives but this was a simple way to get most of the savings.

Works great when you have 802.11b wireless and there's just no
need for the disc once the machine is booted.

--jim