Messages in this thread |  | | Date | Fri, 08 Sep 2000 13:35:12 +0200 | From | Tim Brunne <> | Subject | Notebook disk spindown |
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Hello 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*.
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 .
Shouldn't Linux support hard disk spindown during periods of inactivity? Is the tiny patch worth of being included into standard kernels?
Yours, Tim Brunne
-- Tim Brunne | web: http://www.hmi.de/people/brunne Hahn-Meitner-Institut | email: brunne@hmi.de
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