hdparm, HD spindown, how to get status?

**ThomasX** · 03-15-2005, 05:35 PM

Hello,

I want to do HD spindown with hdparm, but want to make sure, that the HD is not going off and on 100 times a day. Therefore I want to log, what is going on. However, I haven't found a possibility to *ask*, if the current status of the HD is spun down or not (of course without spinning it on again).

Any help would be great.
Thomas

**Dave_Bechtel** · 03-17-2005, 09:17 PM

--Unless you're on a laptop, I wouldn't recommend this. I tried it with a regular IDE drive a few months ago, and got kernel panics(!!) Plus, when trying to spin the drive up again and mount a filesystem, it would just hang. Reboot fixed it, but not an encouraging experience.

--Just let it spin, and keep a spare drive handy in case you need it.

Originally Posted by ThomasX

Hello,

I want to do HD spindown with hdparm, but want to make sure, that the HD is not going off and on 100 times a day. Therefore I want to log, what is going on. However, I haven't found a possibility to *ask*, if the current status of the HD is spun down or not (of course without spinning it on again).

Any help would be great.
Thomas

**ThomasX** · 03-18-2005, 03:09 PM

Hi Dave,

I actually made good experience with spindown so far. It really all looks a bit random, if you will make good or bad experience. For example, I made very bad experience with USB-HD. Whenever the HD became full, my linux crashed somehow. The HD (or usb electronic) was not responding any more, so the driver hand, so the OS hang

later someone told me, that many usb-ide electronic may not be "well tested".
And when the HW fails, the data gets corrupted, no reiserfs or what ever can help then.

But now I have the next big problem, but write about it in a new thread, so others may find it and hop on.

Thomas