Ubuntu
acpi-support package

  1. Bug #59695
  2. Comment #73

Comment 73 for bug 59695

Revision history for this message
Dmitry Pankratov (dremon) wrote : Re: default value in power.sh potentially kills laptop disks

I've checked this behavior on Mac OS X and Ubuntu Gutsy on MacBook Pro C2D, HDD Fujitsu 160GB.
Under Mac OS X load cycle counter gets increased around every minute, even with external power plugged.

With Ubuntu I've enabled the laptop mode and set CONTROL_HD_POWERMGMT=1 in laptop-mode.conf, and the counter is not incremented anymore with external power source.
With the battery source and laptop mode enabled, HDD spins down periodically when there is no activity, but is not waking up instantly.
When the laptop mode is disabled however, this spindown issue appears under Linux.
I think that the laptop firmware (or hard drive itself) sets aggressive HDD power save mode on startup.