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35a32c5
(Get the code!)
Very Important Note: Do NOT confuse spin-down with head-parking (aka IntelliPark/
Start_Stop_Count = disk spin-ups count
Load_Cycle_Count = r/w head unpark
Example: On my WD Scorpio Blue WD10JPVT (rated for 600,000 Load Cycles), which had idle3 in its firmware modified from default 8sec to 150sec (2.5min) using `idle3ctl` (apt-get install idle3-tools, or use WD's wdidle3 tool in DOS!), I'm parking at an acceptable rate with the default PM level of 128, when on battery, without spin-downs, just as I wanted.
# hdparm -I /dev/sda | grep Advanced
Advanced power management level: 128
* Advanced Power Management feature set
# hdparm -I /dev/sda | grep -i standby
Standby timer values: spec'd by Standard, with device specific minimum
Therefore, it is my conclusion that there are only 2 options to stop the affected drives from parking themselves silly:
1. (Confirmed) On Western Digital Drives, increase idle3 timer in the drive's firmware from the default 8-sec to at least 120sec (2minutes), or 180sec (3minutes) to be safe.
or
2. (Untested) Disable the drive's APM altoghther, with -B 254. Per hdparm's manpage:
"The highest degree of power management is attained with a setting of 1, and the highest I/O performance with a setting of 254. A value of 255 tells hdparm to disable Advanced Power Management altogether on the drive (not all drives support disabling it, but most do)."
For more details on acceptable Load_Cycle_Count rates (which *should* be much higher than Start_Stop_Count rate), see:
https:/
On a relevant note, if you want spin-downs as well (-B 127 or lower), make sure to specify a sensible spin-down timeout (-S 36 at minimum -- 3 min), per this:
https:/
Obviously, if you don't want spin-downs and are content with -B 128 (or higher), there's no need to specify -S timeout. It has nothing to do with head-parking rate, AFAIK.