[ltp] Recommendation for new disk drive

[John Jason Jordan]

On Fri, 17 Jul 2009 13:41:48 -0300
Henrique de Moraes Holschuh <hmh@hmh.eng.br> dijo:

> > >If you get a Hitachi, just remember that they ABSOLUTELY REQUIRE the
> > >platters to stop at least once every 48H if you want they to last (and this
> > >is written in their technical datasheet).  If you let the disk sleep when
> > >idle (not just head parking), that can be enough.  If you turn off the
> > >laptop often, it is also obviously enough.
> > 
> > Whoa! I did not realize that. Thank you for the info.
> 
> Yeah, people expect laptops to be turned off or put to sleep constantly, and
> IBM/Lenovo uses very aggressive power saving modes in the disk, so they sort
> of assume the disk will have its power down cycles...
> 
> But I have observed that in this list we have some people who leave the
> laptop turned on in a table, and the HDs don't come with a big mean sticker
> telling you to let it stop the spindle every once in a while (and not less
> than once every 48H) to reflow the fluid bearings or else...

OK, I have never done this. I am one of the people who leave the
computer running 24/7 in its docking station on the table. It is a T61
with Hitachi HTS 54161. The computer is currently over two years old
and I see no symptoms of hard disk meltdown. Nevertheless, I guess I
should heed the warning.

The problem is that I do not want to bother shutting down and
restarting the computer. And hibernation with Jaunty x86_64 is
hopeless. Is there a command or some tool that I can use to stop the
spindle without shutting down the OS?