Message-ID: <471284A7.1060800@samwel.tk>
Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2007 23:05:43 +0200
From: Bart Samwel <bart@samwel.tk>
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To: crash@treysoft.com
CC: Mark Lord <lkml@rtr.ca>, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: hdparm standby timeout not working for WD raptors?
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Mark Weber wrote:
> On 10/14/07, Bart Samwel <bart@samwel.tk> wrote:
>> Some things to check:
>>
>> * Run "hdparm -I" on your drive. In the "Capabilities" section there is
>> a line "Standby timer values", for some drives this mentions a device
>> specific minimum. I know some drives that ignore any setting below 60
>> seconds.
>>
>> * I also know of quite a number of drives where hdparm -B settings
>> override the -S settings, even if you set the -S settings after the
>> hdparm -B settings. You could try combinations with various values of
>> hdparm -B, especially 1 and 255.
> 
> Thanks for the suggestions.
> 
> The -I command prints out a bunch of stuff including:
> Standby timer values: spec'd by Standard, with device specific minimum

Ahhh. Spec'd by standard means that each -S unit is worth 5 seconds (for 
values up to 240 = 20 minutes), and the second part means that there is 
a minimum (which is not specified in this report, unfortunately). 
Perhaps you can get a hold of the full drive manual, the exact minimum 
value is probably specified there.

> I tried setting -B to 1 and and then set -S to 5 minutes.
> Also, -B 255 and then set -S to 5 minutes.
> No luck with either. These drives want to keep running.

Just to be sure: you did use -S 60 to get 5 minutes, right?

> One thing of possible interest: The -B command printed
> the following message:
> 
> /dev/sda:
>  setting Advanced Power Management level to 0x01 (1)
>  HDIO_DRIVE_CMD failed: Input/output error
> 
> I would guess that the first line came out just before
> hdparm tried to do the set, and the second line indicates
> that the set failed.

Yes, that seems correct. Nothing too weird there: it simply seems that 
the drive doesn't support the power management knob. (AFAIK you should 
be able to confirm this using the feature sets listed in the output of 
hdparm -I.)

> Perhaps -S is failing too, just without the diagnostic?

Perhaps, but I'd expect it to print a diagnostic if it fails. I do seem 
to remember that (at least for some drives that I've seen) there isn't a 
diagnostic if you go below the device specific minimum, the value is 
simply ignored.

Cheers,
Bart
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