# hdparm: sleep/standby

## Ge(nto)org

Hi all!

I know (at least I think  :Wink: ) this is not a gentoo specific question, however, there seems to be no hdparm specific forum/mailing list/news group...

I am running gentoo on an old PC, which serves as my server now:

ide1: hda (Samsung SV1604N)

ide2: hdc (Maxtor 6Y120L0), cdrom

hdc serves as a backup-disk, but since backups will be done automatically, I am not going to swap it in and out every time, though that would surely extend its life.

However, I thought, what about turning it off with hdparm? That would have pretty much the same effect...

When I do a "hdparm -Y /dev/hdc" I can immediately feel that it spins down, and the little status LED for writes lights permanently  :Confused: . Power consumtion of the whole machine goes down from ~48W to ~40W.

Then it takes some time (~1min) until hdparm exits.

The same time hdparm exits (status 0) the following lines appear in /var/log/messages:

```
hdc: irq timeout: status=0xd0 { Busy }

ide: failed opcode was: 0xe7
```

When i issue a "hdparm -C /dev/hdc" it says:

```
/dev/hdc:

drive state is:  standby
```

And in /var/log/messages the following lines appear:

```
hdc: status timeout: status=0xd0 { Busy }

ide: failed opcode was: 0xe5

hdc: drive not ready for command

hdc: status timeout: status=0xd0 { Busy }

ide: failed opcode was: 0xe7

hdc: drive not ready for command

```

So here are my Questions:

1) Is my disk sleeping or just standby? (I cannot feel the difference  :Wink: )

2) That permanent glow of the write LED is .... ?

3) How much difference is between Standby and Sleep, as far as the durability of the disk is concerned?

Thx a lot, georg

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## kloune

I just wanted to say something to the topic of sleep standby. If you put your harddisk to sleep and wake it up again, it may be very damaging to your HD. (I already broke 2 in very short time like that). 

For the error messages, did you try with another HD ? It may be a hardware problem.

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## Ge(nto)org

Yeah, spinning up and down all the time definitely is more damaging than having the disk constantly running...

However, you should have the same effect when you power on/off your computer.

Since I plan to do backups on a daily basis, and I think a backup will take about one hour, the disk will be stressed the same way as if i turned my computer on every day for an hour.

This should be less damaging, than having it run 24/7...

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