Ubuntu

Turning off unmounted 2nd HDD

Asked by fmf132

I have two HDD bays in my laptop, and I have a 120GB and 160GB in them.

One HDD has Ubuntu and the other has Vista. I mainly use Ubuntu, and the HDD with Vista is typically not mounted.

Is there a way to turn off the 2nd HDD with Vista when I am using Ubuntu? Reasons being 1. Power drain quicker with two HDD, 2. Heat issue.

Any help would be much appreciated. Thank you.

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Cristi Nistor (cristi-nistor) said : 		#1

In a terminal you can use the command hdparm to set the standby (spindowm) timeout for the drive. Use man hdparm to see the command description and its parameters. If you have a SATA drive you can use the following command:

sudo hdparm -S10 /dev/sdb (assuming that your your WIN drive is /dev/sdb)

The 10 after the S option represent the time to wait (with no disk activity) before turning off the spindle motor to save power, and is a multiple of 5 seconds. This means that after 50 seconds of inactivity the motor will be turned off. But read the man page and you will understand better the purpose of this command.

Also I think is better to switch it off permanently (removing its power plug or setting something in BIOS). Start/activity on the long time could harm your HDD.

Good luck.

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