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I bought a new HD(WD5000BPVT) which unfortunately tries to sleep every 5-8 seconds. Not only is the clicking noise quite audible, the 1-second spinup time adds very noticeable latency in day-to-day use.

I've found hdparm -B 254 /dev/sda will disable the very short sleep but I don't know how to enforce this setting every time the drive is powered on. The dconf-editor and 'Power Management Preferences' apps both do nothing with regard to HD settings. I don't have any /etc/hdparm or /etc/acpi paths. MATE is the window manager.

On Fedora 19, how can I force this command to run whenever the drive is activated?

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5 Answers 5

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I had the same problem none of the solutions here suited my needs. Using cron is really a workaround, not a solution, udev rules are run when power is connected/disconnected but not after suspending/resuming and pm-utils are no longer used by default in Fedora 19 when you for example close lid of your laptop.

Since systemd is now responsible for suspending/hibernating, I think that the only proper way to handle this situation is to create a systemd unit that will run both after boot and after resuming from suspend.

Notes:

  • By using /dev/disk/by-id/... instead of /dev/sda, you are always be sure to get the right disk (sda,b,c depends on the order they are detected by the kernel)
  • You can have multiple ExecStart lines so you can configure multiple disks

Here's the unit I wrote:

[Unit] Description=Silence HD After=suspend.target [Service] Type=oneshot # Disable automatic head parking for the main disk ExecStart=/sbin/hdparm -B 254 /dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST3250824AS_4N127FD1 # Enable automatic spin down after 30 seconds for the second, infrequently used disk ExecStart=/sbin/hdparm -S 6 /dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST31000528AS_BVP5H5X1 [Install] WantedBy=suspend.target basic.target

Save this file as /etc/systemd/system/hdsilence.service and then enable it using:

systemctl enable hdsilence.service systemctl daemon-reload
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  • Works great here on Fedora 20, too. Thank you! Commented Oct 11, 2014 at 10:28
  • So this makes changes to /etc/hdparm.conf obsolete? Commented Nov 18, 2018 at 21:23
  • @domih: As far as I can tell the hdparm.conf is a Debian thing and it is not supported on Fedora. Commented Nov 22, 2018 at 11:26
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You can have the system run the command during boot by creating your own systemd service or adding the command to /etc/rc.d/rc.local.

If you want the command to run every time you wake the system after sleep/hibernate, you can add a script that starts with 2 digits to /etc/pm/sleep.d/, look at the other scripts in /usr/lib64/pm-utils/sleep.d (assuming x86_64) for more details. Basically, it takes a parameter depending on which state it is entering. You might also need to add some login to power.d/ in the same parent directory if you want to operate differently on battery power compared to when plugged in.

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  • 1
    creating your own systemd service can you be more specific? I don't have a /etc/rc.d/rc.local file. Commented Jun 23, 2013 at 18:18
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    The systemd documentation explains the syntax of a systemd service unit. The /etc/rc.d/rc.local file is just a shell script, create it and make sure its executable. Commented Jun 25, 2013 at 0:48
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For different settings when running on AC / battery, I'd do it via a simple udev rule, e.g.
/etc/udev/rules.d/98-apmsettings.rules:

SUBSYSTEM=="power_supply", ENV{POWER_SUPPLY_ONLINE}=="0", RUN+="/usr/bin/hdparm -B 128 /dev/sda" SUBSYSTEM=="power_supply", ENV{POWER_SUPPLY_ONLINE}=="1", RUN+="/usr/bin/hdparm -B 254 /dev/sda"

This would set apm to 254 when the laptop is plugged in and respectively 128 when unplugged. Also, it should always work, even after resuming from suspend.

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    For those who like copying verbatim, newer releases have hdparm in /usr/sbin, so adjust the paths. Commented Aug 5, 2013 at 18:49
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I have the same disk (and the same problem). My stupid but working solution: I have put that in /etc/crontab:

-*/5 * * * * root hdparm -B 254 /dev/sda
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  • Doesn't this simply access the drive every 12 seconds? I considered something along that line but I kinda would like some level of sleep when undocked. Commented Jun 23, 2013 at 16:59
  • Every five minutes. You may write a wrapper script which checks the power state of the system. Commented Jun 23, 2013 at 17:04
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The udev rules work well on plug events, but to get the correct behaviour after resume from suspend I need somthing like this in /etc/pm/sleep.d:

#!/bin/sh case "${1}" in resume|thaw) if grep -q 1 /sys/class/power_supply/ADP1/online; then /usr/sbin/hdparm -B 254 /dev/sda else /usr/sbin/hdparm -B 128 /dev/sda fi ;; esac
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