From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Jun 14 06:04:05 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DFB2F16A4CE for ; Mon, 14 Jun 2004 06:04:05 +0000 (GMT) Received: from webmail.tiscali.de (relay1.tiscali.de [62.26.116.129]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2F20043D45 for ; Mon, 14 Jun 2004 06:04:05 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from sa.deutscher@tiscali.de) Received: from localhost (217.235.13.220) by webmail.tiscali.de (6.7.019) id 40C46DB800280FDC for freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Mon, 14 Jun 2004 08:04:03 +0200 Received: by localhost (IBM OS/2 SENDMAIL VERSION 2.0/2.0) id IAA242.12; Mon, 14 Jun 2004 08:19:53 -0400 Resent-Message-Id: <200406141219.IAA242.12@localhost> Date: Mon, 14 Jun 2004 00:37:22 +0000 From: "Stefan A. Deutscher" To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Message-ID: <20040614003722.A19831@tiscali.de> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.94.15i X-Operating-System: OS/2 2.45 X-Machine-Uptime: localhost: uptime is 4 days, 10:08 hours and 39 seconds Resent-From: sa.deutscher@tiscali.de Resent-Date: Mon, 14 Jun 2004 08:18:51 +0000 Resent-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Best place to spin down disk after boot? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list Reply-To: sad@mailaps.org List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 14 Jun 2004 06:04:06 -0000 Hi, I have a 5.1Release machine with currently four SCSI disks, out of which I need only two at any given time (system and /home). The other ones are an alternative system disk, and an OS/2 disk. They are set to spin up by themselves or via start unit from the SCSI controller, but I wish to spin down the unused ones. I understand that frequent spin up/down or power cyles may reduce disk lifetime, but these disks are never accessed, i.e. never mounted and never spun up again while the system is running. To reduce noise and heat production, I am going to spin down two SCSI disks on one of my machines with camcontrol stop -n da -u 0 camcontrol stop -n da -u 2 (Odd enough, a 'camcontrol stop da0 does _not_ work, it needs separate -n and -u specs.) To spin down the disks right after boot, I ponder sticking things either in the /etc/rc.local (seems to be going out of style though) or as a separate script in /etc/rc.d/. Any thoughts on that would be appreciated. As these commands take a while to return with a success message I'd like to do that in the background, and I wish to log it somewhere. Is there 'the right' way to send the camcontrol messages to syslog or the dmesg file (all true believers shall open their egg at the right end!)? Cheers, Stefan