From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG  Sat Feb 14 13:12:31 2004
Return-Path: <owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG>
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 36EFE16A4CE
	for <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>;
	Sat, 14 Feb 2004 13:12:31 -0800 (PST)
Received: from ms-smtp-02.rdc-nyc.rr.com (ms-smtp-02-smtplb.rdc-nyc.rr.com
	[24.29.109.6])	by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D6D4D43D2F
	for <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>;
	Sat, 14 Feb 2004 13:12:30 -0800 (PST)
	(envelope-from stevieo@nyc.rr.com)
Received: from windar.quark (68-173-159-84.nyc.rr.com [68.173.159.84])
	i1ELCSfY005791	for <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>;
	Sat, 14 Feb 2004 16:12:28 -0500 (EST)
From: stevieo <stevieo@nyc.rr.com>
To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2004 16:11:34 +0000
User-Agent: KMail/1.5.4
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain;
  charset="us-ascii"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Disposition: inline
Message-Id: <200402141611.35059.stevieo@nyc.rr.com>
X-Virus-Scanned: Symantec AntiVirus Scan Engine
Subject: Can I prevent touching the disk every 10 seconds?
X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1
Precedence: list
List-Id: User questions <freebsd-questions.freebsd.org>
List-Unsubscribe: <http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions>,
	<mailto:freebsd-questions-request@freebsd.org?subject=unsubscribe>
List-Archive: <http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions>
List-Post: <mailto:freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>
List-Help: <mailto:freebsd-questions-request@freebsd.org?subject=help>
List-Subscribe: <http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions>,
	<mailto:freebsd-questions-request@freebsd.org?subject=subscribe>
X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2004 21:12:31 -0000

How would I track down what is touching the hard drive every 10 or so seconds?
It seems to be multiple things because the delay changes if I remove xmd from
/etc/ttys, or if I add/remove the noatime option in /etc/fstab.

To complicate matters, it sounds like the hard drive is seeking and then
spins up when the disk is accessed. This is a laptop machine so I'd like
to stop thing from happening for the power saving if nothing else.