From owner-freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Feb 26 16:40:21 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6361A16A4CE for ; Sat, 26 Feb 2005 16:40:21 +0000 (GMT) Received: from rproxy.gmail.com (rproxy.gmail.com [64.233.170.206]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DEC3F43D6D for ; Sat, 26 Feb 2005 16:40:20 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from mureninc@gmail.com) Received: by rproxy.gmail.com with SMTP id j1so656946rnf for ; Sat, 26 Feb 2005 08:40:20 -0800 (PST) DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=beta; d=gmail.com; h=received:message-id:date:from:reply-to:to:subject:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; b=aQ/jbU48f1EUl/rcfLHxj4oedeFSCuDM/N2KppCaqPqcaV4dOpP0T3X4vPAS1ae42UPcKorhdfDAPDmikC/0rjvCbPhIvYSrFBvTW62YFkdVEdh3aKe2k2ooJUq542XPlaYN5KgxMKrxV58McDaRh8kihzV9PUCO+K2RgfMzrdM= Received: by 10.38.99.68 with SMTP id w68mr608628rnb; Sat, 26 Feb 2005 08:40:20 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.38.11.61 with HTTP; Sat, 26 Feb 2005 08:40:20 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2005 11:40:20 -0500 From: "Constantine A. Murenin" To: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Limit Continuous Drive Activity to Power Down HDD X-BeenThere: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list Reply-To: "Constantine A. Murenin" List-Id: General discussion of FreeBSD hardware List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2005 16:40:21 -0000 Hello, I run FreeBSD 4.8 at home. I'd like to be able to run the box continuously, but the HDD is too noisy to leave the system running for all of the time and specifically for the night. The BIOS of the motherboard supports automatic HDD shutdown in XX-minutes of inactivity. However, I have noticed that this doesn't work as intended with FreeBSD: if I set BIOS to shutdown HDD in two minutes of inactivity, and then I start FreeBSD without logging into the system, the disc stops after a few minutes, but it starts again after less than a few minutes due to some disc activity by FreeBSD. Out of services, I run apache, dhcpd, mysqld, sendmail, sshd etc. It's just a home server, so no-one is accessing it all the time. Is there a way to tweak the system to make it keep all of the modifications to the filesystem in memory, and not dump them until some specific time (let's say 09:00) each day, or until the memory is kind of exhausted? (Clearly, this has a disadvantage of the files being lost in case the power goes out, so I'll most likely need to have a UPS.) If something like that is possible, then how do I do that? I can recompile the kernel with no problems. P.S. I have a Pentium 4 1.8GHz Northwood on AOpen AX4G-N (i845g+ICH4) with 256MB DDR266. The HDD is IBM 60GXP IC35L040AVER07-0. There is plenty of free memory (193MB are usually free upon my first login into the system after a reboot), and the swap get's rarely used even when running X with mozilla for a little while. I could probably add more memory if that'll help (additional 256MB or 512MB, totalling to 512MB or 768MB). Thanks, Constantine.