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Date:      Wed, 29 Apr 1998 13:19:38 -0700 (PDT)
From:      Doug White <dwhite@gdi.uoregon.edu>
To:        Steve Sims <SimsS@IBM.Net>
Cc:        questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Monitoring disk access
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.3.96.980429131702.13074H-100000@gdi.uoregon.edu>
In-Reply-To: <000001bd6ec2$c6b36bc0$64468094@Elvis.RatsNest.VaBeach.Va.Us>

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On Thu, 23 Apr 1998, Steve Sims wrote:

> But the problem remains that the disk doesn't ever spin down, even though
> all the APM stuff is enabled and the disk is set to spin down after 60
> seconds of inactivity.

If you have APM built in then it enables a command in the wdc driver that
explicitly disables disk spindown.  The wdc driver gets angry if it
accesses a spindown disk, it will spew errors about ``interrupt timeout''.

> I've got to believe that something is periodically touching the disk and
> that's enough to reset the sleep-mode timer.  Is there a way of checking to
> see what's prodding the hard drive?

Run top and watch -- if a process uses the disk it's priority will jump
and it may show up in a `sbwait' state.

Doug White                              | University of Oregon  
Internet:  dwhite@resnet.uoregon.edu    | Residence Networking Assistant
http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~dwhite    | Computer Science Major



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