- root@a22m:~# hdparm -C /dev/sdc
/dev/sdc:
 drive state is:  standby

- root@a22m:~# hdparm -S 24 /dev/sdc
/dev/sdc:
 setting standby to 24 (2 minutes)

- root@a22m:~# hdparm -g /dev/sdc
/dev/sdc:
 geometry      = 38913/255/63, sectors = 625142448, start = 0

- root@a22m:~# hdparm -c /dev/sdc
/dev/sdc:
 HDIO_GET_32BIT failed: Invalid argument

- root@a22m:~# hdparm -H /dev/sdc
/dev/sdc:
 drive temperature (celsius) is:  35
 drive temperature in range:  yes


- help:  Usage:  hdparm  [options] [device] ..

Options:
 -a   get/set fs readahead
 -A   get/set the drive look-ahead flag (0/1)
 -b   get/set bus state (0 == off, 1 == on, 2 == tristate)
 -B   set Advanced Power Management setting (1-255)
 -c   get/set IDE 32-bit IO setting
 -C   check drive power mode status
 -d   get/set using_dma flag
 -D   enable/disable drive defect management
 -E   set cd-rom drive speed
 -f   flush buffer cache for device on exit
 -F   flush drive write cache
 -g   display drive geometry
 -h   display terse usage information
 -H   read temperature from drive (Hitachi only)
 -i   display drive identification
 -I   detailed/current information directly from drive
 -k   get/set keep_settings_over_reset flag (0/1)
 -K   set drive keep_features_over_reset flag (0/1)
 -L   set drive doorlock (0/1) (removable harddisks only)
 -M   get/set acoustic management (0-254, 128: quiet, 254: fast)
 -m   get/set multiple sector count
 -N   get/set max visible number of sectors (HPA) (VERY DANGEROUS)
 -n   get/set ignore-write-errors flag (0/1)
 -p   set PIO mode on IDE interface chipset (0,1,2,3,4,...)
 -P   set drive prefetch count
 -q   change next setting quietly
 -Q   get/set DMA tagged-queuing depth (if supported)
 -r   get/set device  readonly flag (DANGEROUS to set)
 -R   register an IDE interface (DANGEROUS)
 -s   set power-up in standby flag (0/1) (DANGEROUS)
 -S   set standby (spindown) timeout
 -t   perform device read timings
 -T   perform cache read timings
 -u   get/set unmaskirq flag (0/1)
 -U   un-register an IDE interface (DANGEROUS)
 -v   defaults; same as -acdgkmur for IDE drives
 -V   display program version and exit immediately
 -w   perform device reset (DANGEROUS)
 -W   get/set drive write-caching flag (0/1)
 -x   tristate device for hotswap (0/1) (DANGEROUS)
 -X   set IDE xfer mode (DANGEROUS)
 -y   put drive in standby mode
 -Y   put drive to sleep
 -Z   disable Seagate auto-powersaving mode
 -z   re-read partition table
 --direct          use O_DIRECT to bypass page cache for timings
 --drq-hsm-error   crash system with a "stuck DRQ" error (VERY DANGEROUS)
 --Istdin          read identify data from stdin as ASCII hex
 --Istdout         write identify data to stdout as ASCII hex
 --make-bad-sector deliberately corrupt a sector directly on the media (VERY DANGEROUS)
 --read-sector     read and dump (in hex) a sector directly from the media
 --security-help   display help for ATA security commands
 --verbose         display extra diagnostics from some commands
 --write-sector    repair/overwrite a (possibly bad) sector directly on the media (VERY DANGEROUS)

----------------------------------------------



    Hi,

    i'd like to set my external USB harrdrive to sleep mode because i need
    it only once a day (backup).
    I tried with hdparm:

    hdparm -Y /dev/sdb
    /dev/sdb:
    issuing sleep command
    HDIO_DRIVE_CMD(sleep) failed: Invalid argument

    same result with hdparm -y, -S 10

    Then i tried
    sdparm --command=stop /dev/sdb1

    but nothing happens.

    Any hint on how to do this?


The only way I was able to figure out to get this working was to use a cron
job to periodically spin down (or try to spin down) the drive:

-----------------------------------start-----------------------------------
#!/bin/sh

# needs sg3_utils 1.23 or later

source /etc/profile

if [ \! "`fuser -c /mnt/music 2>/dev/null`" ]
then
sg_start --stop /dev/disk/by-label/music
fi
------------------------------------end------------------------------------

- How to set USB-HDD to sleep mode?
http://linux.derkeiler.com/Newsgroups/comp.os.linux.hardware/2008-03/msg00131.html

Change /dev/disk/by-label/music and /mnt/music to appropriate values for
your system, and then set it up to run every 10 minutes or so. It checks
for open files on the drive; if there are none, it sends a spindown request
to the drive. sg_start (from sg3_utils) is the only tool I've found that'll
work with USB drives.