#636037 hdparm does not use reasonable default settings for apm

#636037#5
Date:
2011-07-30 12:30:40 UTC
From:
To:
After installing Debian, I noticed that my HDD would spin up and down much more
often than before (I used Kubuntu 10.10 previously). The Load_Cycle_Count as
reported my smartctl started to skyrocket, i.e. go up by 30 to 80 per hour.
Some research showed that Ubuntu has had the same issue [1] and they changed
hdparm to set apm (the -B option) to a reasonable value of above 200 when the
PC is not in battery mode and introduce an "apm_battery" option in
/etc/hdparm.conf. Something like this should be done here, too (which also
required to properly integrate hdparm into power management - currently it
seems to support apmd only which is not even enabled for Debian's kernels) - or
maybe there are better solutions.
The current settings have a negative effect on disc life-time, so it is IMHO
quite important to deal with the problem. Sorry if the priority setting is
inappropriate.


[1] https://chhamanator.wordpress.com/2008/03/06/harddisk-problem-in-ubuntu/

#636037#10
Date:
2011-07-30 13:50:26 UTC
From:
To:
This one time, at band camp, Ralf Jung said:

Hello,

hparm does not install any apm settings by default.  Can you let me
know which power management stack you're using so this can be reassigned
to the right people?

Cheers,

#636037#15
Date:
2011-07-30 14:02:20 UTC
From:
To:
Hi,
I am using whatever is the default in current Debian testing - I assume it is
pm-utils, at least I just managed to configure different hdparm settings for
AC/battery mode by adding a custom script to /etc/pm/power.d.
That's exactly the problem here - something should be set somewhere by
default. Sorry if hdparm is not the right place to put this.

Kind regards,
Ralf

#636037#20
Date:
2011-07-30 15:00:06 UTC
From:
To:
reassign 636037 pm-utils
thanks

This one time, at band camp, Ralf Jung said:

Cool, thanks for that - I'll reassign over now.

No problem.  I think it's better in the power management stack, as
hdparm itself can't know what the user wants on it's own.

Cheers,

#636037#29
Date:
2023-12-21 17:56:09 UTC
From:
To:
Dear submitter,

as the package pm-utils has just been removed from the Debian archive
unstable we hereby close the associated bug reports.  We are sorry
that we couldn't deal with your issue properly.

For details on the removal, please see https://bugs.debian.org/1058701

The version of this package that was in Debian prior to this removal
can still be found using https://snapshot.debian.org/.

Please note that the changes have been done on the master archive and
will not propagate to any mirrors until the next dinstall run at the
earliest.

This message was generated automatically; if you believe that there is
a problem with it please contact the archive administrators by mailing
ftpmaster@ftp-master.debian.org.

Debian distribution maintenance software
pp.
Thorsten Alteholz (the ftpmaster behind the curtain)