How can I set the idle timer for a disk connected to a 3ware RAID controller?

How can I set the idle timer for a disk connected to a 3ware RAID controller?

I have Linux server with a 3ware 9550SX SATA RAID controller with several disks attached. One of them is a 2TB disk that I'm using for backups. It's a normal desktop disk (i.e. not for 24/7) and I want that disk to spin down when it's idle for 20 minutes. Unfortunately, hdparm -S 240 on the device gives me HDIO_DRIVE_CMD(setidl1) failed: Invalid argument.

Asked by: Guest | Views: 315

Total answers/comments: 1

Comments display order:

bert [Entry]

"With a new enough 3ware firmware and smartctl, you can set the drive standby timeout like this (port #5 in this exmaple);

smartctl -d 3ware,5 -s standby,7 /dev/twa0

The 7 is the timeout, see the description of the ""hdparm -s"" option for a description of what the values mean.

Current firmwares handle spun down drives correct and will not accidentally spin them up or kick them out."