hd-idle utility should be helpful

Please look at the source given below, read carefully and see if it helps:

1. Download source code with CVS using these commands:

   
   
   
   
   
   • cvs -d:pserver:[email protected]:/cvsroot/hd-idle login
     
     
     
     
     • Hit return when asked for password
     
     
   
   
   • cvs -z3 -d:pserver:[email protected]:/cvsroot/hd-idle co -P hd-idle
   
   



2. Debians systems:

   
   
   
   
   
   • Run: dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot
   
   
   • And to install the package run: 'dpkg -i ../hd-idle_*.deb'
   
   



3. Usage:

   
   
   

   hd-idle
   
   
   
   # This will start hd-idle with the default options, 
   
   # causing all SCSI (read: USB, Firewire, SCSI, ...) hard disks 
   
   # to spin down after 10 minutes of inactivity
   
   

Note: Please note that hd-idle uses /proc/diskstats to read disk statistics. If this file is not present, hd-idle won't work.

Information:

Running hd-idle

In order to run hd-idle, type "hd-idle". This will start hd-idle with the default options, causing all SCSI (read: USB, Firewire, SCSI, ...) hard disks to spin down after 10 minutes of inactivity.

On a Debian system, after editing /etc/default/hd-idle and enabling it, use "/etc/init.d/hd-idle start" to run hd-idle.

Please note that hd-idle uses /proc/diskstats to read disk statistics. If this file is not present, hd-idle won't work.

Command line options

-a <name>   Set (partial) device name of disks for subsequent idle-time parameters (-i). This parameter is optional in the sense that there's a default entry for all [SCSI] disks which are not named otherwise by using this parameter.

-i <idle_time>  Idle time in seconds for the currently named disk(s) (-a <name>) or for all disks.

-l <logfile>    Name of logfile (written only after a disk has spun up). Please note that this option might cause the disk which holds the logfile to spin up just because another disk had some activity. This option should not be used on systems with more than one disk except for tuning purposes. On single-disk systems, this option should not cause any additional spinups.

-t <disk>   Spin-down the specified disk immediately and exit. Use only the disk name (e.g. sda) without /dev/ prefix

-d  Debug mode. This will prevent hd-idle from becoming a daemon and print debugging info to stdout/stderr

-h  Print brief usage information

Regarding the parameter "-a":

Users of hd-idle have asked for means to set idle-time parameters for individual disks. This makes a lot of sense, not only because some [SCSI] disks may not react well to being stopped. Originally, hd-idle had one idle time for all disks. The parameter "-a" can now be used to set a filter on the disk's device name (omit /dev/) for subsequent idle-time settings.

1. A "-i" option before the first "-a" option will set the default idle time; hence, compatibility with previous releases of hd-idle is maintained.




2. In order to disable spin-down of disks per default, and then re-enable spin-down on selected disks, set the default idle time to 0.

Example:

hd-idle -i 0 -a sda -i 300 -a sdb -i 1200

This example sets the default idle time to 0 (meaning hd-idle will never try to spin down a disk), then sets explicit idle times for disks which have the string "sda" or "sdb" in their device name.
Stopping hd-idle

Use killall hd-idle to stop hd-idle. On a Debian system, use /etc/init.d/hd-idle stop.

Source:

http://hd-idle.sourceforge.net/