Re: flexfax: Reducing Check of Modem !

[David Woolley <david@djwhome.demon.co.uk>]

> information into "var/log/messages" the hardisk is spinning up every twenty
> minutes:

I would seriously question the wisdom of spinning down the hard disk
on any server, unless:

- activity occurs in bursts separated by more than about four hours;

- you are prepared to do a lot of work to clean up the system - even
  cache hit reads will cause the inode to be updated with a new last
  accessed time.

The last disk that I read the data for had a life expectancy that
would have meant that a spin up/down every 20 minutes would have
exceeded the design life long before the end of the warranty period.

The power saving from spinning down is typically under 10 watts.

Non-laptop disk spin up/down lifetimes are desgined for desk top
workstation use, where people have two or three sessions on the machine
each working day.