NAME

ataidle - a utility to spin down ATA drives

SYNOPSIS

ataidle [-h] [-i] [-s] [-o] [-I standby_mins ] [-S standby_mins ] [-A aam_level ] [-P apm_level ] device

DESCRIPTION

ATAidle sets various power management features on hard drives, including timeouts to switch to idle and standby power saving modes, and setting the APM (power) and AAM (acoustic) levels. If only a device is specified, without options, information about the selected device will be shown.

OPTIONS

-h

Show usage information

-i

Puts the drive into Idle mode

-s

Puts the drive into Standby mode

-o

Puts the drive into Sleep mode

-I

Puts the drive into Idle mode and configures the standby timer to put the drive into Standby mode after standby_mins minutes of inactivity.

-S

Puts the drive into Standby mode and configures the standby timer to put the drive into Standby mode after standby_mins minutes of inactivity.

-A

Set the acoustic level of the hard drive. This allows you to reduce the acoustic output of the drive at the expense of performance.

-P

Set the Advanced Power Management level of the drive. This allows you to reduce the power consumption of the drive at the expense of performance. A low apm_level will cause the drive to go into Standby mode to save power.

NOTES

Notes on Auto Acoustic Management (AAM) and APM support

AAM and APM settings are vendor-specific and not all intermediate values may be valid. If you set an invalid APM value you will be notified that it failed - when setting an AAM value you should check the output of 'ataidle <device>' to see if it has been updated. If it hasn't, the value isn't supported and you should try a higher or lower setting.

Meaning of AAM values:

0

Acoustic management disabled.

1

Minimum noise.

2-126

Intermediate noise levels.

127

Maximum performance, maximum noise.

Meaning of APM values:

0

APM disabled

1

Minimum power usage with Standby (spindown).

2-127

Intermediate power usage with Standby.

128

Minimum power usage without Standby (no spindown).

129-253

Intermediate power usage without Standby.

254

Maximum performance, maximum power usage.

AUTHOR

Bruce Cran <bruce@cran.org.uk>

SEE ALSO

atacontrol(8), hdparm(8), smartctl(8)