When I make a configuration for smartd which employs the -n flag (that means not to query sleeping/standby disks which would cause them to spin up) the sleeping disk is spun up regardless of this setting. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: $ cat /etc/smartd.conf /dev/sda -d ata -a -n standby $ hdparm -C /dev/sda /dev/sda: drive state is: active/idle $ hdparm -y /dev/sda /dev/sda: issuing standby command (...disk is spun down...) $ hdparm -C /dev/sda /dev/sda: drive state is: standby $ /etc/init.d/smartd start * Starting S.M.A.R.T. monitoring daemon ... (...disk is spinning up...) $ hdparm -C /dev/sda /dev/sda: drive state is: active/idle The Gentoo system is residing on /dev/sdb so /dev/sda is a fully idle, unused, never accessed disk, so that it is sure that smartd is causing it to spin up. smartctl info about the disk itself: === START OF INFORMATION SECTION === Model Family: Western Digital Caviar SE Serial ATA family Device Model: WDC WD1600JD-22HBB0 Serial Number: WD-WCALL1320149 Firmware Version: 08.02D08 User Capacity: 160,041,885,696 bytes Device is: In smartctl database [for details use: -P show] ATA Version is: 6 ATA Standard is: Exact ATA specification draft version not indicated Local Time is: Sun Jun 1 14:03:37 2008 CEST SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability. SMART support is: Enabled Driver used: ata_piix (libata) Portage 2.1.4.4 (default-linux/x86/2007.0, gcc-4.1.2, glibc-2.6.1-r0, 2.6.25-gentoo-r4 i686)
Same problem here with Segate SATA disk connected to nVidia controller. With kernels 2.6.28 and 2.6.29 (not tested older ones) and same smartmontools version (5.38). smartctl info: === START OF INFORMATION SECTION === Model Family: Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 and 7200.7 Plus family Device Model: ST3160827AS Serial Number: 3MT05R44 Firmware Version: 3.42 User Capacity: 160,041,885,696 bytes Device is: In smartctl database [for details use: -P show] ATA Version is: 6 ATA Standard is: ATA/ATAPI-6 T13 1410D revision 2 Local Time is: Sun Jul 5 15:55:55 2009 CEST SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability. SMART support is: Enabled SATA controller info from lspci: 00:07.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation CK804 Serial ATA Controller (rev a3) emerge -pv smartmontools ... [ebuild R ] sys-apps/smartmontools-5.38 USE="-minimal -static" 0 kB $ emerge --info Portage 2.1.6.13 (default/linux/amd64/2008.0/desktop, gcc-4.3.2, glibc-2.9_p20081201-r2, 2.6.28-gentoo-r5 x86_64) ================================================================= System uname: Linux-2.6.28-gentoo-r5-x86_64-AMD_Athlon-tm-_64_Processor_3200+-with-glibc2.2.5 Timestamp of tree: Thu, 02 Jul 2009 17:30:01 +0000 app-shells/bash: 3.2_p39 dev-java/java-config: 2.1.7 dev-lang/python: 2.5.4-r2 dev-python/pycrypto: 2.0.1-r8 sys-apps/baselayout: 1.12.11.1 sys-apps/sandbox: 1.6-r2 sys-devel/autoconf: 2.63 sys-devel/automake: 1.9.6-r2, 1.10.2 sys-devel/binutils: 2.18-r3 sys-devel/gcc-config: 1.4.1 sys-devel/libtool: 1.5.26 virtual/os-headers: 2.6.27-r2 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="amd64" CBUILD="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu" CFLAGS="-O2 -march=k8 -msahf --param l1-cache-size=64 --param l1-cache-line-size=64 -fweb -pipe" CHOST="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/kde/3.5/env /usr/kde/3.5/share/config /usr/kde/3.5/shutdown /usr/share/config" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/ca-certificates.conf /etc/env.d /etc/env.d/java/ /etc/fonts/fonts.conf /etc/gconf /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/sandbox.d /etc/splash /etc/terminfo /etc/udev/rules.d" CXXFLAGS="-O2 -march=k8 -msahf --param l1-cache-size=64 --param l1-cache-line-size=64 -fweb -pipe" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="distlocks fixpackages parallel-fetch protect-owned sandbox sfperms strict unmerge-orphans userfetch" GENTOO_MIRRORS="ftp://mirror.gentoo.sk http://ftp.belnet.be/mirror/rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo http://distfiles.gentoo.org http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/gentoo" LANG="en_US.UTF-8" LDFLAGS="-Wl,-O1" LINGUAS="en sk cs ru" MAKEOPTS="-j2" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_CONFIGROOT="/" PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS="--recursive --links --safe-links --perms --times --compress --force --whole-file --delete --stats --timeout=180 --exclude=/distfiles --exclude=/local --exclude=/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage/layman/autoarchive /usr/local/portage/layman/berkano /usr/local/portage/layman/latest-released /usr/local/portage/layman/sunrise /opt/reserve/install/portage/hs /opt/reserve/install/portage/xmms-overlay" SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="3dnow 3dnowext 7zip X Xaw3d a52 aac aalib acl acpi adplug ads afterimage aim alsa amd64 amr amrnb amrwb ares aspell audacious bash-completion bdf berkdb binfilter blender-game bluetooth bonjour branding bzip2 cairo caps cddb cdparanoia cdr cli cracklib crypt css cups daemon dbus dga divx djvu dri dssi dts dv dvd dvdnav dvdr dvdread editor emacs emboss enblend encode exif expat fbcon fbcondecor ffmpeg firefox flac flash font-server fontconfig foomaticdb fortran freesound ftp gd gdbm gif gimp gimpprint glade gmedia gnutella gnutls gpg gphoto2 gpm gs gtk gtkhtml guile gzip-el hal hdri iconv icq id3tag imagemagick imap imlib ipv6 isdnlog jabber jack javascript jbig jpeg jpeg2k kerberos kqemu ladcca ladspa lcms ldap leim libcaca libnotify lirc live lm_sensors logrotate lzma mad maildir matroska memlimit midi mikmod mime mjpeg mmx mmxext mng modplug mono motif mp2 mp3 mp4 mpeg mplayer msn mtp mudflap mule multilib musepack musicbrainz ncurses nemesi network networking new-login nls nocd nowin nptl nptlonly nsplugin nvidia objc ofx ogg openal openexr opengl openmp oscar pam pcre pda pdf perl png portaudio ppds pppd python qt3 qt3support qt4 quicktime quotes rar raw readline realmedia recode reflection restrict-javascript roe rtc samba sasl schroedinger scrobbler sdl server session shout sid sift snmp sockets sound sox speex spell spl srt sse sse2 ssl startup-notification subtitles svg sysfs syslog tcl tcpd teamarena themes theora threads tiff tk toolkit-scroll-bars truetype tta unicode usb userlocales utempter vcd vorbis wavpack wireshark wma wmf wmp wxwindows x264 xcomposite xface xft xiph xml xmp xorg xosd xpm xscreensaver xulrunner xv xvid xvmc yahoo zeroconf zlib zrtp" ALSA_CARDS="ali5451 als4000 atiixp atiixp-modem bt87x ca0106 cmipci emu10k1x ens1370 ens1371 es1938 es1968 fm801 hda-intel intel8x0 intel8x0m maestro3 trident usb-audio via82xx via82xx-modem ymfpci" ALSA_PCM_PLUGINS="adpcm alaw asym copy dmix dshare dsnoop empty extplug file hooks iec958 ioplug ladspa lfloat linear meter mmap_emul mulaw multi null plug rate route share shm softvol" APACHE2_MODULES="actions alias auth_basic authn_alias authn_anon authn_dbm authn_default authn_file authz_dbm authz_default authz_groupfile authz_host authz_owner authz_user autoindex cache dav dav_fs dav_lock deflate dir disk_cache env expires ext_filter file_cache filter headers include info log_config logio mem_cache mime mime_magic negotiation rewrite setenvif speling status unique_id userdir usertrack vhost_alias" CAMERAS="*" ELIBC="glibc" INPUT_DEVICES="keyboard mouse evdev" KERNEL="linux" LCD_DEVICES="bayrad cfontz cfontz633 glk hd44780 lb216 lcdm001 mtxorb ncurses text" LINGUAS="en sk cs ru" LIRC_DEVICES="serial" USERLAND="GNU" VIDEO_CARDS="nvidia nv fbdev vesa" Unset: CPPFLAGS, CTARGET, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, FFLAGS, INSTALL_MASK, LC_ALL, PORTAGE_COMPRESS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS_FLAGS, PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS
So that problem is probably upstream, is'nt it? It's not gentoo-specific, so you should as the guys from http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net
i'm not sure it's possible to figure out whether a device is sleeping/standby without querying it, and the simple act of querying it wakes it up
(In reply to comment #3) > i'm not sure it's possible to figure out whether a device is sleeping/standby > without querying it, and the simple act of querying it wakes it up That's not true, "hdparm -C" doesn't wake the drive.
