Is HDD Advanced Power Management in SnakeOil OS possible?

[koko6969koki]

Hello!

I'm building a SnakeOil Intel NUC based transport that will feed my DAC.

I want to replace NUC's 2.5" 120GB SSD with a 2TB HDD, in order to accommodate a much larger music library.

Many laptop 2.5" HDD's have this aggressive head auto parking feature, that can shorten drive's life due to excessive load/unload cycles.

On my MacMini I'm dealing with this issue by using HDAPM tool and setting Advanced Power Management level to 0xfe (254).

I see that Linux users use similar tool - HDPARM.

Is there a way to implement this under SnakeOil OS? 

I'm planning to run my new music computer for many hours a day, so disabling unnecessary head parking would prolong the HDD's life.

Thank you for your great work!

[agent_kith]

Nice tweak I think (assuming you are using the old spinning disks and not SSDs).

You'll need to SSH into your snakeoil PC.

Run the following:

Code:

apt install idle3-tools

then modify /etc/rc.local file:

Code:

sudo vi /etc/rc.local

and add a line (Replace X with the drive letter)

Code:

idle3ctl -d /dev/sdX

Note that your changes to rc.local may disappear on firmware updates... In the future Snakeoil will allow you run a script on start up/shutdown, but until then, keep this in mind.

[koko6969koki]

Thanks for a super quick answer! 
Yes, it is about good ole spinning drives. 
I'm not sure if I'm going to by a WD drive, and, if I understood correctly the info on the net, idle3 utility works exclusively on WD.
I'm leaning more to Seagate, due to a very tempting price that I can get locally.
HDPARM should be more universal? More like HDAPM that I'm using on my MacMini with a Hitachi drive.
Can it be used with SnakeOil? What would be the procedure?

[agent_kith]

Thanks for a super quick answer! 
Yes, it is about good ole spinning drives. 
I'm not sure if I'm going to by a WD drive, and, if I understood correctly the info on the net, idle3 utility works exclusively on WD.
I'm leaning more to Seagate, due to a very tempting price that I can get locally.
HDPARM should be more universal? More like HDAPM that I'm using on my MacMini with a Hitachi drive.
Can it be used with SnakeOil? What would be the procedure?

It's more the firmware on the HDD than Linux software. Seagate will be a good choice, as hdparm specifically says:
 

Code:

       -Z     Disable the automatic power-saving function of certain Seagate drives (ST3xxx models?), to prevent
              them from idling/spinning-down at inconvenient times.

So, try and run this in the SSH session (Replacing X with the correct alphabet:

Code:

sudo hdparm -Z /dev/sdX

If you get no errors, and confirm the HDD is never spun down. You can then add the command in /etc/rc.local

[koko6969koki]

Thanks a lot!!!  :)