On Fri, 24 Dec 2010 12:28:50 +0100 JÃrn Nettingsmeier <nettings@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On 12/23/2010 09:15 PM, Mark Knecht wrote: > > > 1) The Green drives do typically run at lower RPM. It's part of the > > power saving strategy. I don't typically thing drive RPM has a huge > > impact on audio work but clearly others could have a differing opinion > > on that. It would make for an interesting conversation I think. > > > > 2) The biggest part of power saving on the WD Green drives is that > > they park the heads _very_ often. While this hasn't been a big problem > > under Windows for me under Linux it's a bit of an unknown at this > > point. I have one system that uses one of the 1TB drives as the main > > system drive. The head gets parked and then Linux wakes it up every 2 > > minutes or so. The issue is these drives are only spec'ed at 300,000 > > head parks over their lifetime and then they are out of spec. > > > > 30 parks per minute * 24 hours * 365 days = 262,800 head parks. > > > > Basically, if the drive is left in a Linux system that's powered up > > all the time then the drive is out of spec in a little over a year. > > > > Does this matter? I don't know. I have one machine that is a year old > > and it's approaching end-of-life? > > in a 24/7 machine, you must switch of the parking behaviour in the > firmware, which is only possible with an arcane MS-DOS flash tool that > requires a freedos image to use (luckily, it can boot off a usb stick, > so you don't have to install a floppy). Where the mentioned firmware can be found? I found nothing with a quick search on the WD website. (Unfortunately I bought one of those 'Green' drives just recently) JR _______________________________________________ Linux-audio-user mailing list Linux-audio-user@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-user
