Switching on and off external harddisks (USB/ieee1394/FW)

letzterfreiercoolername · n00b Joined: 24 Jul 2005 Posts: 9 Location: Munich

...is it possible, and if, how do I do it?

My idea is to attach my computer and five external hard discs to a USB/FW hub.
The computer and the hub will be powered 24/7.

The five hard disks (dedicated to backup on Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri) shall
* be powered off normally,
* be switched on just prior to a backup-to-disc job, and
* be powered off after the backup verification.

Questions:
* How do I make my external drives power up with a sleeping disk?
(so that they do not spin up at every (Re)Boot!)
* Does anyone know some command line tools for switching on/off of devices which are attached vie USB or ieee1394?
* if it does not work by software alone: does anyone know some circuit, application note, etc, e.g. of a FW hub that is able to switch its ports on and off?

Thank you very much,
Peter
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cchildress · Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 3:39 pm Post subject:

First off, I'm sure that this is possible. My Mac (running OSX10.4.7) decelerates the external HDDs after a period of time if they are not in use. I'm not sure about keeping them off during boot-time. Sorry that I can't offer more help than that, but perhaps a look at the way that the Macs do it would help?

edit: I re-read your post and deleted much of mine.

kernelOfTruth · Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 7:11 pm Post subject:

as far as I know the kernel developers are on it (read that 1-2 weeks ago) on lkml.org

don't know when this will make it in the main kernel, keep your fingers crossed :wink:

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