Configure Debian on NSLU2 to ensure disks spin down when inactive at Monday, March 03, 2008

A few config changes are needed to allow the Slug's external USB HD to spin down when not in use.

syslogd
Change the option in this file to stop the 'mark' entries being written to the message log.

/etc/default/syslogd

Option is...
SYSLOGD="-m0"

An -m value of zero turns marking off.

Check in here that marks are no longer written...
/var/log/messages

fstab mods
Add noatime to the mount options in /etc/fstab and put /var/run into RAM.

e.g.
/dev/sda1 / ext3 defaults,noatime,errors=remount-ro 0 1
tmpfs /var/run tmpfs defaults,size=512k 0 0

sdparm
As well as waiting for the disk to spin down you can also stop it manually with the sdparm command.

sdparm --command=stop /dev/sda

NSLU2 Page