too aggressive hard disk power saving defaults

Binary package hint: pm-utils

IMHO, the power saving defaults in /usr/lib/pm-utils/power.d/harddrive are much too aggressive. The below mentioned battery values cause my hard disk to spin down after approx. five(!) seconds. This produces much more wear on the hard disk than it's worth for energy saving.

Also, this should be documented (not only what it does, but why those values were chosen) and user changeable. If the default is so aggressive, it also should be adjustable user-friendly, i.e. graphically.

Defaults as per pm-utils 1.4.1-1:

* hdparm -S (spin down): AC 0 (disable), battery 6 (should correspond to 6*5 = 30 seconds, but see above)

* hdparm -W (drive write cache): AC 1 (enable), battery 0 (disable). Why would we need to disable write caching on battery -- just for the case that it runs out of energy?

* hdparm -B (advanced power management): AC 254 (minimum saving), battery 1 (maximum saving). Too aggressive IMHO, causes my HD, provided spin down (-S) is disabled, to frequently unload the heads (SMART load cycle count is skyrocketing).

* hdparm -M (acoustic management): AC 254 (maximum performance), battery 128 ("max quietness" as commented on in [...]/power.d/harddrive). Don't know, may be appropriate.

I'd please like to hear the opinions of the maintainers.

Regards,

Björn

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.10
Package: pm-utils 1.4.1-1 [modified: usr/lib/pm-utils/power.d/harddrive]
Uname: Linux 2.6.35-999-generic i686
Architecture: i386
Date: Tue Aug 3 14:21:44 2010
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_GB:en
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_GB.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: pm-utils