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From: ecwu61@castle.ed.ac.uk (R Renwick)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: Re: No-Noise for HD ????
Message-ID: <10212@castle.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 13 May 91 09:56:07 GMT
References: <543.282803bc@vax87.aud.auc.dk> <1261@telesoft.com> <1991May11.225043.10706@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>
Organization: Edinburgh University
Lines: 18

In article <1991May11.225043.10706@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> ntaib@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Nur Iskandar Taib) writes:
>>Software to stop the hard disk?  I'd be very surprised if that were
>>possible.  I do remember reading about an expansion card for PCs that
>>would automatically power down your hard disk after a specified period
>>of time, and leave it powered down until it was next accessed.  It
>
>Hmmm... remember it takes a minute or two for the drive to
>spin down, and about 20-30 seconds to spin up again....
>
	Not on my Compaq SLT it doesn't!  When the machine is running
from the battery, it powers down the drive after n minutes and when it
does this, the drive stops almost instantly or at least within 1-2
seconds.  When you next access the drive and it is re-started, it only
takes about 5-6 seconds.  So there is no need for the long delays
suggested above, but whether it is possible to obtain fast shutdown and
re-start on an ordinary drive, I don't know.

Rik