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From: mig@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Meir)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: Re: No-Noise for HD ????
Message-ID: <1991May15.185628.27823@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu>
Date: 15 May 91 18:56:28 GMT
References: <1261@telesoft.com> <1991May11.225043.10706@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> <10212@castle.ed.ac.uk>
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In article <10212@castle.ed.ac.uk> ecwu61@castle.ed.ac.uk (R Renwick) writes:
>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.

I would guess that the smaller the drive, the lower its inertia.
A 3.5" would probably spin up/down faster than a 5.25".  Possibly, the
number of platters, full size vs half-size, etc could also affect this.

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