Power settings for SSD to keep it powered on all the time

Support & Help Requests
#1

I am running a Crucial SSD CT250MX200SSD1 (MU03) on my Lenovo G780, using 64bit UM 16.04. Crucial likes to have their drives powered up all the time, no sleep.

In that other unmentionable OS (W7) i know where those settings are, but where are they in UM 16.04? In the Control Center under Hardware, under Disks it describes the drive, in Power Management it is the whole computer, nothing drive specific.

Where can I manage the SSD in UM 16.04?

The reason I would like to do this is that my G780 has started freezing at startup with the disk activity light illuminated constantly. Normal is for it to come on, go off, then flash a few times while booting.

Thanks, Fred

#2

Don’t think there is one, but one thing to definitely have for your laptop power settings is the tlp package.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/TLP

#3

From askUbuntu I found there is supposedly a built in command HDPRARM

You can experiment a bit with a few options for hdparm command. Specifically:

-S <number> sets the idle timeout before the drive turns its spindle off.
-M <number> sets the Acoustic Management Mode (this parameter also helps in the power management)

I tried it under MATE 16.04 with the -? and it spews forth much information, but when I tried the -i or -I option it returns nothing. The post was from 2011.

Does anybody know if HDPARM still in MATE 16.04? Did they maybe forget to clean up the documentation and remove the feature? Also I went looking for \etc\hdparm and it is not present.

Thanks, Fred

#4

Lots of searching, lots of answers, some contradictory.

First hdparm is alive and well in Mate 16.04. If you fire up the terminal and run the command:
"sudo hdparm -I /dev/sda" it will give you lots of information. Part of that is the current value for Advanced Power Management, mine is set to 254.

A manual for hdparm can be found at Hdparm Manual ver 8

Which contains this snippet:
"
-B Get/set Advanced Power Management feature, if the drive
supports it. A low value means aggressive power management and
a high value means better performance. Possible settings
range from values 1 through 127 (which permit spin-down), and
values 128 through 254 (which do not permit spin-down). The
highest degree of power management is attained with a setting
of 1, and the highest I/O performance with a setting of 254.
A value of 255 tells hdparm to disable Advanced Power
Management altogether on the drive (not all drives support
disabling it, but most do)."

Looking in Control Center /Hardware/Disks / then clicking on the three vertical stacked line( top right corner) / then Drive Settings, shows that APM is turned off.

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So you can keep it power up the easy way there or the hard way in the terminal with hdparm -B254