Tech stuff: Tonido Plug² SATA Harddrive spindown

I recently purchased a Tondido Plug² Computer. Unfortunately, the ARM / linux-based device has some rough edges. But, as this plug device comes with command line access, you can easily tweak it.

One problem is that the embedded SATA drive is continuously spinning. This is particularly annoying as the device advertises itself as a "go green" solution. The following community forum topic explains how to solve this issue with a few commands by using the Debian laptop-mode-tools package:

http://www.tonido.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=4219. It contains updates and more details and also has info on tweaking SSD drives. Other references:http://samwel.tk/laptop_mode/faq.

Warning: Although the solution below works on a default setup booting from flash, it is not supported nor recommended and it might brick your device! First install a boot partition on your SATA HD and experiment from there.
More info:

The steps that did the trick for me:

SSH into your plug.
apt-get interaction:

Update your repositories and upgrade your packages.
```
apt-get update 
apt-get upgrade 
```
Install laptop-mode-tools.
```
apt-get install laptop-mode-tools 
```

Modify the config file:

Open the config file in nano.

nano /etc/laptop-mode/laptop-mode.conf

Change the following settings.

Enable Laptop Tools

ENABLE_LAPTOP_MODE_TOOLS=1 
ENABLE_LAPTOP_MODE_ON_AC=1 
ENABLE_AUTO_MODULES=1

Set Drive Spin down Time In Seconds

LM_AC_HD_IDLE_TIMEOUT_SECONDS=600 
NOLM_HD_IDLE_TIMEOUT_SECONDS=600

Save and close the file: CTRL-o, ENTER, CTRL-x

Restart the laptop tools
```
/etc/init.d/laptop-mode restart 
```

If it causes you problems, stop it and remove it:

/etc/init.d/laptop-mode stop 
apt-get remove  laptop-mode-tools

Tech stuff

2012/04/29

Tonido Plug² SATA Harddrive spindown

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