HDOff for NetBSD

[Petri Koistinen <petri.koistinen%iki.fi@localhost>]

Hi!

There is a nice tool for AmigaOS at aminet called HDOff. It will turn
harddrive motor off after specified time. Similar tool on NetBSD would
be quite nice too.

I could have some use for this kind of tool. I have spare Amiga 1200 which
has one harddisk installed inside the case. Despite harddrive is inside it makes
some noise. So I always turn off computer when I have nothing do with it.

But computer don´t realy make noise at all, because there aren´t any fans
inside. Harddrive is only source of noise. So if I could spin down hardisk,
I could leave computer on.

Ofcource this should be done automatically, for exsample if there isn´t disk
activity in say 60 minutes, harddisk could be turned off. And turn on when
there is a need to access disk. This could mean that if data is in memory
harddrive would not need to be running, althought CPU is doing something.

Unfortunately HDOff does not come with source code and I have no
idea how to put this idea in kernel. What I know is that turning on/off motor
can be simply done via normal IDE-cable by sending message to harddrive.

So what do you think about the idea?

Regards
Petri Koistinen