I previously posted about the Supermac C500/200 32MB, one Dayna 10BT (de)
and one SMC 10/100 card (rtk) 2GB WD IDE disk & stock SCSI CD-ROM. I
recently upgraded the 2GB IDE drive with a Seagate 4.3GB Barracuda. The
upgrade went well until I unplugged the box to move it back into it's
original position. It wouldn't boot off the IDE or the SCSI disk, I got the
Default Catch! thing. I was pretty frustrated until I remember that I used
the System Disk that came with my Darwin 0.3 disk. I booted from the CD ran
system disk, ignored the message saying System Disk would have no effect on
my machine and the fact the it didn't seem to make any changes to my OF
settings. Back in OF I booted right off the SCSI disk no problems. The
lesson is, even if System Disk isn't supposed to support your machine, give
it a try if you are having booting problems.

That leads to my question. The Barracuda is much faster than the IDE disk it
replaced but it is also louder, hotter and (I assume) draws more power. Is
it possible to spin down a SCSI hard disk in NetBSD? I've done some
searching but the only thing I've found relates to apm which, as far as I
understand is a i386 thing. I'm running -current on my gateway box that does
NAT and serves Appletalk volumes for myself and my GF's powerbook. I'd like
to be able to spin down the disk over night or when I know the Appletalk
volumes are not going to be used. Is this doable? Will the box still perform
NAT with the root disk spun down?

thanks, 

Matthew