Add support for WD's idle3 command(s)
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#10 Add support for WD's idle3 command(s)
Recent hard disks by Western Digital don't support APM and implement their own policy for power saving. This can be annoying - or even fatal - for some disks, e.g. the head is parked after only 8 secs of inactivity.
I've seen that a first (commented out) hack has been attempted to support the idle3 command(s) (forgive my possible lack of precision); I didn't dare try it before it's deemed stable enough.
I'm the (not so happy) owner of 12 WD Caviar Green 2TB, and I'm humbly willing to assist if it can help speeding up the implementation of the feature.
This should have been added in version 9.38. Though documentation claims it's not somehow as good as it could.
Is idle3ctl also lacking in this regard?
-J Get/set Western DIgital "Idle3" timeout for a WDC "Green" drive (DANGEROUS)
There is support in there, but this was written many years ago, and WD may have changed the protocol. So it might still work, or it might brick your drive. Your call.
WD doesn't tell us how it works, so that's the best shot at it for now.