auto-standby for HDs under ACPI

[Jing Su]

Hello All,

I recently got a new computer, and with it this new fangled ACPI interface
instead of the old fashioned APM.  What I can't figure out is how to get
my HDs to spin down and go into standby after a set amount of inactivity.
With the old APM interface, I told the BIOS to power-down the device after
20 minutes of non-activity.  But there is no such option in this new BIOS.

I've got ACPI compiled into the kernel (2.6.9) under Gentoo.  But I can't
figure out how to detect/issue HD standby.  Maybe I'm brain-dead, but I've
googgled for ACPI, and I've only found examples on making the system as a
whole go into standby or sleep.  Nothing specific for HD standby.

I know that I can manually make the HDs go into standby by doing (as root)
hdparm -y /dev/hdb
But I want the system to do this automatically for me after 20 (or
whatever) minutes of inactivity.

Any help appreciated!

-Jing

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