[mythtv-users] Using X10 to power on external hard drives

Steve Daniels steve.p.daniels at googlemail.com
Thu Sep 11 11:05:28 UTC 2008


2008/9/11 Steve Peters - Priority Electronics <steve at priorityelectronics.com>:
> Hello all,
>
> I have 4 external hard drives on my mythbox that I use to store movies (my
> dvd rips). I want to have those drives turned off most of the time except
> when we decide to watch a movie. I think by keeping the drives powered off,
> I'll extend their life, and save power at the same time.
>
> So I bought this X10 Firecracker thingy that connects to the serial port of
> my computer. You run a simple command and it can turn on or off other X10
> connected devices like my hard drives in this case (which are all connected
> to a single X10 outlet).
>
> What I want to do is have it so that when you turn on the drives, they only
> stay on for 6 or 8 hours. I think this is pretty easy to do, but the issue
> I'm running into is what if someone watches a movie at noon, and someone
> else decides to watch another one at 7pm. Also, the same applies for music,
> as that is stored on these drives.
>
> Also, I want to do it all through myth, and seamlessly without anyone
> knowing that the system is doing this. The idea I had was that when you hit
> the video button on my remote, a script runs to turn the drives on, and at
> the same time, myth goes to the videos screen. Is there a way to have it so
> that the drives are only powered off when there is like an hour of
> inactivity?
>
> What do you guys recommend?
>
> -Thanks
> -Steve
>

Hi Steve,

Have you checked hdparm out? (It's been mentioned quite a bit in
recent days on this very list)

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=hdparm+external+drives&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a
Third link down:
http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-560958.html
Give it a thorough read.

Steve Daniels


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