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

[Scott Alfter]

Steve Daniels wrote:
> 2008/9/11 Steve Peters - Priority Electronics <steve at priorityelectronics.com>:
>> 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).
>
> Have you checked hdparm out? (It's been mentioned quite a bit in
> recent days on this very list)

hdparm doesn't spin down hard drives connected over USB.  (It probably doesn't 
work over FireWire either, but I've not checked.)  sg_start (part of sg3_utils) 
will spin down USB drives; it's what I use (within a shell script run as a cron 
job) to spin down the external drives that I use for movies and music.

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