Stronger laptop_mode in Linux

Posted by Vi on Super User See other posts from Super User or by Vi
Published on 2010-03-16T01:43:31Z Indexed on 2010/03/17 17:11 UTC
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Can I have stronger laptop mode in Linux?

I want to spin down the hard drive and prevent it to spin up even if something wants to read something not in cache. In general I want to have these modes:

  1. Normal
  2. Current laptop mode
  3. Stronger laptop mode: spin up only when needs to read something uncached (and cache it). No spinups to write something unless really memory pressure (Exception: explicit "sync" command in console). Kernel is allowed to keep processes in D-sleep for 10 seconds for that.
  4. Forced laptop mode: do not spin up, period. Keep offending processes in D-sleep unless I turn off this mode. Like there is a bomb instead of hard drive.

I also want to have access times tracked (mount -o atime), but I don't want the hard drive to be spinned up only to update them.

Is there some settings or kernel patches that can get closer to this?

May be I should write special io scheduler for "forced laptop mode"? E.g. echo suspend > /sys/block/sda/queue/scheduler to lock the drive and echo cfq > /ys/block/sda/queue/scheduler to unlock it again?

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