Package: hdparm Version: 9.58+ds-1 Severity: serious Dear Maintainers,
In this version of hdparm, a new option 'force_spindown_time' was introduced to set the spindown time for disks that don't support APM. This option is supposed to translate to hdparm -S, similarly to the original option 'spindown_time'. hdparm package comes with 3 main scripts: 1) /usr/lib/pm-utils/power.d/95hdparm-apm This script will translate 'force_spindown_time' to hdparm -S and apply the option even if APM was not detected. This is the desired behavior. 2) /etc/apm/event.d/20hdparm This script will ignore /etc/hdparm.conf and apply hard-coded defaults instead. This behavior is unexpected. Expected/Desired behavior: Read /etc/hdparm.conf and apply relevant options. 3) /lib/hdparm/hdparm-functions (sourced from /lib/udev/hdparm, which is invoked by udev rule /lib/udev/rules.d/85-hdparm.rules) - 'force_spindown_time' is buggy because it is not converted back to -S, which leads to a syntax error during hdparm execution (e.g. hdparm force_spindown_time$VALUE instead of hdparm -S$VALUE). - Both options 'spindown_time' and 'force_spindown_time' are processed even if APM is not supported. From the comments in the configuration file (/etc/hdparm.conf), it is understood that 'spindown_time' will be applied for APM disks only and 'force_spindown_time' for all disks (or possibly for non-APM disks only). - The scripts will also apply hard-coded defaults for -S and -B if APM was detected. The hard-coded defaults differ from those used in /etc/apm/event.d/20hdparm, leading to inconsistent behavior. 4) Additional issues with non-APM disks: - Manually invoking hdparm -S$VALUE /dev/sdx is simply ignored even though hdparm executes successfully. The disks do not spin down after the time delay when there was no access. - Manually invoking hdparm -y /dev/sdx will spin down the disks immediately. The disks will not wake up unless they are accessed, which is the expected behavior. These were all working fine in hdparm 9.51+ds-1+deb9u1, which is the current version in stretch. In short, it is currently impossible to obtain a consistent and working configuration for non-APM disks. Many thanks and regards, Sebastien Behuret
