Re: [OT] Hard Drive Energy Not Worth Conserving drives?

[Andrei Popescu]

On Du, 16 ian 11, 22:55:13, Andrew McGlashan wrote:
> 
> What I mean is, the kernel changes to add broadcom and other
> firmware ... will those parts be non-free or will they remain as
> extras required as they are now.
> 
> I did an install using squeeze rc1 and without using media with
> non-free firmware, it would have been more difficult.
> 
> If the broadcom and other extras coming in 2.6.37 are non-free
> additions, then that would be fantastic; if they aren't well, it
> would be a pity.

I still don't understand exactly what you mean, but maybe this helps:

Debian is only the stuff in "main", everything else (like "contrib" and 
"non-free") is provided only as a service to the users. See point 4 and 
5 of the Social Contract (one of the links in my previous mail).

The Linux kernel used to be the big exception since it contained 
non-free firmware, but was still distributed in "main". This has changed 
now for squeeze. To the best knowledge of the developers, all non-free 
firmware has been split out in firmware-linux-nonfree and is available 
only from the "non-free" archive. AFAIK this was possible also due to 
the help from upstream (the kernel developers), where firmware has been 
split from the drivers.

Considering all of the above, I doubt non-free firmware will ever be 
distributed in "main" again, unless by mistake (bugs can happen). In 
case you need the non-free firmware during the installation there are 
special non-free CD images containing the firmware or you can build you 
own USB stick with all needed stuff.

Hope this explains,
Andrei
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Re: [OT] Hard Drive Energy Not Worth Conserving drives?

[Andrew McGlashan]

Hi,

Andrei Popescu wrote:

On Du, 16 ian 11, 18:48:17, Andrew McGlashan wrote:

Now, when will stable release have a 2.6.37 kernel?


Squeeze will release with 2.6.32. However, 2.6.37 is already available 
in experimental and it (or a higher version) will eventually reach 
testing and from there squeeze-backports. I would estimate 1-2 months 
after squeeze is released.


Excellent.


And are all
those changes "non-free" -- so to be included in "supported"
versions of Debian?


Non-free in Debian means non-DFSG[1][2]. What do you mean?


What I mean is, the kernel changes to add broadcom and other firmware 
... will those parts be non-free or will they remain as extras required 
as they are now.


I did an install using squeeze rc1 and without using media with non-free 
firmware, it would have been more difficult.


If the broadcom and other extras coming in 2.6.37 are non-free 
additions, then that would be fantastic; if they aren't well, it would 
be a pity.


Thanks

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AndrewM

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Re: [OT] Hard Drive Energy Not Worth Conserving drives?

[Camaleón]

On Sun, 16 Jan 2011 18:48:17 +1100, Andrew McGlashan wrote:

(...)

> Now, when will stable release have a 2.6.37 kernel?  And are all those
> changes "non-free" -- so to be included in "supported" versions of
> Debian?

AFAIK, Gparted has support for 4,096 bytes sector size hdd since moths...

But why "non-free"? It looks like it will become a standard:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Format

Greetings,

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Re: [OT] Hard Drive Energy Not Worth Conserving drives?

[Andrei Popescu]

On Du, 16 ian 11, 18:48:17, Andrew McGlashan wrote:
> 
> Now, when will stable release have a 2.6.37 kernel?

Squeeze will release with 2.6.32. However, 2.6.37 is already available 
in experimental and it (or a higher version) will eventually reach 
testing and from there squeeze-backports. I would estimate 1-2 months 
after squeeze is released.

> And are all
> those changes "non-free" -- so to be included in "supported"
> versions of Debian?

Non-free in Debian means non-DFSG[1][2]. What do you mean?

[1] http://www.debian.org/intro/free
[2] http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines

Regards,
Andrei
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Re: [OT] Hard Drive Energy Not Worth Conserving drives?

[Andrew McGlashan]

Hi,

Stefan Monnier wrote:

Read the ATA and SCSI specifications.  Or ask on either mailing list.
In short, the drive presents its LBA addressing based on 512B sectors.
The kernel can't choose to ignore that--it's stuck with it.  Since the
drive is presenting LBA based on 512B sectors, there is no way the
kernel can address LBA based on 4K sectors.



http://www.h-online.com/open/features/Kernel-Log-Coming-in-2-6-37-Part-3-Network-and-storage-hardware-1153025.html


Storage - The H Open Source: News and Features

Numerous changes to the network and storage code are to increase 
processing speed and improve the system's hardware support. Among the 
new additions are a PPTP stack, various drivers for Wi-Fi hardware by 
Atheros, Broadcom and Realtek, and code for hard disks with a logical 
sector size of 4 Kbytes




Now, when will stable release have a 2.6.37 kernel?  And are all those 
changes "non-free" -- so to be included in "supported" versions of Debian?


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AndrewM

Andrew McGlashan
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Re: [OT] Hard Drive Energy Not Worth Conserving drives?

[Stefan Monnier]

> Read the ATA and SCSI specifications.  Or ask on either mailing list.
> In short, the drive presents its LBA addressing based on 512B sectors.
> The kernel can't choose to ignore that--it's stuck with it.  Since the
> drive is presenting LBA based on 512B sectors, there is no way the
> kernel can address LBA based on 4K sectors.

I don't follow: what prevents the kernel from telling the higher-up
tools that the drive uses 4KB sectors (or 72KB sectors for that matter)?

>> In any case, the issue is probably not really in the kernel but in the
>> filesystems and partitioning tools: all that's really needed to use the

> The current "problem" with the hybrid drives is that the partitioning
> utilities don't automatically align partitions on the underlying 4k
> sector boundaries.

I'm glad we agree.

>> Indeed, and for that reason 4KB physical blocks wouldn't cause
>> additional disk space usage.
> The space savings with 4KB sectors has nothing to do with file systems
> or user data.

I was talking about the space usage increase incurred from the use of
≥4KB blocks in the FS, if we assume that the FS uses the underlying HD
block size as a lower-limit of its own block size.

> This is the ONLY reason these 4KB sector drives were developed:  more
> actual end user space on the drive.

That's a different topic, but an interesting one as well: the gain seems
small (e.g. WD has/had two Green 2TB drives, one using 4KB sectors and
the other using good'ol 512B sectors, and this using apparently the
same underlying head/drive technology, so it seems the gain, if any, was
too small to make it to the end user).
So why does WD do that?


Stefan


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Re: [OT] Hard Drive Energy Not Worth Conserving drives?

[Stan Hoeppner]

Stan Hoeppner put forth on 1/12/2011 12:12 PM:

> The
> number of bits of ECC required per 4KB sector is significantly less than that
> occupied by the 4 ECC segments of four 512 byte sectors.  This is the ONLY

This should read 8^ not 4.

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Re: [OT] Hard Drive Energy Not Worth Conserving drives?

[Stan Hoeppner]

Stefan Monnier put forth on 1/11/2011 10:28 PM:

> Isn't it rather than the kernel chooses to only use the logical
> sector size?  Where/when does the drive report 512B physical
> sector sizes?

Read the ATA and SCSI specifications.  Or ask on either mailing list.  In short,
the drive presents its LBA addressing based on 512B sectors.  The kernel can't
choose to ignore that--it's stuck with it.  Since the drive is presenting LBA
based on 512B sectors, there is no way the kernel can address LBA based on 4K
sectors.

> In any case, the issue is probably not really in the kernel but in the
> filesystems and partitioning tools: all that's really needed to use the

The problem is none of those things.  The problem is hybrid drives.  IIRC, the
kernel, libata, libscsi, etc, are all ready for _native_ 4K sector drives.  The
current "problem" with the hybrid drives is that the partitioning utilities
don't automatically align partitions on the underlying 4k sector boundaries.
So, what happens is, in essence, when a filesystem is laid down that uses 4K
blocks, it will lay across 4 _translated_ 512B sectors.  Thus, you end up with a
4K filesystem block that lays across two physical 4K disk sectors.  Thus, each
time that FS block is written, 8*512B sectors must be read and re-written.
Thus, _TWO_ physical 4K disk sectors must be read and re-written instead of just
one on an aligned partition, akin to the the RAID5/6 read/modify/write penalty.
 This misalignment cuts performance by half or more because every FS block write
requires to reads and two writes instead of just one.

> drive efficiently is for fdisk/parted and for mkfs to be told (and make
> use of) the physical block size.  Of course, maybe a good way to provide
> this info is to teach the kernel about it so those tools don't need to
> use side-band info via hdparm.

Maybe you should hit the LKML, GNU fdisk, and GNU parted list archives before
continuing this thread.

>   Indeed, and for that reason 4KB physical blocks wouldn't cause
>   additional disk space usage.

The space savings with 4KB sectors has nothing to do with file systems or user
data.  It has to do with the per sector ECC information that all drives
calculate and store in between sectors to safeguard the data in the sector.  The
number of bits of ECC required per 4KB sector is significantly less than that
occupied by the 4 ECC segments of four 512 byte sectors.  This is the ONLY
reason these 4KB sector drives were developed:  more actual end user space on
the drive.

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Re: [OT] Hard Drive Energy Not Worth Conserving drives?

[Stefan Monnier]

>> # hdparm -I /dev/sdc | grep "Sector size"
>> Logical  Sector size:   512 bytes
>> Physical Sector size:  4096 bytes

> This is reported by the drive to hdparm.  Only the 512 is used by the
> kernel.  It has no knowledge of the 4KB physical block size and can't
> use it because the drive reports 512 bytes to the kernel as the
> physical block size.

Isn't it rather than the kernel chooses to only use the logical
sector size?  Where/when does the drive report 512B physical
sector sizes?

In any case, the issue is probably not really in the kernel but in the
filesystems and partitioning tools: all that's really needed to use the
drive efficiently is for fdisk/parted and for mkfs to be told (and make
use of) the physical block size.  Of course, maybe a good way to provide
this info is to teach the kernel about it so those tools don't need to
use side-band info via hdparm.

>> Don't we already waste that space with our filesystems? Ext2 cannot use
>> blocks smaller than 1024 Bytes, as far as I can see. And by default even
>> 4kB are used for small filesystems (<5GB on my /).
> This depends on the FS and how it allocates space for files.

Indeed: for mail servers, there are 2 issues:
- actual disk space use, which does not have to depend on the block size
  (file systems can use sub-blocks, they just often elect not to).

  > traditional 512 byte/sector disk.  XFS can pack multiple small files
  > into a single 4KB block extent.  It is able to do this thanks to
  > delayed allocation.

  Indeed, and for that reason 4KB physical blocks wouldn't cause
  additional disk space usage.

- performance accessing those small files.  Arguably, when accessing
  such small files, the bandwidth is typically low, so even in the worst
  case where 4KB blocks increase the bandwidth by a factor 8, it's still
  not necessarily going to be part of the bottleneck.


Stefan


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Re: [OT] Hard Drive Energy Not Worth Conserving drives?

[Stan Hoeppner]

Robert Holtzman put forth on 1/11/2011 5:45 PM:

> I said this was the end
> of the OT wrangling and I meant it.

If that's the case, then why did you respond again?  And why are you responding
yet again, to this?

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Re: [OT] Hard Drive Energy Not Worth Conserving drives?

[Robert Holtzman]

On Tue, Jan 11, 2011 at 10:47:01AM -0600, Stan Hoeppner wrote:
> Robert Holtzman put forth on 1/11/2011 1:44 AM:
> > On Mon, Jan 10, 2011 at 04:44:13AM -0600, Stan Hoeppner wrote:
> 
> >> Interesting advice Bob.  Practice it.
> > 
> > I did. Read your post again, especially the part that says "This is
> > because of your liberal political leanings...".
> 
> Yes.  I called black black.  And you blew your cork.  Reread what I was
> responding to, here:
> http://www.linux-archive.org/debian-user/474373-hard-drive-energy-not-worth-conserving-drives.html

I did. There is no hit of any political content. 

> 
> > End of OT discussion. 
> 
> Not quite.

   .snip.

> 
> 
> Did you blow your top because I called Green Green?  Or did you blow your top
> because you thought my classification of his prose was incorrect?  Did you 
> feel
> I was lying?  Why exactly did you blow your top Bob?

You're trying to bait me and I don't bait well. I said this was the end
of the OT wrangling and I meant it. BTW, baiting is also a mark of a
troll. You're not one, are you?

-- 
Bob Holtzman
Key ID: 8D549279
"If you think you're getting free lunch,
 check the price of the beer"


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Re: [OT] Hard Drive Energy Not Worth Conserving drives?

[Stan Hoeppner]

Jochen Schulz put forth on 1/11/2011 12:58 PM:
> Stan Hoeppner:
>> Jochen Schulz put forth on 1/11/2011 3:19 AM:
>>
>>> And those pesky 4k blocks will never take hold. 512 bytes were a good
>>> idea in the 1950s, so what's wrong with it now!?
>>
>> 4KB blocks are great.  Too bad these drives report 512B blocks to the kernel,
>> which is what causes the problem.  "Advanced format" = hybrid, not native.
> 
> My WD10EARS (not the 2TB variant that this thread was about) looks correct:
> 
> # hdparm -I /dev/sdc | grep "Sector size"
> Logical  Sector size:   512 bytes
> Physical Sector size:  4096 bytes

This is reported by the drive to hdparm.  Only the 512 is used by the kernel.
It has no knowledge of the 4KB physical block size and can't use it because the
drive reports 512 bytes to the kernel as the physical block size.  That's
precisely what causes all the problems.

> Don't we already waste that space with our filesystems? Ext2 cannot use
> blocks smaller than 1024 Bytes, as far as I can see. And by default even
> 4kB are used for small filesystems (<5GB on my /).

This depends on the FS and how it allocates space for files.  XFS for example
uses variable length extents.  Each extent is comprised of one or more blocks.
Each block is 4KB (mkfs.xfs default).  Each block is 8 physical sectors on a
traditional 512 byte/sector disk.  XFS can pack multiple small files into a
single 4KB block extent.  It is able to do this thanks to delayed allocation.
This works fairly well on busy mail servers using maildir storage format as many
small files are written in close succession, allowing delayed allocation to pack
many into a single extent.  XFS on a workstation where there may be many minutes
between each small file write will probably not be packing multiple small files
into a single extent.  But XFS isn't really targeted at general use single use
workstations.  It's designed for highly parallel workloads with multiple
concurrent read/write streams--i.e. servers and supercomputers.  Small file
storage efficiency is not a core feature of XFS but a fairly recent optimization
AFAIK.

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Re: [OT] Hard Drive Energy Not Worth Conserving drives?

[Jochen Schulz]

Stan Hoeppner:
> Jochen Schulz put forth on 1/11/2011 3:19 AM:
> 
>> And those pesky 4k blocks will never take hold. 512 bytes were a good
>> idea in the 1950s, so what's wrong with it now!?
> 
> 4KB blocks are great.  Too bad these drives report 512B blocks to the kernel,
> which is what causes the problem.  "Advanced format" = hybrid, not native.

My WD10EARS (not the 2TB variant that this thread was about) looks correct:

# hdparm -I /dev/sdc | grep "Sector size"
Logical  Sector size:   512 bytes
Physical Sector size:  4096 bytes

# hdparm -I /dev/sdc | grep Model
Model Number:   WDC WD10EARS-22Y5B1

> When we have _native_ 4KB sectors things will be much better, at least for
> larger file types.  For mail servers native 4KB sectors will waste a lot of
> platter space...

Don't we already waste that space with our filesystems? Ext2 cannot use
blocks smaller than 1024 Bytes, as far as I can see. And by default even
4kB are used for small filesystems (<5GB on my /).

J.
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Re: [OT] Hard Drive Energy Not Worth Conserving drives?

[Stan Hoeppner]

Jochen Schulz put forth on 1/11/2011 3:19 AM:

> And those pesky 4k blocks will never take hold. 512 bytes were a good
> idea in the 1950s, so what's wrong with it now!?

4KB blocks are great.  Too bad these drives report 512B blocks to the kernel,
which is what causes the problem.  "Advanced format" = hybrid, not native.

When we have _native_ 4KB sectors things will be much better, at least for
larger file types.  For mail servers native 4KB sectors will waste a lot of
platter space...

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Re: [OT] Hard Drive Energy Not Worth Conserving drives?

[Stan Hoeppner]

Robert Holtzman put forth on 1/11/2011 1:44 AM:
> On Mon, Jan 10, 2011 at 04:44:13AM -0600, Stan Hoeppner wrote:

>> Interesting advice Bob.  Practice it.
> 
> I did. Read your post again, especially the part that says "This is
> because of your liberal political leanings...".

Yes.  I called black black.  And you blew your cork.  Reread what I was
responding to, here:
http://www.linux-archive.org/debian-user/474373-hard-drive-energy-not-worth-conserving-drives.html

> End of OT discussion. 

Not quite.

How would a sociology or political science professor at the nearest college or
uni to you likely describe that prose or the person who wrote it?  As a
conservative viewpoint?  No.  S/he would describe it as a liberal viewpoint,
just as I did.

Since when is the mere act of correctly identifying something as being liberal
considered an attack of some nature?  How is this any different than calling
Black Black, or Green Green, or Blue Blue?

Did you blow your top because I called Green Green?  Or did you blow your top
because you thought my classification of his prose was incorrect?  Did you feel
I was lying?  Why exactly did you blow your top Bob?

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Re: [OT] Hard Drive Energy Not Worth Conserving drives?

[Stan Hoeppner]

teddi...@tmo.blackberry.net put forth on 1/10/2011 11:29 PM:
> 
> I think what we mainly should take from all this is Western Digital sucks and 
> we should never buy their crap...
> 
> I know there are some who will disagree with this, so no flames needed...

Not a flame at all here.  Totally agree WRT Green drives.  As I've stated or 
eluded to many times in this thread, I think their Green "advanced format" 
drives Suck--yes that's with a capital S.  

They may be OK under MS Windows but not Linux.  They may yet work well with 
Linux if/when the partitioners get up to speed.  However I think the power 
savings push is a joke.  Most of the people buying them aren't using them in a 
manner conducive to allowing them to shut down aggressively as they are 
programmed to.  I'm guessing many of these Green drives will start failing at 
the 2-3 year mark due to excessive head parking, prompting WD to pull them from 
the market or rewrite the firmware so they're not as aggressively "Green".  
They'll then rename them after the current Green brand gets a bad reputation.  
They'll rename the entire line, eliminating the Blue and Green lines 
altogether. The new name will be something like "Azure" with marketing speak 
something like "the best features of the former Blue and Green drives".  
They'll keep the Black drives, and introduce a new line so they still have 
three lines.  The new one will be called something like "Red" with a subtitle "F
ormula 1 Ferrari Red" and will be a 10k rpm drive replacing the Raptor line.  
Disclaimer:  I don't work for WDC.  If these things come to pass, it is 
strictly coincidence I mentioned them first. :)

The Blue drives are fine.  My server, through which this email will travel on 
its way to you, uses a single 3.5" 500GB WD Blue drive.  Runs like a champ, no 
problems.  Installed Oct 3, 2009, IIRC:

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME  FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE  UPDATED  
WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x002f   200   200   051Pre-fail  Always   
-   0
  3 Spin_Up_Time0x0027   143   142   021Pre-fail  Always   
-   3808
  4 Start_Stop_Count0x0032   100   100   000Old_age   Always   
-   33
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   200   200   140Pre-fail  Always   
-   0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x002e   200   200   000Old_age   Always   
-   0
  9 Power_On_Hours  0x0032   087   087   000Old_age   Always   
-   9494
 10 Spin_Retry_Count0x0032   100   253   000Old_age   Always   
-   0
 11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0032   100   253   000Old_age   Always   
-   0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count   0x0032   100   100   000Old_age   Always   
-   32
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032   200   200   000Old_age   Always   
-   17
193 Load_Cycle_Count0x0032   200   200   000Old_age   Always   
-   15
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022   118   104   000Old_age   Always   
-   25
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   200   200   000Old_age   Always   
-   0
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0032   200   200   000Old_age   Always   
-   0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0030   200   200   000Old_age   Offline  
-   0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count0x0032   200   200   000Old_age   Always   
-   0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x0008   200   200   000Old_age   Offline  
-   0

I have no personal experience with the Black series drives, but I've neither 
heard nor read anything bad about them.

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Re: [OT] Hard Drive Energy Not Worth Conserving drives?

[Jochen Schulz]

teddi...@tmo.blackberry.net:
> 
> I think what we mainly should take from all this is Western Digital
> sucks and we should never buy their crap...

Yeah, we should rush out and buy Samsung drives with their faulty
firmware which "forgets" write operations if one sends the wrong IDE
command at the right time. (I know, there's a fix, but since it has the
same version nuber as the buggy firmware, you can never be sure. :))

And those pesky 4k blocks will never take hold. 512 bytes were a good
idea in the 1950s, so what's wrong with it now!?

J.
-- 
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[Agree]   [Disagree]
 


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Re: [OT] Hard Drive Energy Not Worth Conserving drives?

[Robert Holtzman]

On Mon, Jan 10, 2011 at 04:44:13AM -0600, Stan Hoeppner wrote:
> Robert Holtzman put forth on 1/9/2011 7:00 PM:
> > On Sun, Jan 09, 2011 at 03:37:41PM -0600, Stan Hoeppner wrote:
> 
> >> This is because of your liberal political leanings, which have no place
> >> here.  This is a technical discussion list, so keep it technical.
> > 
> > I was with you right up until that last sentence. You people always wind
> > up framing every dispute in political terms. Since you pointed out that
> > this is a technical discussion list, STFU with the political garbage.
> 
> 
> Robert Holtzman put forth on 12/31/2010 3:40 PM:
> 
> > Take a tip: don't jump to unwarranted conclusions.
> 
> 
> Interesting advice Bob.  Practice it.

I did. Read your post again, especially the part that says "This is
because of your liberal political leanings...".

End of OT discussion. 

-- 
Bob Holtzman
Key ID: 8D549279
"If you think you're getting free lunch,
 check the price of the beer"


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Re: [OT] Hard Drive Energy Not Worth Conserving drives?

[teddieeb]

I think what we mainly should take from all this is Western Digital sucks and 
we should never buy their crap...

I know there are some who will disagree with this, so no flames needed...

TeddyB


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Re: [OT] Hard Drive Energy Not Worth Conserving drives?

[Stan Hoeppner]

Robert Holtzman put forth on 1/9/2011 7:00 PM:
> On Sun, Jan 09, 2011 at 03:37:41PM -0600, Stan Hoeppner wrote:

>> This is because of your liberal political leanings, which have no place
>> here.  This is a technical discussion list, so keep it technical.
> 
> I was with you right up until that last sentence. You people always wind
> up framing every dispute in political terms. Since you pointed out that
> this is a technical discussion list, STFU with the political garbage.


Robert Holtzman put forth on 12/31/2010 3:40 PM:

> Take a tip: don't jump to unwarranted conclusions.


Interesting advice Bob.  Practice it.


-- 
Stan


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Re: [OT] Hard Drive Energy Not Worth Conserving drives?

[Lisi]

On Sunday 09 January 2011 21:37:41 Stan Hoeppner wrote:
> I'm sure your grandmother has told you at least once, "Save your
> dollars and the pennies take care of themselves."  Save thing.  It was
> good advice when she gave it to you, and it's good advice today.

Here in the UK we have a saying which is the complete opposite: "Take care of 
the pence, and the pounds will take care of themselves". 

http://www.google.co.uk/search?num=30&hl=en&q=%22Take+care+of+the+pence%2C+and+the+pounds+will+take+care+of+themselves%22&btnG=Search&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=
http://www.answers.com/topic/take-care-of-the-pence-and-the-pounds-will-take-care-of-themselves

Lisi


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Re: [OT] Hard Drive Energy Not Worth Conserving drives?

[Robert Holtzman]

On Sun, Jan 09, 2011 at 03:37:41PM -0600, Stan Hoeppner wrote:
> 
> This is because of your liberal political leanings, which have no place
> here.  This is a technical discussion list, so keep it technical.

I was with you right up until that last sentence. You people always wind
up framing every dispute in political terms. Since you pointed out that
this is a technical discussion list, STFU with the political garbage.

-- 
Bob Holtzman
Key ID: 8D549279
"If you think you're getting free lunch,
 check the price of the beer"


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Re: [OT] Hard Drive Energy Not Worth Conserving drives?

[Stan Hoeppner]

Phil Requirements put forth on 1/9/2011 12:48 PM:
> On 2011-01-09 08:02:05 -0600, Stan Hoeppner wrote:
>> If one is so power consumption conscious to be suckered into a Green
>> (EARS) drive, then one needs to realize the CPU dissipates about 10
>> times the wattage/heat of a hard drive.  Thus, concentrate your power
>> saving efforts elsewhere than the disk drive.  Buy a non "green" drive,
>> and save yourself these sector alignment/performance headaches.

> I just wanted to mention that this is a type of faulty logic that

FULL STOP.

My logic is not faulty in the least bit, and your examples below are a
bunch of crap.  Here's why:  all of the excuses you list below are just
that:  excuses people give as to why they don't want to use CFLs, etc.
Each phantom person you list is passing the buck to an entity that
everyone knows isn't going to change.

> we run into all the time when trying to conserve energy. The idea
> that if a second thing can conserve more energy than the first, then
> we do not need to conserve energy in the first thing.

This is _NOT_ what I did when I said concentrate on the CPU power
dissipation first, then worry about the HD.  I was not passing the buck.
 There is a _HUGE_ difference.

As far as my logic being faulty?  Since you're so fond of analogy,
here's a much more applicable one for you:  if your carotid artery has
been slashed and you're bleeding to death, you need to address that
before addressing your bleeding hang nail.  Once your life is saved, fix
the hang nail.  It's simply a matter of priorities, and one should
address the larger concern first.

CPU power dissipation in modern CPUs ranges from around 45 to 135 watts
under full load.  The most power hungry of modern hard drives max out at
around 10 watts under heavy seek loads, a ratio of 4:1 to 13:1.

Now, compare a WD Green drive's power consumption in all modes against a
Blue drive.  The differences are insignificant compared to the amount of
power you can save by making sure your system is optimized to keep CPU
consumption at a minimum.  PRIORITIZE your efforts to maximize gain.

Now, with all of that said, the assumption is that in this discussion
thread we're focusing on desktop computers with one or two drives, since
most folks on debian-users are desktop/laptop users, not SAs.  If this
were a list full of SAs my statements would likely be different WRT disk
power consumption, as SAs are are typically managing large disk arrays,
and many of them, whose power consumption can rival, or exceed, that of
server CPUs.  For "online" storage systems you can't enable per drive
power saving features, as the arrays are under constant access.  For
"near line" arrays, such as tape replacement D2D backup systems and the
like, or database systems that's aren't accessed much from 7pm to 7am,
you can deep sleep the drives when the system isn't doing much.

 Anyway, nothing personal or angry. 

Well, yeah, you did make it personal when you called my logic faulty,
when it is absolutely right on the money.

> I just wanted to mention that I seed
> this as a logic fault, 

This is because of your liberal political leanings, which have no place
here.  This is a technical discussion list, so keep it technical.

> and it particularly happens around energy
> conservation. My own opinion is that you should get energy savings
> everywhere you can.

Key words:  "my opinion"  You're stating opinion.

I'm stating sound technical policies and backing them with technical
detail and logical reasoning.

Your goals are laudable.  I offer you a bit of advice:

1.  Start with the big stuff and the little stuff takes care of itself.
 I'm sure your grandmother has told you at least once, "Save your
dollars and the pennies take care of themselves."  Save thing.  It was
good advice when she gave it to you, and it's good advice today.

2.  Don't be a zealot, which is what you've done here.

3.  Don't call out perfectly reasoned, logical, technical advice, as
"faulty" simply because it doesn't fit in your personal political belief
system.

> There is a separate point to argue about whether Western Digital
> hard drives are really "Green" because they use less energy, or
> if WD is using the term "Green" to market and sell inferior
> technology.

As with all products, it's a little of both.  They do use less energy,
if you don't use them.  But you buys a drive to not use it?  Regardless,
my argument against the Green drives still stands on solid technical
feet, no matter how much _less_ power they use than other drives.  The
total power consumption compared to other components is too small to
worry about, unless/until you address the others.

-- 
Stan


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Re: [OT] Hard Drive Energy Not Worth Conserving drives?

[Phil Requirements]

On 2011-01-09 08:02:05 -0600, Stan Hoeppner wrote:
> If one is so power consumption conscious to be suckered into a Green
> (EARS) drive, then one needs to realize the CPU dissipates about 10
> times the wattage/heat of a hard drive.  Thus, concentrate your power
> saving efforts elsewhere than the disk drive.  Buy a non "green" drive,
> and save yourself these sector alignment/performance headaches.

Hi,

I just wanted to mention that this is a type of faulty logic that
we run into all the time when trying to conserve energy. The idea
that if a second thing can conserve more energy than the first, then
we do not need to conserve energy in the first thing.

It can go like this:

The first person comes along and says, "Why are you so worried about
phantom power, when you can get so much more savings from switching to
CFL light bulbs?"

The second person comes along and says, "CFL light bulbs? Why bother
when city street lights are on ALL NIGHT LONG?".

The third person comes along and says, "City street lights? What about
heating and cooling AIR PORTS around the clock?!.

Anyway, nothing personal or angry. I just wanted to mention that I seed
this as a logic fault, and it particularly happens around energy
conservation. My own opinion is that you should get energy savings
everywhere you can.

There is a separate point to argue about whether Western Digital
hard drives are really "Green" because they use less energy, or
if WD is using the term "Green" to market and sell inferior
technology.

Hope this helps,

Phil


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