hdparm with AAM support

[alldeadhomiez]

This is Debian hdparm 6.1 built for TiVo/MIPS, with AAM support. It can change the automatic acoustic management (AAM) value on some hard drives, to allow for quieter seeks. You may be able to use this utility in lieu of pulling the drive and running amset on the PC.

Sample usage:

bin/hdparm -I /dev/hda				# list all settings

bin/hdparm -M 128 -k 1 /dev/hda			# works until soft reset
bin/hdparm -M 128 -K 1 /dev/hda			# setting retained across boot

Do not use "-K 1" until you are sure this works. It may render your drive unusable.

Successfully tested on a Maxtor 6Y250P0 under kernel 2.4.20 (Series2.5 v5.4). Factory AAM setting was 254; current setting is 128. The worst case seek noise was reduced substantially (although it is still audible).

In my configuration, a warning message ("HDIO_GET_ACOUSTIC failed: Invalid argument") was produced by the -M option. However, both before and after reboot, hdparm -I reported that the new setting had taken effect anyway.

Discussion thread: http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/sh...ad.php?t=43912

For further reading:

http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/sh...ad.php?t=39095

http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/sh...ad.php?t=40055

http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/sh...ad.php?t=26877