How to Install and Uninstall hd-idle Package on Ubuntu 21.10 (Impish Indri)

Last updated: December 23,2024

1. Install "hd-idle" package

This tutorial shows how to install hd-idle on Ubuntu 21.10 (Impish Indri)


    
        
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                sudo apt update
            
                    
    
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                sudo apt install
            
                        
                hd-idle
            
                    
    
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2. Uninstall "hd-idle" package

Please follow the steps below to uninstall hd-idle on Ubuntu 21.10 (Impish Indri):


    
        
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                sudo apt remove
            
                        
                hd-idle
            
                    
    
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                sudo apt autoclean && sudo apt autoremove
            
                    
    
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3. Information about the hd-idle package on Ubuntu 21.10 (Impish Indri)

Package: hd-idle
Architecture: amd64
Version: 1.05+ds-2
Priority: optional
Section: universe/admin
Origin: Ubuntu
Maintainer: Ubuntu Developers
Original-Maintainer: Alexandre Mestiashvili
Bugs: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+filebug
Installed-Size: 56
Pre-Depends: init-system-helpers (>= 1.54~)
Depends: lsb-base, libc6 (>= 2.7)
Filename: pool/universe/h/hd-idle/hd-idle_1.05+ds-2_amd64.deb
Size: 15508
MD5sum: 84c4077f7afe574b8b1d1e428af86ab6
SHA1: e030fe7e751d501aea5aab816c5dbce6dac1f3d3
SHA256: 648e5eb672a4c087280c247190fb8e448bc662293dada9950a8cb10104294953
SHA512: 849ed744463f1ce8d49e46f6cdb1ac51de2810f36fcd2c5694e958e1110d94a635410e9abc0f0b58f160ae5ab353a4dd4ea6fba4339b120880032a0cd98bf78c
Homepage: http://hd-idle.sf.net
Description-en: Spin down idle [USB] hard disks
hd-idle is a utility program for spinning-down external disks after a period
of idle time. Since most external IDE disk enclosures don't support setting
the IDE idle timer, a program like hd-idle is required to spin down idle disks
automatically.
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A word of caution: hard disks don't like spinning up too often. Laptop disks
are more robust in this respect than desktop disks but if you set your disks
to spin down after a few seconds you may damage the disk over time due to the
stress the spin-up causes on the spindle motor and bearings. It seems that
manufacturers recommend a minimum idle time of 3-5 minutes, the default in
hd-idle is 10 minutes.
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One more word of caution: hd-idle will spin down any disk accessible via the
SCSI layer (USB, IEEE1394, ...) but it will not work with real SCSI disks
because they don't spin up automatically. Thus it's not called scsi-idle and
It is not recommended to use it on a real SCSI system unless you have a kernel
patch that automatically starts the SCSI disks after receiving a sense buffer
indicating the disk has been stopped. Without such a patch, real SCSI disks
won't start again and you can as well pull the plug.
Description-md5: ce146f67dc9580b65dfd2b2293631587