Device mix-up - /dev/sdb spundown instead of /dev/sda

[dietriro]

Hi everyone,

I have an issue with hd-idle. When I execute it in the command line with the debug option to check if it's working, it seems like it mixes up my hard drives.

$ sudo hd-idle -i 5 -a /dev/sdb -d
$ sudo hd-idle -i 5 -a /dev/disk/by-uuid/72753d67-6ccb-4933-a3c2-bc4a5dd281e6 -d

probing sda: reads: 634826, writes: 150280
probing sdb: reads: 11192, writes: 0
probing sda: reads: 634826, writes: 150280
probing sdb: reads: 11192, writes: 0
probing sda: reads: 634826, writes: 150280
probing sdb: reads: 11192, writes: 0
probing sda: reads: 634826, writes: 150280
probing sdb: reads: 11192, writes: 0
probing sda: reads: 634826, writes: 150280
probing sdb: reads: 11192, writes: 0
probing sda: reads: 634826, writes: 150280
spindown: sda

It doesn't matter whether I specify the UUID or /dev/sdb, it always spins down sda. If I, however, specify /dev/sda, then it spins down sdb. This seems to me like a bug.

I am running Ubuntu Server 24.04 and hd-idle version 1.05+ds-2.

Thanks in advance for the help.

Cheers,
Robin

[dallmair]

I am running Ubuntu Server 24.04 and hd-idle version 1.05+ds-2.

@dietriro Please note that hd-idle 1.05 lives on Sourceforge and has not seen any updates for more than 10 years. This GitHub repository contains a rewrite created by @adelolmo (many, many thanks for that!!! ❤️), so you might want to upgrade and see whether the issue you reported is actually present in 1.21.

[dietriro]

Thanks a lot for the suggestion. I installed the new version and the mix-up is fixed.

One thing I still find irritating and unnecessary is that, even if I specify -i 0, so disable spin down by default, all hard drives are regularly probed. This seems like an unnecessary overhead to me, right? See the example below for two hard drives. Since sda is an SSD it makes even less sense to probe it since it cannot be spun down.

$ sudo hd-idle -i 0 -a /dev/sdb -i 20 -d
symlinkPolicy=0, defaultIdle=0, defaultCommand=scsi, defaultPowerCondition=0, debug=true, logFile=, devices={name=sdb, givenName=/dev/sdb, idle=20, commandType=scsi, powerCondition=0}
disk=sda command=scsi spunDown=false reads=182458 writes=48 idleTime=0 idleDuration=2 spindown=0001-01-01T00:00:00 spinup=2025-09-20T08:43:54 lastIO=2025-09-20T08:43:54
disk=sdb command=scsi spunDown=false reads=14732 writes=0 idleTime=20 idleDuration=2 spindown=0001-01-01T00:00:00 spinup=2025-09-20T08:43:54 lastIO=2025-09-20T08:43:54
disk=sdb command=scsi spunDown=false reads=14732 writes=0 idleTime=20 idleDuration=4 spindown=0001-01-01T00:00:00 spinup=2025-09-20T08:43:54 lastIO=2025-09-20T08:43:54
disk=sda command=scsi spunDown=false reads=182458 writes=48 idleTime=0 idleDuration=4 spindown=0001-01-01T00:00:00 spinup=2025-09-20T08:43:54 lastIO=2025-09-20T08:43:54
disk=sda command=scsi spunDown=false reads=182458 writes=48 idleTime=0 idleDuration=6 spindown=0001-01-01T00:00:00 spinup=2025-09-20T08:43:54 lastIO=2025-09-20T08:43:54
disk=sdb command=scsi spunDown=false reads=14732 writes=0 idleTime=20 idleDuration=6 spindown=0001-01-01T00:00:00 spinup=2025-09-20T08:43:54 lastIO=2025-09-20T08:43:54
disk=sda command=scsi spunDown=false reads=182458 writes=48 idleTime=0 idleDuration=8 spindown=0001-01-01T00:00:00 spinup=2025-09-20T08:43:54 lastIO=2025-09-20T08:43:54
disk=sdb command=scsi spunDown=false reads=14732 writes=0 idleTime=20 idleDuration=8 spindown=0001-01-01T00:00:00 spinup=2025-09-20T08:43:54 lastIO=2025-09-20T08:43:54
disk=sda command=scsi spunDown=false reads=182458 writes=48 idleTime=0 idleDuration=10 spindown=0001-01-01T00:00:00 spinup=2025-09-20T08:43:54 lastIO=2025-09-20T08:43:54
disk=sdb command=scsi spunDown=false reads=14732 writes=0 idleTime=20 idleDuration=10 spindown=0001-01-01T00:00:00 spinup=2025-09-20T08:43:54 lastIO=2025-09-20T08:43:54
disk=sda command=scsi spunDown=false reads=182458 writes=48 idleTime=0 idleDuration=12 spindown=0001-01-01T00:00:00 spinup=2025-09-20T08:43:54 lastIO=2025-09-20T08:43:54
disk=sdb command=scsi spunDown=false reads=14732 writes=0 idleTime=20 idleDuration=12 spindown=0001-01-01T00:00:00 spinup=2025-09-20T08:43:54 lastIO=2025-09-20T08:43:54
disk=sda command=scsi spunDown=false reads=182458 writes=48 idleTime=0 idleDuration=14 spindown=0001-01-01T00:00:00 spinup=2025-09-20T08:43:54 lastIO=2025-09-20T08:43:54
disk=sdb command=scsi spunDown=false reads=14732 writes=0 idleTime=20 idleDuration=14 spindown=0001-01-01T00:00:00 spinup=2025-09-20T08:43:54 lastIO=2025-09-20T08:43:54
disk=sda command=scsi spunDown=false reads=182458 writes=48 idleTime=0 idleDuration=16 spindown=0001-01-01T00:00:00 spinup=2025-09-20T08:43:54 lastIO=2025-09-20T08:43:54
disk=sdb command=scsi spunDown=false reads=14732 writes=0 idleTime=20 idleDuration=16 spindown=0001-01-01T00:00:00 spinup=2025-09-20T08:43:54 lastIO=2025-09-20T08:43:54
disk=sda command=scsi spunDown=false reads=182458 writes=48 idleTime=0 idleDuration=18 spindown=0001-01-01T00:00:00 spinup=2025-09-20T08:43:54 lastIO=2025-09-20T08:43:54
disk=sdb command=scsi spunDown=false reads=14732 writes=0 idleTime=20 idleDuration=18 spindown=0001-01-01T00:00:00 spinup=2025-09-20T08:43:54 lastIO=2025-09-20T08:43:54
/dev/sdb spindown
disk=sdb command=scsi spunDown=true reads=14732 writes=0 idleTime=20 idleDuration=20 spindown=2025-09-20T08:44:14 spinup=2025-09-20T08:43:54 lastIO=2025-09-20T08:43:54
disk=sda command=scsi spunDown=false reads=182458 writes=48 idleTime=0 idleDuration=20 spindown=0001-01-01T00:00:00 spinup=2025-09-20T08:43:54 lastIO=2025-09-20T08:43:54
disk=sda command=scsi spunDown=false reads=182458 writes=48 idleTime=0 idleDuration=22 spindown=0001-01-01T00:00:00 spinup=2025-09-20T08:43:54 lastIO=2025-09-20T08:43:54
disk=sdb command=scsi spunDown=true reads=14732 writes=0 idleTime=20 idleDuration=22 spindown=2025-09-20T08:44:14 spinup=2025-09-20T08:43:54 lastIO=2025-09-20T08:43:54

This is not cause solely by the debug argument, right?