Thinkpads Forum

Is there any setting that can be done to make the hard drive more energy saving when on battery? The battery life is good (I'm getting about 5 hours with wireless - not bad for a X1400 video card and 15" flexview screen doing more than just reading text), but it seems like if I let the hard drive idle I could get an extra 1.5 hours (and it's not doing graphic or cpu intensive things that make up part of that difference, just hard drive intensive).
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Yup; you can use NHC to fine tune the settings as there is more than just the spin-down setting that Windows gives you for HDD power management. If you have a Hitachi drive, then you can also use HItachi's tools to get slightly better power savings than a general HDD power management program would.

christopher_wolf wrote:Yup; you can use NHC to fine tune the settings as there is more than just the spin-down setting that Windows gives you for HDD power management. If you have a Hitachi drive, then you can also use HItachi's tools to get slightly better power savings than a general HDD power management program would.

I do have a Hitachi drive. Where do I get said tools?
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HD Tune

Sorry for piggybacking on your topic. I set my hard drive to quiet in acoustic (I can't remember the exact name) settings. Would this ultimately reduce power consumption as well?

Marlinspike, here are the tools available for download. HDTune is useful to have as well.

Usually, quiet acoustics mean that the HDD doesn't spool-up as often and that translates into minor power savings.

So, do the settings set in the Hitachi Feature Tool only affect the computer when on battery? I want to make sure I'm getting every last bit of power when I'm on AC.
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marlinspike wrote:So, do the settings set in the Hitachi Feature Tool only affect the computer when on battery? I want to make sure I'm getting every last bit of power when I'm on AC.
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You can set it; with PowerBooster, they automatically take it all the way down on battery. They come back up to full performance when on AC.

christopher_wolf wrote:

marlinspike wrote:So, do the settings set in the Hitachi Feature Tool only affect the computer when on battery? I want to make sure I'm getting every last bit of power when I'm on AC.
Thanks

You can set it; with PowerBooster, they automatically take it all the way down on battery. They come back up to full performance when on AC.

Man, I wish Microsoft would come out with one of these so that there would only be one option (and maybe some other option that only beatniks would use). So...should I use the bootable CD I made to set the hard drive back to defaults then use PowerBooster?

If you want, yes; I use PowerBooster2K and find that it does a good job and is responsive.

Hmmm, IBM says powerbooster has been retired, so does anybody know if the Hitachi tool only affects the drive when under battery power?

It affects the drive both on battery power and AC line power; I have used it in both situations and it does indeed configure the drive power usage differently along with the acoustics.

christopher_wolf wrote:It affects the drive both on battery power and AC line power; I have used it in both situations and it does indeed configure the drive power usage differently along with the acoustics.

Ok, slowly for a simpleton like myself, how do you differentiate? Do you just do it once while plugged in then again when unplugged and it knows? I didn't see an option anywhere in the adjustments.

After you install, you should see a "PowerBooster2K" entry in the Program Files section of the Start Menu. It usually runs as a service after you launch it from that. That brings up a slider along with a systray icon which it minimizes to. The slider controls the power settings and has options that you can set for auto-management when you go on battery and back to AC line power.

Oh, I see, you're talking about the Hitachi PowerBooster. It says its for Win95 and 98...you're saying it works with a SATA150 drive in WinXP?

Edit: nope it doesn't - it says it's not controlling any drives.

I don't know if we are talking about the same thing, this works with NT, 2000, and XP and the change in the drive states shows up in file I/O and benchmarking. Here is a Screenshot.

Yup, thats the thing I'm talking about. It says that it's not controlling any drives...perhaps because this is SATA150 and not ATA100? The Bootable CD one (Features Tool on that same link you gave) works, but I don't care for it very much.

One of the other tools that can do the job, live, then is NHC although it doesn't give you as much flexibility with the HDD as either the feature tool or PB2k.