Slashdot Mirror


Delaying Hard Drive Power Up?

Bamfarooni asks: "Does anyone know of a device that will delay powering up your hard-drives (or other internal devices)? We're trying to put a pile of IDE disks into a big disk server but the spin-up power for these disks is about 3x the maximum operating current. Rather than put in something really big like an 800W power supply, if we could just put something in-line that delayed the power through specific connectors for ~1 second, then we could mange with the built-in power supplies we already have." An interesting thought, but wouldn't the BIOS need to be aware of whatever delay is introduced? Otherwise it may interpret the delay wrongly and think that the drives on the IDE chain have timed out and are faulty.

1 of 53 comments (clear)

  1. Umm... by haplo21112 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What not put the Drives in a separate box, with its own power supply that way you can start that box 10 seconds before the main CPU box....ATX tower case 350`400watt power supply fits/powers 8-12 drives $100...cheap and easy.

    --
    Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.