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HDPARM(8)							     HDPARM(8)

NAME
       hdparm - get/set SATA/IDE device parameters

SYNOPSIS
       hdparm [options] [device ...]

DESCRIPTION
       hdparm  provides	 a command line interface to various kernel interfaces
       supported by the Linux SATA/PATA/SAS "libata" subsystem and  the	 older
       IDE driver subsystem.  Many newer (2008 and later) USB drive enclosures
       now also support "SAT" (SCSI-ATA Command Translation) and therefore may
       also  work  with	 hdparm.   E.g. recent WD "Passport" models and recent
       NexStar-3 enclosures.  Some options may work correctly  only  with  the
       latest kernels.

OPTIONS
       When  no	 options  are  given,  -acdgkmur  is  assumed.	 For "Get/set"
       options, a query without the optional parameter (e.g.  -d)  will	 query
       (get)  the  device state, and with a parameter (e.g., -d0) will set the
       device state.

       -a     Get/set sector count for filesystem (software) read-ahead.  This
	      is  used	to  improve  performance  in sequential reads of large
	      files, by prefetching additional blocks in anticipation of  them
	      being  needed  by the running task.  Many IDE drives also have a
	      separate	built-in  read-ahead  function,	 which	augments  this
	      filesystem (software) read-ahead function.

       -A     Get/set  the  IDE	 drive´s read-lookahead feature (usually ON by
	      default).	 Usage: -A0 (disable) or -A1 (enable).

       -b     Get/set bus state.

       -B     Get/set Advanced Power Management feature, if the drive supports
	      it.  A  low  value  means aggressive power management and a high
	      value means better performance.  Possible	 settings  range  from
	      values  1	 through  127 (which permit spin-down), and values 128
	      through 254 (which do not permit spin-down).  The highest degree
	      of  power	 management  is	 attained with a setting of 1, and the
	      highest I/O performance with a setting of 254.  A value  of  255
	      tells  hdparm to disable Advanced Power Management altogether on
	      the drive (not all drives support disabling it, but most do).

       -c     Get/set (E)IDE 32-bit I/O support.  A numeric parameter  can  be
	      used  to enable/disable 32-bit I/O support.  Currently supported
	      values include 0 to disable 32-bit  I/O  support,	 1  to	enable
	      32-bit  data  transfers,	and  3 to enable 32-bit data transfers
	      with a special sync sequence required  by	 many  chipsets.   The
	      value  3	works  with nearly all 32-bit IDE chipsets, but incurs
	      slightly more overhead.	Note  that  "32-bit"  refers  to  data
	      transfers	 across	 a  PCI or VLB bus to the interface card only;
	      all (E)IDE drives still have only a 16-bit connection  over  the
	      ribbon cable from the interface card.

       -C     Check  the  current  IDE power mode status, which will always be
	      one  of  unknown	(drive	does  not   support   this   command),
	      active/idle  (normal  operation), standby (low power mode, drive
	      has spun down), or sleeping (lowest power mode,  drive  is  com‐
	      pletely  shut down).  The -S, -y, -Y, and -Z options can be used
	      to manipulate the IDE power modes.

       -d     Get/set the "using_dma" flag for this drive.   This  option  now
	      works  with most combinations of drives and PCI interfaces which
	      support DMA and which are known to the kernel IDE driver.	 It is
	      also a good idea to use the appropriate -X option in combination
	      with -d1 to ensure that the drive itself is programmed  for  the
	      correct  DMA mode, although most BIOSs should do this for you at
	      boot time.  Using DMA nearly always gives the best  performance,
	      with  fast  I/O  throughput and low CPU usage.  But there are at
	      least a few configurations of chipsets and drives for which  DMA
	      does not make much of a difference, or may even slow things down
	      (on really messed up hardware!).	Your mileage may vary.

       --dco-freeze
	      DCO stands for Device Configuration Overlay, a way  for  vendors
	      to  selectively disable certain features of a drive.  The --dco-
	      freeze option will freeze/lock the current drive	configuration,
	      thereby  preventing  software (or malware) from changing any DCO
	      settings until after the next power-on reset.

       --dco-identify
	      Query and dump information regarding  drive  configuration  set‐
	      tings  which  can	 be  disabled  by the vendor or OEM installer.
	      These settings show capabilities of the  drive  which  might  be
	      disabled	by the vendor for "enhanced compatibility".  When dis‐
	      abled, they are otherwise hidden and will not  show  in  the  -I
	      identify	output.	 For example, system vendors sometimes disable
	      48_bit addressing on large drives, for compatibility  (and  loss
	      of  capacity)  with a specific BIOS.  In such cases, --dco-iden‐
	      tify will show that the drive is 48_bit capable, but -I will not
	      show it, and nor will the drive accept 48_bit commands.

       --dco-restore
	      Reset  all  drive	 settings, features, and accessible capacities
	      back to factory defaults and full	 capabilities.	 This  command
	      will  fail  if  DCO  is  frozen/locked, or if a -Np maximum size
	      restriction has also been set.  This is EXTREMELY DANGEROUS  and
	      will  very  likely  cause massive loss of data.  DO NOT USE THIS
	      COMMAND.

       --direct
	      Use the kernel´s "O_DIRECT" flag when  performing	 a  -t	timing
	      test.   This  bypasses  the  page cache, causing the reads to go
	      directly from the drive into hdparm's buffers,  using  so-called
	      "raw"  I/O.  In many cases, this can produce results that appear
	      much faster than the usual page cache method,  giving  a	better
	      indication of raw device and driver performance.

       --drq-hsm-error
	      VERY  DANGEROUS,	DON'T  EVEN THINK ABOUT USING IT.  This option
	      causes hdparm to issue an IDENTIFY command to  the  kernel,  but
	      incorrectly marked as a "non-data" command.  This results in the
	      drive being left with its	 DataReQust(DRQ)  line	"stuck"	 high.
	      This confuses the kernel drivers, and may crash the system imme‐
	      diately with massive data loss.  The option exists  to  help  in
	      testing  and  fortifying	the  kernel against similar real-world
	      drive malfunctions.  VERY DANGEROUS, DO NOT USE!!

       -D     Enable/disable the on-drive defect management  feature,  whereby
	      the  drive firmware tries to automatically manage defective sec‐
	      tors by relocating them to "spare" sectors reserved by the  fac‐
	      tory for such.  Control of this feature via the -D option is not
	      supported for most modern drives since ATA-4; thus this  command
	      may fail.

       -E     Set cd/dvd drive speed.  This is NOT necessary for regular oper‐
	      ation, as the drive will automatically switch speeds on its own.
	      But  if  you  want  to  play with it, just supply a speed number
	      after the option, usually a number like 2 or  4.	 This  can  be
	      useful in some cases, though, to smooth out DVD video playback.

       -f     Sync  and	 flush	the buffer cache for the device on exit.  This
	      operation is also performed internally as part of the -t and  -T
	      timings and other options.

       --fallocate
	      This  option  currently  works  only  on ext4 and xfs filesystem
	      types.  When used, this must  be	the  only  option  given.   It
	      requires	two  parameters:  the  desired file size in kilo-bytes
	      (byte count divided by 1024), followed by the pathname  for  the
	      new  file.  It will create a new file of the specified size, but
	      without actually having to write any data	 to  the  file.	  This
	      will  normally  complete very quickly, and without thrashing the
	      storage device.

	      E.g. Create a 10KByte file: hdparm --fallocate 10 temp_file

       --fibmap
	      When used, this must be the only option given.   It  requires  a
	      file path as a parameter, and will print out a list of the block
	      extents (sector ranges) occupied by that file on	disk.	Sector
	      numbers  are given as absolute LBA numbers, referenced from sec‐
	      tor 0 of the physical device rather than from the	 partition  or
	      filesystem.   This information can then be used for a variety of
	      purposes, such as examining the degree of fragmenation of larger
	      files,  or  determining appropriate sectors to deliberately cor‐
	      rupt during fault-injection testing procedures.

	      This option uses the new FIEMAP (file extent map)	 ioctl()  when
	      available,  and  falls back to the older FIBMAP (file block map)
	      ioctl() otherwise.  Note	that  FIBMAP  suffers  from  a	32-bit
	      block-number  interface,	and  thus not work beyond 8TB or 16TB.
	      FIBMAP is also very slow, and does not deal well	with  preallo‐
	      cated  uncommitted  extents  in  ext4/xfs	 filesystems, unless a
	      sync() is done before using this option.

       --fibmap-sector
	      When used, this must be the only flag given.  It requires a file
	      path  followed  by  a  sector number as parameters.  This sector
	      number is given relative to the start of the  file  itself,  not
	      the  device. hdparm will scan the device extents occupied by the
	      file, and print out the absolute LBA  number  of	the  requested
	      sector of the file.  This LBA number is referenced from sector 0
	      of the physical device (not the partition or filesystem).	  This
	      LBA  value can then be used for a variety of purposes, including
	      determining an appropriate sector to deliberately corrupt during
	      fault-injection testing procedures.

       --fwdownload
	      When  used, this should be the only option given.	 It requires a
	      file path immediately after the option, indicating where the new
	      drive  firmware  should be read from.  The contents of this file
	      will be sent to the drive using the  (S)ATA  DOWNLOAD  MICROCODE
	      command, using either transfer protocol 7 (entire file at once),
	      or, if the drive supports it,  transfer  protocol	 3  (segmented
	      download).   This	 command  is  EXTREMELY	 DANGEROUS  and	 could
	      destroy both the drive and all data on it.  DO NOT USE THIS COM‐
	      MAND.   The  --fwdownload-mode3  ,  --fwdownload-mode3-max , and
	      --fwdownload-mode7 variations on basic --fwdownload allow	 over‐
	      riding  automatic protocol detection in favour of forcing hdparm
	      to use a specific transfer protocol, for testing purposes only.

       -F     Flush the on-drive write cache  buffer  (older  drives  may  not
	      implement this).

       -g     Display the drive geometry (cylinders, heads, sectors), the size
	      (in sectors) of the device, and the starting offset (in sectors)
	      of the device from the beginning of the drive.

       -h     Display terse usage information (help).

       -H     Read  the	 temperature  from some (mostly Hitachi) drives.  Also
	      reports if the temperature is within operating  condition	 range
	      (this  may not be reliable). Does not cause the drive to spin up
	      if idle.

       -i     Display the identification info which the kernel	drivers	 (IDE,
	      libata) have stored from boot/configuration time.	 This may dif‐
	      fer from the current information obtainable  directly  from  the
	      drive  itself  with the -I option.  The data returned may or may
	      not be current, depending on activity since booting the  system.
	      For  a  more detailed interpretation of the identification info,
	      refer to AT Attachment  Interface	 for  Disk  Drives,  ANSI  ASC
	      X3T9.2  working  draft, revision 4a, April 19/93, and later edi‐
	      tions.

       --idle-immediate
	      Issue an ATA IDLE_IMMEDIATE command, to put  the	drive  into  a
	      lower power state.  Usually the device remains spun-up.

       --idle-unload
	      Issue  an	 ATA  IDLE_IMMEDIATE_WITH_UNLOAD command, to unload or
	      park the heads and put the drive into a lower power state.  Usu‐
	      ally the device remains spun-up.

       -I     Request  identification  info  directly from the drive, which is
	      displayed in a new expanded format with considerably more detail
	      than with the older -i option.

       --Istdin
	      This  is	a  special variation on the -I option, which accepts a
	      drive identification block as standard input instead of using  a
	      /dev/hd*	parameter.   The  format of this block must be exactly
	      the same as that found in the /proc/ide/*/hd*/identify  "files",
	      or  that produced by the --Istdout option described below.  This
	      variation is designed for	 use  with  collected  "libraries"  of
	      drive  identification information, and can also be used on ATAPI
	      drives which may give media errors with the standard  mechanism.
	      When --Istdin is used, it must be the *only* parameter given.

       --Istdout
	      This option dumps the drive's identify data in hex to stdout, in
	      a format similar to that from /proc/ide/*/identify, and suitable
	      for later use with the --Istdin option.

       -J     Get/set  the  Western Digital (WD) Green Drive's "idle3" timeout
	      value.  This timeout controls how	 often	the  drive  parks  its
	      heads  and  enters  a  low power consumption state.  The factory
	      default is eight (8) seconds, which is a very  poor  choice  for
	      use  with	 Linux.	 Leaving it at the default will result in hun‐
	      dreds of thousands of head load/unload cycles in	a  very	 short
	      period  of  time.	 The drive mechanism is only rated for 300,000
	      to 1,000,000 cycles, so leaving it at the default	 could	result
	      in  premature  failure, not to mention the performance impact of
	      the drive often having to wake-up before doing routine I/O.

	      WD supply a WDIDLE3.EXE DOS utility for tweaking	this  setting,
	      and you should use that program instead of hdparm if at all pos‐
	      sible.  The reverse-engineered implementation in hdparm  is  not
	      as  complete  as	the  original official program, even though it
	      does seem to work on at a least a	 few  drives.	A  full	 power
	      cycle  is	 required  for	any  change in setting to take effect,
	      regardless of which program is used to tweak things.

	      A setting of 30 seconds is recommended for Linux use.  Permitted
	      values  are  from 8 to 12 seconds, and from 30 to 300 seconds in
	      30-second increments.  Specify a value of zero  (0)  to  disable
	      the WD idle3 timer completely (NOT RECOMMENDED!).

       -k     Get/set the "keep_settings_over_reset" flag for the drive.  When
	      this flag is set, the drive will preserve the -dmu settings over
	      a	 soft  reset,  (as  done  during the error recovery sequence).
	      This option defaults to off, to prevent drive reset loops	 which
	      could be caused by combinations of -dmu settings.	 The -k option
	      should therefore only be set after one has  achieved  confidence
	      in  correct  system operation with a chosen set of configuration
	      settings.	 In practice, all that is typically necessary to  test
	      a	 configuration (prior to using -k) is to verify that the drive
	      can be read/written, and that no error  logs  (kernel  messages)
	      are  generated in the process (look in /var/log/messages on most
	      systems).

       -K     Set the drive´s "keep_features_over_reset" flag.	 Setting  this
	      enables the drive to retain the settings for -APSWXZ over a soft
	      reset (as done during the error  recovery	 sequence).   Not  all
	      drives support this feature.

       -L     Set  the drive´s doorlock flag.  Setting this to 1 will lock the
	      door mechanism of some removable hard drives (e.g. Syquest, ZIP,
	      Jazz..),	and  setting  it  to 0 will unlock the door mechanism.
	      Normally, Linux maintains the door locking  mechanism  automati‐
	      cally, depending on drive usage (locked whenever a filesystem is
	      mounted).	 But on system shutdown, this can be a nuisance if the
	      root  partition is on a removable disk, since the root partition
	      is left mounted (read-only) after shutdown.  So, by  using  this
	      command  to  unlock  the	door  after  the  root	filesystem  is
	      remounted read-only, one can then remove the cartridge from  the
	      drive after shutdown.

       -m     Get/set  sector  count  for multiple sector I/O on the drive.  A
	      setting of 0 disables this feature.  Multiple sector  mode  (aka
	      IDE  Block  Mode),  is a feature of most modern IDE hard drives,
	      permitting the transfer of multiple sectors per  I/O  interrupt,
	      rather  than the usual one sector per interrupt.	When this fea‐
	      ture is enabled, it typically reduces operating system  overhead
	      for  disk	 I/O  by  30-50%.   On	many systems, it also provides
	      increased data throughput of anywhere  from  5%  to  50%.	  Some
	      drives, however (most notably the WD Caviar series), seem to run
	      slower with multiple mode enabled.  Your mileage may vary.  Most
	      drives support the minimum settings of 2, 4, 8, or 16 (sectors).
	      Larger settings may also be possible, depending on the drive.  A
	      setting of 16 or 32 seems optimal on many systems.  Western Dig‐
	      ital recommends lower settings of	 4  to	8  on  many  of	 their
	      drives,  due tiny (32kB) drive buffers and non-optimized buffer‐
	      ing algorithms.  The -i option can be used to find  the  maximum
	      setting supported by an installed drive (look for MaxMultSect in
	      the output).  Some drives claim to support  multiple  mode,  but
	      lose  data  at  some  settings.	Under rare circumstances, such
	      failures can result in massive filesystem corruption.

       --make-bad-sector
	      Deliberately create a bad sector (aka.  "media  error")  on  the
	      disk.   EXCEPTIONALLY  DANGEROUS. DO NOT USE THIS OPTION!!  This
	      can be useful for testing of device/RAID error  recovery	mecha‐
	      nisms.  The sector number is given as a (base10) parameter after
	      the option.  Depending on the device, hdparm will choose one  of
	      two  possible  ATA  commands  for	 corrupting  the  sector.  The
	      WRITE_LONG works on most drives, but only up to the 28-bit  sec‐
	      tor  boundary.   Some  very recent drives (2008) may support the
	      new WRITE_UNCORRECTABLE_EXT command, which works for  any	 LBA48
	      sector.	If  available,	hdparm	will use that in preference to
	      WRITE_LONG.  The WRITE_UNCORRECTABLE_EXT command itself presents
	      a	 choice	 of how the new bad sector should behave.  By default,
	      it will look like any other bad sector, and the drive  may  take
	      some  time  to retry and fail on subsequent READs of the sector.
	      However, if a single letter f is prepended immediately in	 front
	      of  the  first digit of the sector number parameter, then hdparm
	      will issue a "flagged" WRITE_UNCORRECTABLE_EXT, which causes the
	      drive  to	 merely	 flag the sector as bad (rather than genuinely
	      corrupt it), and subsequent READs of the sector will fail	 imme‐
	      diately (rather than after several retries).  Note also that the
	      --repair-sector option can be used to restore (any) bad  sectors
	      when they are no longer needed, including sectors that were gen‐
	      uinely bad (the drive will likely remap those to a fresh area on
	      the media).

       -M     Get/set Automatic Acoustic Management (AAM) setting. Most modern
	      harddisk drives have the ability to speed down  the  head	 move‐
	      ments  to	 reduce	 their	noise output.  The possible values are
	      between 0 and 254. 128 is the most quiet (and therefore slowest)
	      setting and 254 the fastest (and loudest). Some drives have only
	      two levels (quiet / fast), while others may have different  lev‐
	      els  between  128 and 254.  At the moment, most drives only sup‐
	      port 3 options, off, quiet, and fast.  These have been  assigned
	      the values 0, 128, and 254 at present, respectively, but integer
	      space has been incorporated for future  expansion,  should  this
	      change.

       -n     Get or set the "ignore_write_errors" flag in the driver.	Do NOT
	      play with this without grokking the driver source code first.

       -N     Get/set max visible number of sectors, also known	 as  the  Host
	      Protected	 Area  setting.	  Without a parameter, -N displays the
	      current setting, which is reported  as  two  values:  the	 first
	      gives  the current max sectors setting, and the second shows the
	      native (real) hardware  limit  for  the  disk.   The  difference
	      between  these two values indicates how many sectors of the disk
	      are currently hidden from the operating system, in the form of a
	      Host  Protected Area (HPA).  This area is often used by computer
	      makers to hold diagnostic software, and/or a copy of the	origi‐
	      nally  provided operating system for recovery purposes.  Another
	      possible use is to hide the true capacity of a very  large  disk
	      from a BIOS/system that cannot normally cope with drives of that
	      size (eg. most current {2010}  BIOSs  cannot  deal  with	drives
	      larger than 2TB, so an HPA could be used to cause a 3TB drive to
	      report itself as a 2TB drive).  To change the current max	 (VERY
	      DANGEROUS, DATA LOSS IS EXTREMELY LIKELY), a new value should be
	      provided (in base10) immediately following the -N option.	  This
	      value  is	 specified as a count of sectors, rather than the "max
	      sector address" of the drive.  Drives have the concept of a tem‐
	      porary  (volatile)  setting  which  is lost on the next hardware
	      reset, as well as a more permanent  (non-volatile)  value	 which
	      survives	resets	and power cycles.  By default, -N affects only
	      the temporary (volatile) setting.	 To change the permanent (non-
	      volatile)	 value,	 prepend  a  leading  p	 character immediately
	      before the first digit of the value.   Drives  are  supposed  to
	      allow  only  a  single permanent change per session.  A hardware
	      reset (or power cycle) is required before another	 permanent  -N
	      operation	 can succeed.  Note that any attempt to set this value
	      may fail if the disk is being accessed by other software at  the
	      same time.  This is because setting the value requires a pair of
	      back-to-back drive commands, but there is no way to prevent some
	      other  command  from  being inserted between them by the kernel.
	      So if it fails initially, just try again.	 Kernel support for -N
	      is  buggy for many adapter types across many kernel versions, in
	      that an incorrect	 (too  small)  max  size  value	 is  sometimes
	      reported.	 As of the 2.6.27 kernel, this does finally seem to be
	      working on most hardware.

       --offset
	      Offsets to given number of GiB (1024*1024*1024) when  performing
	      -t  timings  of device reads.  Speed changes (about twice) along
	      many mechanical drives.  Usually the maximum is  at  the	begin‐
	      ning,  but  not  always.	 Solid-state drives (SSDs) should show
	      similar timings regardless of offset.

       -p     Attempt to reprogram the IDE interface chipset for the specified
	      PIO  mode,  or attempt to auto-tune for the "best" PIO mode sup‐
	      ported by the drive.  This feature is supported  in  the	kernel
	      for  only	 a  few "known" chipsets, and even then the support is
	      iffy at best.  Some IDE chipsets are unable  to  alter  the  PIO
	      mode for a single drive, in which case this option may cause the
	      PIO mode for both drives to be set.  Many IDE  chipsets  support
	      either  fewer  or more than the standard six (0 to 5) PIO modes,
	      so the exact speed setting that  is  actually  implemented  will
	      vary  by	chipset/driver	sophistication.	 Use with extreme cau‐
	      tion!  This feature includes zero protection for the unwary, and
	      an  unsuccessful outcome may result in severe filesystem corrup‐
	      tion!

       -P     Set the maximum sector count for the drive´s  internal  prefetch
	      mechanism.   Not	all  drives  support  this feature, and it was
	      dropped from the offical spec as of ATA-4.

       --prefer-ata12
	      When using the SAT (SCSI ATA Translation) protocol, hdparm  nor‐
	      mally  prefers to use the 16-byte command format whenever possi‐
	      ble.  But some USB drive enclosures don't	 work  correctly  with
	      16-byte  commands.   This option can be used to force use of the
	      smaller 12-byte command format with such	drives.	  hdparm  will
	      still  revert to 16-byte commands for things that cannot be done
	      with the 12-byte format (e.g. sector accesses beyond 28-bits).

       -q     Handle the next option quietly, suppressing normal  output  (but
	      not error messages).  This is useful for reducing screen clutter
	      when running from system startup scripts.	 Not applicable to the
	      -i or -v or -t or -T options.

       -Q     Get or set the device's command queue_depth, if supported by the
	      hardware.	 This only works with 2.6.xx (or later)	 kernels,  and
	      only  with device and driver combinations which support changing
	      the queue_depth.	For SATA disks, this  is  the  Native  Command
	      Queuing (NCQ) queue depth.

       -r     Get/set  read-only  flag for the device.	When set, Linux disal‐
	      lows write operations on the device.

       -R     Get/set Write-Read-Verify feature, if  the  drive	 supports  it.
	      Usage:  -R0 (disable) or -R1 (enable).  This feature is intended
	      to have the drive firmware automatically read-back any data that
	      is written by software, to verify that the data was successfully
	      written.	This is generally overkill, and	 can  slow  down  disk
	      writes by as much as a factor of two (or more).

       --read-sector
	      Reads  from  the specified sector number, and dumps the contents
	      in hex to standard output.  The  sector  number  must  be	 given
	      (base10)	after this option.  hdparm will issue a low-level read
	      (completely bypassing the usual block  layer  read/write	mecha‐
	      nisms)  for  the	specified sector.  This can be used to defini‐
	      tively check whether a given sector is bad (media error) or  not
	      (doing  so through the usual mechanisms can sometimes give false
	      positives).

       --repair-sector
	      This is an alias for the --write-sector option.  VERY DANGEROUS.

       -s     Enable/disable the power-on in standby feature, if supported  by
	      the  drive.   VERY  DANGEROUS.   Do not use unless you are abso‐
	      lutely certain that both the system BIOS (or firmware)  and  the
	      operating	 system	 kernel	 (Linux >= 2.6.22) support probing for
	      drives that use this feature.  When enabled, the drive  is  pow‐
	      ered-up  in the standby mode to allow the controller to sequence
	      the spin-up of devices, reducing the instantaneous current  draw
	      burden when many drives share a power supply.  Primarily for use
	      in large RAID setups.  This feature is usually disabled and  the
	      drive  is	 powered-up  in	 the active mode (see -C above).  Note
	      that a drive may also allow enabling this feature by  a  jumper.
	      Some  SATA  drives support the control of this feature by pin 11
	      of the SATA power connector. In these cases, this command may be
	      unsupported or may have no effect.

       -S     Put  the	drive  into  idle  (low-power)	mode, and also set the
	      standby (spindown) timeout for the drive.	 This timeout value is
	      used  by	the  drive to determine how long to wait (with no disk
	      activity) before turning off the spindle motor  to  save	power.
	      Under  such circumstances, the drive may take as long as 30 sec‐
	      onds to respond to a subsequent disk access, though most	drives
	      are much quicker.	 The encoding of the timeout value is somewhat
	      peculiar.	 A value of zero means "timeouts  are  disabled":  the
	      device will not automatically enter standby mode.	 Values from 1
	      to 240 specify multiples of 5 seconds, yielding timeouts from  5
	      seconds to 20 minutes.  Values from 241 to 251 specify from 1 to
	      11 units of 30 minutes, yielding timeouts from 30 minutes to 5.5
	      hours.   A  value	 of  252  signifies a timeout of 21 minutes. A
	      value of 253 sets a vendor-defined timeout period between 8  and
	      12  hours, and the value 254 is reserved.	 255 is interpreted as
	      21 minutes plus 15 seconds.  Note that  some  older  drives  may
	      have very different interpretations of these values.

       -t     Perform  timings	of  device  reads for benchmark and comparison
	      purposes.	 For meaningful	 results,  this	 operation  should  be
	      repeated	2-3  times  on	an otherwise inactive system (no other
	      active processes) with at least a couple of  megabytes  of  free
	      memory.	This  displays the speed of reading through the buffer
	      cache to the disk without any prior caching of data.  This  mea‐
	      surement	is  an	indication  of	how fast the drive can sustain
	      sequential data reads under Linux, without any filesystem	 over‐
	      head.   To  ensure  accurate  measurements,  the buffer cache is
	      flushed during the processing of -t using the BLKFLSBUF ioctl.

       -T     Perform timings of cache reads for benchmark and comparison pur‐
	      poses.	For  meaningful	 results,  this	 operation  should  be
	      repeated 2-3 times on an otherwise  inactive  system  (no	 other
	      active  processes)  with	at least a couple of megabytes of free
	      memory.  This displays the speed of reading  directly  from  the
	      Linux  buffer  cache  without  disk access.  This measurement is
	      essentially an indication of the throughput  of  the  processor,
	      cache, and memory of the system under test.

       --trim-sector-ranges
	      For  Solid State Drives (SSDs).  EXCEPTIONALLY DANGEROUS. DO NOT
	      USE THIS OPTION!!	 Tells the drive firmware to discard  unneeded
	      data  sectors,  destroying  any  data that may have been present
	      within them.  This makes those sectors available	for  immediate
	      use  by  the firmware's garbage collection mechanism, to improve
	      scheduling for wear-leveling of the flash	 media.	  This	option
	      expects  one  or	more  sector range pairs immediately after the
	      option: an LBA starting address, a colon,	 and  a	 sector	 count
	      (max  65535), with no intervening spaces.	 EXCEPTIONALLY DANGER‐
	      OUS. DO NOT USE THIS OPTION!!

	      E.g.  hdparm --trim-sector-ranges 1000:4 7894:16 /dev/sdz

       --trim-sector-ranges-stdin
	      Identical to --trim-sector-ranges	 above,	 except	 the  list  of
	      lba:count	 pairs	is read from stdin rather than being specified
	      on the command line.  This can be used to	 avoid	problems  with
	      excessively  long	 command  lines.   It also permits batching of
	      many more sector ranges into single commands to the drive, up to
	      the currently configured transfer limit (max_sectors_kb).

       --trim-sectors
	      For  Solid State Drives (SSDs).  EXCEPTIONALLY DANGEROUS. DO NOT
	      USE THIS FLAG!!  Tells the drive firmware	 to  discard  unneeded
	      data  sectors,  destroying  any  data that may have been present
	      within them.  This makes those sectors available	for  immediate
	      use  by  the firmware's garbage collection mechanism, to improve
	      scheduling for wear-leveling of the flash	 media.	  This	option
	      expects two parameters immediately after the flag: an LBA start‐
	      ing address, and a sector count.	 EXCEPTIONALLY	DANGEROUS.  DO
	      NOT USE THIS FLAG!!

       -u     Get/set the interrupt-unmask flag for the drive.	A setting of 1
	      permits the driver to unmask other interrupts during  processing
	      of  a disk interrupt, which greatly improves Linux´s responsive‐
	      ness and eliminates "serial port overrun" errors.	 Use this fea‐
	      ture  with  caution:  some  drive/controller combinations do not
	      tolerate the increased I/O latencies possible when this  feature
	      is enabled, resulting in massive filesystem corruption.  In par‐
	      ticular, CMD-640B and RZ1000 (E)IDE interfaces can be unreliable
	      (due  to	a  hardware flaw) when this option is used with kernel
	      versions earlier than 2.0.13.  Disabling the IDE	prefetch  fea‐
	      ture  of these interfaces (usually a BIOS/CMOS setting) provides
	      a safe fix for the problem for use with earlier kernels.

       -v     Display some basic settings, similar to -acdgkmur for IDE.  This
	      is also the default behaviour when no options are specified.

       -V     Display program version and exit immediately.

       --verbose
	      Display extra diagnostics from some commands.

       -w     Perform a device reset (DANGEROUS).  Do NOT use this option.  It
	      exists for unlikely situations where a reboot might otherwise be
	      required to get a confused drive back into a useable state.

       --write-sector
	      Writes  zeros  to	 the specified sector number.  VERY DANGEROUS.
	      The sector number must be	 given	(base10)  after	 this  option.
	      hdparm  will  issue  a low-level write (completely bypassing the
	      usual block layer read/write mechanisms) to the  specified  sec‐
	      tor.   This  can be used to force a drive to repair a bad sector
	      (media error).

       -W     Get/set the IDE/SATA drive´s write-caching feature.

       -X     Set the IDE transfer mode for (E)IDE/ATA drives.	This is	 typi‐
	      cally  used  in combination with -d1 when enabling DMA to/from a
	      drive on a supported interface chipset, where -X mdma2  is  used
	      to  select multiword DMA mode2 transfers and -X sdma1 is used to
	      select simple mode 1 DMA transfers.  With systems which  support
	      UltraDMA	burst  timings,	 -X  udma2  is used to select UltraDMA
	      mode2 transfers (you´ll need to prepare the chipset for UltraDMA
	      beforehand).  Apart from that, use of this option is seldom nec‐
	      essary since most/all modern IDE drives default to their fastest
	      PIO  transfer  mode at power-on.	Fiddling with this can be both
	      needless and risky.  On drives which support alternate  transfer
	      modes,  -X  can  be  used	 to switch the mode of the drive only.
	      Prior to changing the transfer mode, the IDE interface should be
	      jumpered	or programmed (see -p option) for the new mode setting
	      to prevent loss  and/or  corruption  of  data.   Use  this  with
	      extreme caution!	For the PIO (Programmed Input/Output) transfer
	      modes used by Linux, this value is simply the desired  PIO  mode
	      number  plus  8.	Thus, a value of 09 sets PIO mode1, 10 enables
	      PIO mode2, and 11 selects PIO mode3.  Setting  00	 restores  the
	      drive´s  "default"  PIO mode, and 01 disables IORDY.  For multi‐
	      word DMA, the value used is the desired DMA mode number plus 32.
	      for UltraDMA, the value is the desired UltraDMA mode number plus
	      64.

       -y     Force an IDE drive to immediately enter the low  power  consump‐
	      tion standby mode, usually causing it to spin down.  The current
	      power mode status can be checked using the -C option.

       -Y     Force an IDE drive to immediately enter the  lowest  power  con‐
	      sumption sleep mode, causing it to shut down completely.	A hard
	      or soft reset is required before the drive can be accessed again
	      (the  Linux IDE driver will automatically handle issuing a reset
	      if/when needed).	The current power mode status can  be  checked
	      using the -C option.

       -z     Force  a	kernel re-read of the partition table of the specified
	      device(s).

       -Z     Disable the automatic power-saving function of  certain  Seagate
	      drives  (ST3xxx  models?), to prevent them from idling/spinning-
	      down at inconvenient times.

       ATA Security Feature Set

       These switches are DANGEROUS to experiment with,	 and  might  not  work
       with some kernels.  USE AT YOUR OWN RISK.

       --security-help
	      Display terse usage info for all of the --security-* options.

       --security-freeze
	      Freeze the drive´s security settings.  The drive does not accept
	      any security commands until next power-on reset.	Use this func‐
	      tion in combination with --security-unlock to protect drive from
	      any attempt to set a new password. Can be used standalone,  too.
	      No  other	 options  are  permitted on the command line with this
	      one.

       --security-unlock PWD
	      Unlock the drive, using password PWD.  Password is given	as  an
	      ASCII  string  and  is  padded with NULs to reach 32 bytes.  The
	      applicable drive password is  selected  with  the	 --user-master
	      switch  (default is "user" password).  No other options are per‐
	      mitted on the command line with this one.

       --security-set-pass PWD
	      Lock the drive, using password PWD (Set  Password)  (DANGEROUS).
	      Password	is given as an ASCII string and is padded with NULs to
	      reach 32 bytes.  Use the special password NULL to set  an	 empty
	      password.	  The  applicable  drive password is selected with the
	      --user-master switch (default is "user" password) and the appli‐
	      cable  security  mode with the --security-mode switch.  No other
	      options are permitted on the command line with this one.

       --security-disable PWD
	      Disable drive locking, using password PWD.  Password is given as
	      an  ASCII string and is padded with NULs to reach 32 bytes.  The
	      applicable drive password is  selected  with  the	 --user-master
	      switch  (default is "user" password).  No other options are per‐
	      mitted on the command line with this one.

       --security-erase PWD
	      Erase (locked) drive, using password PWD (DANGEROUS).   Password
	      is  given as an ASCII string and is padded with NULs to reach 32
	      bytes.  Use the special password	NULL  to  represent  an	 empty
	      password.	  The  applicable  drive password is selected with the
	      --user-master switch (default is	"user"	password).   No	 other
	      options are permitted on the command line with this one.

       --security-erase-enhanced PWD
	      Enhanced	erase  (locked) drive, using password PWD (DANGEROUS).
	      Password is given as an ASCII string and is padded with NULs  to
	      reach  32 bytes.	The applicable drive password is selected with
	      the --user-master switch (default is "user" password).  No other
	      options are permitted on the command line with this one.

       --user-master USER
	      Specifies	 which	password (user/master) to select.  Defaults to
	      user password.  Only  useful  in	combination  with  --security-
	      unlock,	--security-set-pass,  --security-disable,  --security-
	      erase or --security-erase-enhanced.
		      u	      user password
		      m	      master password

       --security-mode MODE
	      Specifies which security mode (high/maximum) to  set.   Defaults
	      to high.	Only useful in combination with --security-set-pass.
		      h	      high security
		      m	      maximum security

	      THIS  FEATURE  IS	 EXPERIMENTAL AND NOT WELL TESTED. USE AT YOUR
	      OWN RISK.

FILES
       /etc/hdparm.conf

BUGS
       As noted above, the -m sectcount and -u 1 options should be  used  with
       caution	at  first,  preferably on a read-only filesystem.  Most drives
       work well with these features, but a few drive/controller  combinations
       are  not	 100%  compatible.   Filesystem corruption may result.	Backup
       everything before experimenting!

       Some options (e.g. -r for SCSI) may not work with old kernels as neces‐
       sary ioctl()´s were not supported.

       Although	 this utility is intended primarily for use with SATA/IDE hard
       disk devices, several of the options are also valid (and permitted) for
       use  with  SCSI hard disk devices and MFM/RLL hard disks with XT inter‐
       faces.

       The Linux kernel up until 2.6.12 (and probably  later)  doesn´t	handle
       the  security  unlock and disable commands gracefully and will segfault
       and in some cases even  panic.  The  security  commands	however	 might
       indeed  have  been  executed  by	 the drive. This poor kernel behaviour
       makes the PIO data security commands rather useless at the moment.

       Note that the "security erase" and  "security  disable"	commands  have
       been implemented as two consecutive PIO data commands and will not suc‐
       ceed on a locked drive because the second command will  not  be	issued
       after the segfault.  See the code for hints how patch it to work around
       this problem. Despite the segfault it is often still  possible  to  run
       two  instances of hdparm consecutively and issue the two necessary com‐
       mands that way.

AUTHOR
       hdparm has been written by Mark Lord  <mlord@pobox.com>,	 the  original
       primary	developer  and	maintainer of the (E)IDE driver for Linux, and
       current contributer to the libata subsystem, along with suggestions and
       patches from many netfolk.

       The disable Seagate auto-powersaving code is courtesy of Tomi Leppikan‐
       gas(tomilepp@paju.oulu.fi).

       Security freeze command by Benjamin Benz, 2005.

       PIO data out security commands by Leonard den Ottolander,  2005.	  Some
       other parts by Benjamin Benz and others.

SEE ALSO
       http://www.t13.org/  Technical  Committee T13 AT Attachment (ATA/ATAPI)
       Interface.

       http://www.serialata.org/ Serial ATA International Organization.

       http://www.compactflash.org/ CompactFlash Association.

Version 9.43			 November 2012			     HDPARM(8)
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