linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] SATA: Blacklist systems that spin off disks during ACPI power off

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Message-ID: <48CC7542.3010603@garzik.org>
Date:	Sat, 13 Sep 2008 22:21:54 -0400
From:	Jeff Garzik <jeff@...zik.org>
To:	"Rafael J. Wysocki" <rjw@...k.pl>
CC:	Tejun Heo <htejun@...il.com>,
	ACPI Devel Maling List <linux-acpi@...r.kernel.org>,
	linux-ide@...r.kernel.org, Thomas Renninger <trenn@...e.de>,
	Robert Hancock <hancockr@...w.ca>,
	LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	Frans Pop <elendil@...net.nl>,
	Maciej Rutecki <maciej.rutecki@...il.com>,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] SATA: Blacklist systems that spin off disks during ACPI
 power off

Tejun Heo wrote:
> Rafael J. Wysocki wrote:
>> SATA: Blacklist systems that spin off disks during ACPI power off
>>
>> Some notebooks from HP have the problem that their BIOSes attempt to
>> spin down hard drives before entering ACPI system states S4 and S5.
>> This leads to a yo-yo effect during system power-off shutdown and the
>> last phase of hibernation when the disk is first spun down by the
>> kernel and then almost immediately turned on and off by the BIOS.
>> This, in turn, may result in shortening the disk's life times.
>>
>> To prevent this from happening we can blacklist the affected systems
>> using DMI information.  However, only the on-board controlles should
>> be blacklisted and their PCI slot numbers can be used for this
>> purpose.  Unfortunately the existing interface for checking DMI
>> information of the system is not very convenient for this purpose,
>> because to use it, we would have to define special callback functions
>> or create a separate struct dmi_system_id table for each blacklisted
>> system.
>>
>> To overcome this difficulty introduce a new function
>> dmi_first_match() returning a pointer to the first entry in an array
>> of struct dmi_system_id elements that matches the system DMI
>> information.  Then, we can use this pointer to access the entry's
>> .driver_data field containing the additional information, such as
>> the PCI slot number, allowing us to do the desired blacklisting.
>>
>> Introduce a new libata flag ATA_FLAG_NO_POWEROFF_SPINDOWN that, if
>> set, will prevent disks from being spun off during system power off
>> and hibernation (to handle the hibernation case we need a new system
>> state SYSTEM_HIBERNATE_ENTER that can be checked against by libata,
>> in analogy with SYSTEM_POWER_OFF).  Use dmi_first_match() to set this
>> flag for some systems affected by the problem described above (HP nx6325,
>> HP nx6310, HP 2510p).
>>
>> Signed-off-by: Rafael J. Wysocki <rjw@...k.pl>
> 
> libata part looks good to me but I think it would be better to
> separate out DMI changes into a separate patch.

Did these changes ever get separated out?

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