Ubuntu

Hard Disk Shock Protection

Registered by David Hart

HDSP systems [on OEM installed operating systems] in laptops from IBM, Apple, and other manufacturers monitor physical movement via accelerometers mounted on the system board and shut down HDD activity in the event of a sudden movement, protecting against data corruption and HDD damage.

Ubuntu HDSP should handle many accelerometer systems (not just IBM's which is also licensed to Apple), plus other sensory systems such as webcams, and allow for multiple actions, e.g. parking HDD heads, sounding an alarm, phoning home or remote logging, activating audio/video recording, etc., all managed from a nice GNOME applet.

Depends:

kernel: hdaps.ko
 - Hard Disk Active Protection System
 - included in 2.6.15+
 - reads data from the accelerometer
 - via /sys/devices/platform/hdaps

kernel: queuefreeze
 - or similar
 - flushes cache
 - freezes queue
 - parks HDD
 - via /sys/block/?d?

packages: hdapsd, hdaps_protect, khdapsmon, gnome-hdaps-applet

Cute Demos with hdaps or equivalent:

ThinkPad window tilt: http://youtube.com/watch?v=sbh_JGbPoJU
ThinkPad Tux Racer: http://youtube.com/watch?v=q1R3Tc_HXW4
MacBook motion alarm: http://youtube.com/watch?v=IVB0XUkyFBY

See also: http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/How_to_protect_the_harddisk_through_APS

Blueprint information

Status:
Not started
Approver:
None
Priority:
Undefined
Drafter:
None
Direction:
Needs approval
Assignee:
None
Definition:
New
Series goal:
None
Implementation:
Unknown
Milestone target:
None

Related branches

Sprints

Whiteboard

Perhaps this should tie in with other ways of parking heads even when there are no sensors. Use case: floor starts vibrating because of the builders next door, so quickly need to park heads. Alice, clicks on the "park heads" applet.

(?)

Work Items