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What exactly is this setting?

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I was messing around looking for ways to conserve power and I came across this setting inside of "Disks". I've never heard about APM before but I suspect it has something to do with the HDDs speed.

So what exactly does this setting do? And does it really improve performance/save power?

Thunder_Ruler
  • 207

2 Answers2

1

Advanced Power Management (APM) is a BIOS API (functions) that the Operating system may use to implement multiple strategies for power management. For instance, it can be used to suspend or put in stand-by your computer.

Jaime
  • 1,440
1

Take a look at the manual page for hdparm. In particular the -B switch:

   -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).
sempaiscuba
  • 1,453