Comment 89 for bug 59695

Blue, you have to distinguish between desktop disks and laptop disks. That's a completely different world. I have read a quite nice article, unfortunately only in czech http://www.root.cz/clanky/jak-na-uspavani-disku-v-linuxu/.

It says, that desktop disks sustain about 40 000 spin ups. As opposed to laptop disk, which sustain 300 000 spin ups (600 000 according to words of some reports in here). As you can see, they are build with quite another purpose in mind. They are supposed to spin down/park heads very often, because it helps to survive all the shakes and movements you do with your laptop. I don't know what "good" setting is, but author of the article recommends 30sec delay to spin down as a good value. Further he counts that with hdd spinning up again every 10minutes it can live for 6 years for 24/7. Which is completely acceptable.

What I am trying to say is, that I don't think hardware manufacturers are completely dumb and don't understand their job. They just chose to prefer disk safety to some of it's lifespan. The laptop mode setting might be a little harsh, I am not expert, but I don't consider them insane, when I see manufacturers defaults to be quite similar.

So the problem is elsewhere than you think: Ubuntu either shouldn't allow laptop disks to go to sleep (bad option) or shouldn't wake them up immediately (good option, that's what I am trying to say). The second option is the Windows behaviour on two laptops I have tested.