Other Switching from sysutils/ataidle to base/camcontrol

[obsigna]

Today I got some time for doing the less urgent (yet important) maintenance tasks for the FreeBSD servers. Once again I started to tackle the ataidle issue which has been deprecated and removed from the ports with the note „obsoleted by camcontrol(8)“ -- I know, this was almost 3½ years ago.

I use ataidle to set the AAM/APM settings of the hdd's, mainly to prevent the Load Cycle Count of the disks exceeds all limits in no time. For achieving this, I got in /etc/rc.conf:

ataidle_enable="YES"
ataidle_devices="ada0 ada1"
ataidle_ada0="-A 254 -P 254"
ataidle_ada1="-A 254 -P 254"

Now the questions are:

• what rc script shall I enable with which arguments, so I can achieve the same with camcontrol(8)?
• please can a native english speaker explain to me what exactly does ‚It‘ mean in the camcontrol man file explaining the apm and aam settings?
  

  apm      It optional parameter (-l) specified, enables and sets ad-
           vanced    power management level,    where 1    -- minimum power, 127
           -- maximum performance    with standby, 128 -- minimum power
           without standby, 254 -- maximum performance.  If not speci-
           fied -- APM is    disabled.
  
  aam      It optional parameter (-l) specified, enables and sets auto-
           matic acoustic    management level, where    1 -- minimum noise,
           254 --    maximum    performance.  If not specified -- AAM is dis-
           abled.

 

[Erichans]

I'm not a native english speaker but as far as I can tell that is a (2 times consistently made) typo. IMO, for both apm and aam it should be:

apm      If the optional parameter (-l) is specified, this enables and sets the ad-
         vanced power management level, where 1 -- minimum power, 127
         -- maximum performance with standby, 128 -- minimum power
         without standby, 254 -- maximum performance. If not speci-
         fied -- APM is disabled.

aam      If the optional parameter (-l) is specified, this enables and sets the auto-
         matic acoustic management level, where 1 -- minimum noise,
         254 -- maximum performance. If not specified -- AAM is dis-
         abled.

The first if-part is followed by an opposing (negative) if-part at the last sentence of the explanation (="If not specified") of each primary command function. The underlined bold words are my own additions. Native english speakers probably can make it better. Looks to me that the double dashes (in "-- APM" and "-- AAM") are not needed.
Can't help you with the other stuff, unfortunately.