Hello,

> > Thanks, that keeps it from prematurely spinning up again. Now I only
> > need to figure out how to put it to sleep automatically :)
> 
> You could use
> 
>   atactl wd5 setstandby 900
> 
> or some such with ide drives, but I don't know about your case..

Hmm, the drive /is/ IDE, just behind a SCSI-IDE converter, I wonder if it would just forward ATAPI commands. Time to read some documentation I guess.
( atactl fails of course with 'inappropriate ioctl for device' )

have fun
Michael