When running linux on a laptop, it’s a good idea to mount hard drive partitions with the -noatime option. This prevents extra writes to the hard drive every time a file is read. Add the noatime option to the entry in /etc/fstab.

Example (from /etc/fstab)
LABEL=/ / ext3 defaults,noatime 1 1

By default, access information on a file is updated every time that file is accessed, including just being read. It’s very rare that you’ll need this feature, and disabling it can result in a lot less disk-writing, which translates into an increase in performance and battery life.

Extend Laptop Battery Life originally appeared on Yet Another Linux Blog on February 1, 2005.