What is better for hard discs - spinning down and waking every 1/4 hour or running continuously?

JZL240I-U · 04-08-2021, 12:14 PM

Title says it all. I put two of my disks to sleep after 3 minutes running, but something is waking them every quarter hour or so. Is it healthier for them to keep them running in a use of two times 2 - 3 hours of use per day or spinning them down? What hurts them less?

rnturn · 04-08-2021, 12:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JZL240I-U

Title says it all. I put two of my disks to sleep after 3 minutes running, but something is waking them every quarter hour or so. Is it healthier for them to keep them running in a use of two times 2 - 3 hours of use per day or spinning them down? What hurts them less?

Check your crontabs so see if some job involving your disks is scheduled to run every 15 minutes. Systemd may be running something behind your back at that interval, too.

One data point: I've had disks that ran almost continously for years (except for brief shutdowns---mainly household power failures or equipment moves) and they experienced no problem. Until, that is, they reached the far end of the "bathtub" curve. (I had an old Seagate 2GB drive that ran pretty much non-stop for the better part of a dozen years before it gave up. They don't make 'em like that any more.) My view is that powering on a component -- disk, power supply, etc. -- is likely when it's going to fail... so I leave things spinning.

Another data point: I leave the hard disk in my laptop spinning as long as AC power is applied. The disk in it is many years old and shows no signs of failing. Sure... I might extend the uptime while the laptop is running on battery but I rarely run it that way so long as there's an AC outlet available.

fatmac · 04-08-2021, 01:16 PM

Continuous running puts less stress on a disk; every time you spin up also uses more power.

rknichols · 04-08-2021, 01:21 PM

Perhaps it's smartd polling, which defaults to every 30 minutes. You can configure smartd to skip disks that are sleeping.
From my /etc/smartd.conf:

Code:

# The word DEVICESCAN will cause any remaining lines in this
# configuration file to be ignored: it tells smartd to scan for all
# ATA and SCSI devices.  DEVICESCAN may be followed by any of the
# Directives listed below, which will be applied to all devices that
# are found.  Most users should comment out DEVICESCAN and explicitly
# list the devices that they wish to monitor.
#DEVICESCAN -H -m root
/dev/sda -d ata -H -m root -n standby,q
/dev/sdb -d ata -H -m root -n standby,q
/dev/sdc -d ata -H -m root -n standby,q

Bonzoo · 04-08-2021, 01:54 PM

My machine in my shop has only been rebooted once or twice in 3 years. Kernel change
Debian. Runs my plasma cutting cnc. No problem. These pieces of crap are designed to run continually

mrmazda · 04-08-2021, 11:40 PM

Status quo changes are more stressful than maintaining status quo. Keep them spinning.

JZL240I-U · 04-09-2021, 11:39 AM

Okay, thanks, I'll keep them spinning then. Thanks also for the infos about cron, systemd and smartd.conf -- I'll keep those in memory just in case

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ondoho · 04-11-2021, 02:02 AM

I have a drive I only use once a week for automated backups. It was surprisingly hard to make the system ignore it, while still being able to mount it:
https://dt.iki.fi/disable-usb-drive
https://dt.iki.fi/udev#scenario-igno...d-backup-drive
Even if your drive is not USB-connected, there might be some interesting bits in those articles. But do take them with a grain of salt.

Bonzoo · 04-11-2021, 08:38 AM

I have a spinner from 2000 in a USB adapter that still spins.It has all those "shared files" from ??? NAPSTER ! Took a few for this old guy to remember the name.We invented "free softwarez" back in the day. LOL.

JZL240I-U · 04-11-2021, 09:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ondoho

...
https://dt.iki.fi/disable-usb-drive
https://dt.iki.fi/udev#scenario-igno...d-backup-drive
...

Thanks, ondoho interesting reading but not my usecase. Nice to know anyway

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