drives not spinning down

hi

I have the following in /etc/hdparm.conf:

Code:

---

/dev/sdb {
spindown_time = 121
}
/dev/sdc {
spindown_time = 121
}
/dev/sdd {
spindown_time = 121
}
/dev/sde {
spindown_time = 121
}
/dev/sdf {
spindown_time = 121
}
/dev/sdg {
spindown_time = 121
}
/dev/sdh {
spindown_time = 121
}
/dev/sdi {
spindown_time = 121
}

---

non of my drives are spinning down, if I issue a
sudo hdparm -y /dev/sdh


then they do spin down.

4 drives (sdb > sde) are a member of a software (mdadm) raid and /dev/sda is ssd so excluded that

Is spinning down a RAID set a good idea? Forget if it is allowed. is it a good idea?

not sure, dont see why not. Still want the other drives to spin down regardless

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SlugSlug

not sure, dont see why not. Still want the other drives to spin down regardless

---

Data corruption is a reason "why not." I know that some drives spin down automatically and it requires 15 seconds to spin back up. That's a long time for an OS to wait, IMHO. I avoid using those HDDs in my arrays. Personal choice.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/25...spin-spin-down has more authoritative answers than mine. Seems I could be completely wrong.

Found this on my RAID system: Please read /usr/share/doc/hdparm/README.Debian for notes about known issues, especially if you have an MD array. It is running 10.04, so there may be fewer/different issues on newer versions.

Inside that file on my system is says:

Quote:

---

Please do not add anything to hdparm.conf, and instead run hdparm by hand only after you are sure that your array has finished rebuilding.

---

Seems there are failure modes that CAN cause data corruption when hdparms is used on mdadm RAID disks.

Good luck.

thanks, am not to bothered about the raid it's a raid0 so no rebuilding just crash and burn :)

I've no idea why hdparm.conf has no effect on any drive tho...?

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...rm/+bug/595138 seems related? Perhaps?

RAID0 for a scratch area is perfect, which seems to be your use. I used RAID0 improperly about a decade ago and lost 80% of my data, not just the data on the failed drive. OTOH, I got "backup religion" due to that, so it was a huge win overall.

If the drive support power management (I have come accross some that dont), see if it is smart that is waking the drives up

See http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...1#post10668174

dosen't look like smart is installed, is there an alternitive to hdparm to spin the drives down?

Does suspending the system spin them down, and will a ftp or ssh connection wake it back up if mobo supports WOL