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Thread: Unable to Spin Disks Down

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Sep 2013
    Beans
    4

    Unable to Spin Disks Down

    Absolute newbie hence posting here.
    New media server - ancient Via Epia board with SSD for OS and hard drive for media. Running Ubuntu 10.04.4 as this is the latest release which will run on a cpu without cmov.

    Have installed the following - openssh-server, Samba, VNC, Logitech Mediaserver and run headless to a mixed OS network.

    No big problems however I can't get the media drive to spin down. The processor is low power, fanless and will run 24/7 and I want to spin the hdd down when not actively serving.

    I have tried "sudo hdparm -S120 /dev/sdb" which has no effect. The drive is always active/idle.
    I notice that "sudo hdparm -Y /dev/sdb" spins the drive down but immediately crashes the system.

    Any/all help much appreciated.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jul 2010
    Location
    Michigan, USA
    Beans
    2,136
    Distro
    Ubuntu 18.04 Bionic Beaver

    Re: Unable to Spin Disks Down

    Are you sure that your OS isn't running off /dev/sdb? Spinning down a disk unless it's the OS drive, should not cause a crash. Also, your disk needs to support Advanced Power Management to be spun down with the -S flag. I have a post that covers spinning down disks alongside SMART monitoring that covers all of this topic.

    http://zackreed.me/articles/60-spin-...dle-hard-disks

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Sep 2013
    Beans
    4

    Thumbs up Re: Unable to Spin Disks Down

    Quote Originally Posted by rubylaser View Post
    your disk needs to support Advanced Power Management to be spun down with the -S flag.
    Got it in one! A different hdd solved the spin down problem thanks!
    That's what comes of raking around in the junk box I guess.

    Quote Originally Posted by rubylaser View Post
    Are you sure that your OS isn't running off /dev/sdb? Spinning down a disk unless it's the OS drive, should not cause a crash.
    Solved the other problem too that spinning down the drive makes the system reboot.
    This turned out not to be a software problem at all but a hardware glitch.
    It seems that my power supply glitches when the disk load is suddenly removed and this causes the bios to initiate a reboot.
    (Tested this by running the CD to load the supply during a spindown and all went OK).
    Last edited by Robert_Adamson; September 28th, 2013 at 10:52 PM. Reason: Found the last problem too!

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