Re: USB drive spins up every hour
On Wed, 28 Mar 2012 09:46:59 -0400, Stefan Monnier wrote:
>>>>>> My USB-connected drive spins up every hour (or even half-hour).
>>>> (...)
>>>>>> Any idea what it might be and how to find out and fix it? IIRC,
>>>>>> this setting can be defined using hdparm ("-M" flag and also "/usr/
>>>>>> share/doc/hdparm/README.acoustic") but as the man page/doc says,
>>>>>> the possible options for this value depend on the hard disks model.
>>>>> hdparm only sets the timeout for spin DOWN. My drives spins down
>>>>> just fine, the problem is that it spins *UP* even though I don't use
>>>>> it.
>>>> I think both settings can be tweaked. "man hdparm" is long but worth
>>>> for a slow reading.
>>> You're confused. Spin up happens when the drive is accessed and
>>> that's all there is to it.
>> Well, that's not always the case. There are external drives which have
>> embeded in their firmware the power saving routines and spin-down/up
>> automatically based on that, regardless the disk is being accessed or
>> not.
>
> Regardless of where the code responsible for the spin-up resides, if the
> drive spins up when the drive is not accessed, it's a bug.
I don't think so.
The hard disk can have set (by default) embbeded routines that make the
disk to be "awaked" at a regular interval and external disks (those that
come with USB enclosures or NAS/SAN appliances) tend to do it to speed up
things (e.g., to run scheduled backup tasks).
>> Mmm... if you so sure the disk is awaked by an external application,
>> then don't mount it unless you need it, that way the disk can be still
>> powered on but it will inaccessible for the system and programs.
>
> Even when not mounted (and with its LVM volumes deactivated) it still
> spins-up.
Then I would contact the manufacturer. If the disk is not mounted and no
external program is accessing to it and still spins-up, it can be
something wrong in the firmware.
Greetings,
--
Camaleón
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