Adaptec RAID will not power off

[Timber_Held]

I have a little bit ancient Adaptec RAID 2405 controller, but it works fine for my RAID-10 4 HDDs array for archiving data.
Now, I actually need that array just once a week, as my OS and most of my work data is on a separate SSD.
I would love to have that 7200 RPM disks powered down for energy conservation and lowering the noise, but they won't.

In the dedicated Adaptec Storage Manager I set Actions -> Power settings -> Set timers, and then give it "Power off drives after: 3 mins".
But it would not power them off.

• The drives are reported in Adaptec Storage Manager as supporting both reduced rpm and powered off states.
• I turned off everything that could block the power off - AV, Dropbox, the indexing service in my Windows OS is only limited to files on SSD.
• My OS is on a separate SSD.
• Intel i7, SSD Samgung EVO, RAID-10: 4x WD2003FYYS-0 7200 RPM, Windows 10 latest.
• Adaptec RAID Windows driver is 7.1.0.30034 from 29.11.2012.
• Adaptec RAID BIOS V.5.2-0 [Build 18252].
• Firmware version: 5.2-0[18252].

1. What can be the cause it is not powering off the drives? Maybe something is blocking them, but what can it be?
2. Can I just somehow manually power them down?

 

[mwroobel]

What build of Windows are you running, and what is the firmware revision of your spinners (Per adaptec, they only support 01.00D01 & 01.01D01.) That being said, this is a 12 year old card and may not be fully supported by Windows 10.

 

[Timber_Held]

What build of Windows are you running, and what is the firmware revision of your spinners (Per adaptec, they only support 01.00D01 & 01.01D01.) That being said, this is a 12 year old card and may not be fully supported by Windows 10.

Windows 10, ver 1909, build: 18363.836

My HDDs are 01.01D01.

I am thinking of upgrading my controller's firmware, but that can be risky, sometimes leading to unability to read the old array (as I read).

 

[Timber_Held]

OK. I found the probable cause:

You must use a compatible combination of Adaptec Storage Manager and controller firmware and driver software to use the power management feature. All software components must support power management. You can download the latest controller firmware and drivers from the Adaptec Web site at www.adaptec.com.

I will be upgrading the firmware/BIOS of my Adaptec controller. Question: should I phisically disconnect the 4 drives during the firmware upgrading process?

 

[mwroobel]

That isn't necessary. Prior to the upgrade, make ENTIRELY SURE you have a complete and up-to-date backup of all the data on the array (Just in case something goes wrong.) You also might want to consider doing the upgrade from a DOS boot disk, not Win10 (the flash software for this particular card may have been written as much as a decade prior to the release of Win10.)