Hard Drive Spin-Down/Sleep Issues - Multiple OS

V

VenomousDesigns

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 4, 2009
Messages
173
As the title reads, currently have a Fileserver running FlexRAID and would like to take the opportunity to switch idle HDDs off while they are not needed.

Was wondering if the "Turn Hard Drive off after" option available under Windows Server 2008 R2 also affects the OS HDD, aka will it power down my Fileserver or just additional HDDs.

If so, is there an easy fix/solution just for non-OS HDDs to be powered down?
 
I don't run Windows Server 2008 so I can't answer your actual question.

But the worst thing that would happen is you have to wait a few seconds for the HDD to spin up when you access it after it's idle. Unless you run into other issues I see no problem with it. It will help the drive last longer too.
 
As far as I know to date there is no easy way to individually manage HDD spindown times in Windows. This really cheeses me off as I feel it's something that should have been added a long time ago but alas all we have is the blanket setting in the power control panel.

I have heard of a couple of utilities that will get you this functionality, HDDScan has been used by some people with good results.

In answer to your original question, the power settings affect every IDE drive attached to the system be they SATA or PATA and it will affect the primary OS drive as well. However you're not likely to see the OS drive actually spin down much since Windows always wants to keep touching various files on a regular basis.
 
Popped on this option last night just to see how it goes - not sure how one can tell if HDDs are actually switched off?

I have a Norco 4224 and the 'green' lights are still on, on the front panels.
 
Try accessing a file on them, if there is a noticeable wait then they were spun down. Or you could touch them and see if they are spinning (vibrating).
 
Forceman said:
Try accessing a file on them, if there is a noticeable wait then they were spun down. Or you could touch them and see if they are spinning (vibrating).
Click to expand...

Yeah, I figured that would be the best way to test (see if they take a second to startup) - unfortunately they did not though :(.

I'm trying to think what would be using ALL of the HDDs. Only thing I have running is FlexRAID WebUI. Could it be my HP SAS Expander > SAS Controller keeping them alive?
 
I've noticed troubles with drive spindown in Win2008 R2 as well. Even though there is the power setting in the control panel, part of me thinks there's something else that's part of Win2008 R2 that's overriding that. There are actually a lot of behaviors like that which microsoft defaults to values other than what's common on their client versions of windows (XP, Vista, 7, etc.). Often it involves having to dig in and find the proper policy in GPEDIT, or a reg tweak, etc.

It could also just be the SAS controller not passing on the commands. I know if my Areca 1680/1880 has no problems putting drives to sleep in RAID or JBOD mode.
 
odditory said:
I've noticed troubles with drive spindown in Win2008 R2 as well. Even though there is the power setting in the control panel, part of me thinks there's something else that's part of Win2008 R2 that's overriding that. There are actually a lot of behaviors like that which microsoft defaults to values other than what's common on their client versions of windows (XP, Vista, 7, etc.). Often it involves having to dig in and find the proper policy in GPEDIT, or a reg tweak, etc.

It could also just be the SAS controller not passing on the commands. I know if my Areca 1680/1880 has no problems putting drives to sleep in RAID or JBOD mode.
Click to expand...

Done a few more Forum diving today and haven't been able to turn up anything in relation to W2K8 R2 and "Turn off Hard Driver after" option.

I know for a fact Treadstone runs W2K8 R2 and FlexRAID and doesn't seem to have this issue (I've tossed him a PM).

Is there anyway for me to test/find out if my HP SAS Expander and/or AOC-USAS2-L8e is passing or not passing sleep commands?

Anyone have any other input?
 
I'm STILL having issues with #4 and Windows NOT turning off idle drives.

I have gone as far as:

1. Disabled all 'Scheduled Tasks' in an attempt to see if that did anything - nothing.
2. Unchecked 'Indexing' off all other HDDs except OS - nothing.
3. Switched 'Idle' time under the option 'Turn Hard Drive off after' to 15 and 30 minutes, tested both - nothing.

As I am using Windows Server 2008 R2 I have no Superfetch nor Defragment enabled. I also do not have ANY 3rd Party programs (Anti-Virus and alike) running. BAREBONES Windows Server 2008 R2 install with the above options - drives have been left for 4 days and no change.

Something is most definitely not right...
 
VenomousDesigns said:
I know for a fact Treadstone runs W2K8 R2 and FlexRAID and doesn't seem to have this issue (I've tossed him a PM).
Click to expand...

he doesn't have that issue because he's not using windows to put his drives to sleep - I believe he's still using his Areca controller in JBOD mode and using its sleep settings.

Anyway I've got an LSI 9211-8i card and I'm trying to figure out the same thing as far as powering down drives on Win2K8 R2. I'm suspecting LSI driver at this point.
 
Yes, I'm pretty sure the Areca puts the drives to sleep. Have to double check that, maybe tonight if I find the time.

@odditory: Does the X8SI6-F board have any settings in the BIOS under the SAS controller to put the drives into sleep?
 
Well that might explain it then, I'm hoping the AOC-USAS2-L8e also has something similar, however I didn't see it when I was playing around before in there.

Also keep in mind my system isn't Hardware RAID but instead FlexRAID - would this be an issue?

Any suggestions would be great!
 
@treadstone: none that i'm aware of, but I haven't really dug around in it. i may try contacting LSI but i imagine i'll get the usual uninspired response "we don't know".
 
@VenomousDesigns: I'm using the Areca ARC-1680i as a JBOD controller only and run FlexRAID instead.

@odditory: If you happen to find the time, could you have a look if there are any settings in the X8SI6-F BIOS to control the SAS connected drives?
 
So e-mailed Supermicro concerning the AOC-USAS2-L8e and any Power Saving settings within the BIOS and they came back saying "It doesn't look like its supported by this model".

So I installed Ubuntu Server onto a spare USB laying around to give it ago in relation to Power Saving settings, did the normal 'newb' way and simply went Preferences > Power Management and checked Turn off Hard Drives when possible - left it for 4 hours and came back, did a hdparm -C /dev/sda1 [sdq1 etc etc] but all displayed; Active\Idle.

I then did a hdparm -I /dev/sda1 and it seems the Advanced Power Management option is set to 254 - from what I read that is reserved.

I went onto put a HDD manually to sleep (hdparm -I /dev/sda1), checked the state again and it read; Standby. But then for the LIFE of me I could wake the bastard up lol... Not looking good :(.
 
Last edited:
Bad idea, best to just leave the drives running. Turning on/off all the time will not only reduce performance but it will kill the drives much faster. Unless they're SSD then I assume that's a non issue, but do they even use enough power to warrent doing that?

With raid, it's even more tricky. Depending on the file system, I'm sure there some background housekeeping that might go on, which is enough to cause all drives in the array to require to be turned back on.
 
Red Squirrel said:
Bad idea, best to just leave the drives running. Turning on/off all the time will not only reduce performance but it will kill the drives much faster. Unless they're SSD then I assume that's a non issue, but do they even use enough power to warrent doing that?

With raid, it's even more tricky. Depending on the file system, I'm sure there some background housekeeping that might go on, which is enough to cause all drives in the array to require to be turned back on.
Click to expand...

I don't think that has been ever proven concerning the spinning up/down of HDDs and diminishing life - Searched high and low for a credible source. I'd understand that if the HDDs were spun up/down continuous in a space of seconds it would be terrible but as this is a File Server storing Photos, Movies and rarely used files I doubt some of the HDDs would be touched in weeks apart.

Also in regards to raid I am using FlexRAID, and thus one of its advantages is being able to have HDDs spin-down, and/or be completely removed.
 
Following the advice of another forum's user who pointed me in the direction of Filemon - which has been merged and updated into a new tool called Process Monitor, I was able to determine; after watching it for 2 hours (while watching TV haha), I discovered that every 10 minutes ALL my HDDs were accessed with the following:

hddspin.jpg


After doing a bit of research I wasn't able to find many concrete answers to determine what service can be stopped or disabled other then Indexing or Windows Search - which unfortunately Windows Server 2008 R2 don't have in the first place, so I'm back to the drawing board.

Can anyone shed any light on the situation for me.
 
treadstone said:
@odditory: If you happen to find the time, could you have a look if there are any settings in the X8SI6-F BIOS to control the SAS connected drives?
Click to expand...

I looked and there are no options for sleep or power settings in the boot-time BIOS for the integrated SAS2008.
 
I've got the same problem, unfortunately, and I'm also looking for a solution.
I've got a Dell T110 with 2 SATA drives in it with Win 2K8 R2 running. I want to add more drives to this server, but the OS seems to keep them humming 24/7. I recently attached a drive through the eSATA connector, and it seems to sleep fine...but the internal drives I can't seem to figure out much here. Sorry I'm not much help, if I learn anything, I'll post back!
 
A kind user (cg2010) over at the FlexRAID forums posted this:

Apparently queryfullsizeinformationvolume is called to check to see if the drives are full so that Windows can show that "drives are full" message. I found a post that has an entry about shutting it down in the registry. Read the whole thread below, but the post from Russel has a registry item to try plus later there is a Microsoft KB article on this:

http://forum.sysinternals.com/how-to-stop-explorer...y-minute_topic11142_page1.html

You'll probably have to reboot after changing the registry value.
Click to expand...

Apparently I had the same symptoms, after running Process Monitor (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896645.aspx) I found that every 10 Minutes a call was going out to each of my Hard Drives; queryfullsizeinformationvolume - with my fingers crossed, I followed the instructions, rebooted and ran Process Monitor again.

No queryfullsizeinformationvolume this time, nor NOTHING else calling my Hard Drives (monitored for 2 hours) BUT still my Hard Drives would not go to sleep.

I'm at a loss, I thought the above user had hit the nail on the head. Any updates?
 
Is there an easy way to query the OS to discover if your HDD has spun down? I think I'm beginning to see it sping down, but my only indication is slow inital response time, I'd like to know for sure if it's really spinning down or not?
 
odditory said:
Anyway I've got an LSI 9211-8i card and I'm trying to figure out the same thing as far as powering down drives on Win2K8 R2. I'm suspecting LSI driver at this point.
Click to expand...

Does anyone know if it works with windows 7 x64 and this lsi 9211-8i?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top