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Looking for a program to spin up hd from sleep

C

chong67

Gawd
Joined
Apr 17, 2008
Messages
648
Is there a program or anything to spin up my hard drive from sleep at certain time?

Thanks.
 
indeed it would be useful for some people

like a guy work/use his computer from 8am to 10pm,
the program wake up the HDD at 7:55 and make them sleep at 10:05pm
 
chong67 said:
Is there a program or anything to spin up my hard drive from sleep at certain time?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Do you mean wake it up and keep it up for a specific amount of time, or just wake it up and let it go back to sleep in whatever time period it is set to time out in? If the latter, just create a batch job that copies a single file to the drive(s) in question, and have your system (via cron, task scheduler, etc) run it at the specified time(s).
 
A program called "touch" would work.

Just put it in a script and have it touch a file on each drive on a schedule. Touching a file will require the drive to spin up.
 
On windows a simple
Code: 
cmd /c dir c:
or whatever drive letter should do. Schedule that in the taskscheduler. On posix systems the same idea would work from a cronjob.
 
I use an app called setpower to change my power plan so that my HD setting is on 24/7 during prime time hours, and then 15 minute sleep during off hours.

But, I would also like something that can access individual drive letters to force them to spin.
 
1. Create and open text file
2. Type in "D:," press enter, than type in "dir" where D: is the drive you want to wake up, without qoutes
3. Save file as wake.bat
4. Open scheduler in Windows
5. Set scheduler to run your wake.bat file at whatever time you want

I'm curious of what program you are running that simply isn't waking up the hard drive by itself? All the drives in my HTPC/NAS are set to sleep after 5 minutes of inactivity, but once something needs to access the data on the drive, whether locally or remotely, the drives spin up automatically.
 
FrostBite said:
1. Create and open text file
2. Type in "D:," press enter, than type in "dir" where D: is the drive you want to wake up, without qoutes
3. Save file as wake.bat
4. Open scheduler in Windows
5. Set scheduler to run your wake.bat file at whatever time you want

I'm curious of what program you are running that simply isn't waking up the hard drive by itself? All the drives in my HTPC/NAS are set to sleep after 5 minutes of inactivity, but once something needs to access the data on the drive, whether locally or remotely, the drives spin up automatically.
Click to expand...

Is 5 minutes really a good idea? I was under the impression spinning up and down drives a lot is what wears them out really fast. Like turning on and off lightbulbs.

I don't think i'd want my hard drives spinning up much more than once a day at most. I have my spin-down time set to 5 hours right now. So hopefully they only spin down when i'm gone for extended periods.

I could be incorrect in this assumption though.
 
Yes I do know the Schedular and I have done it to shut down my computer.

I have a usefulness for this.

Bc my hd spin up from sleep, I always miss the first 4 minutes of a recording on my WMC!

I dont want to do a 4 min early recording.

Let me see tonight if it work. Thanks!
 
There is a debate going on with spin up and down vs spinning your hd all day.

I really do not who is right.

==============

Some people said running your AC is better than turn key it on demand when you need it. I find that running AC when I want it is better than running it set at 79 deg F. It has save me money!
 
FrostBite said:
1. Create and open text file
2. Type in "D:," press enter, than type in "dir" where D: is the drive you want to wake up, without qoutes
3. Save file as wake.bat
4. Open scheduler in Windows
5. Set scheduler to run your wake.bat file at whatever time you want

I'm curious of what program you are running that simply isn't waking up the hard drive by itself? All the drives in my HTPC/NAS are set to sleep after 5 minutes of inactivity, but once something needs to access the data on the drive, whether locally or remotely, the drives spin up automatically.
Click to expand...

So my wake.bat should look like this:
=========

k:,
dir

=========

I am waking up k drive. What is the "," after the ":" for?

Scheduling it now. Thanks!
 
The (system) cache is NOT your friend, here. There is a very good chance that a drive(-letter)'s root directory is cached in the System (OS), and just doing a Dir on it is not guaranteed to spin up the drive itself.

Better to do:
dir K:\SpinUp.txt > K:\SpinUp.txt
which WILL guarantee that, upon completion, the drive containing K: will be spinning.
 
UhClem said:
The (system) cache is NOT your friend, here. There is a very good chance that a drive(-letter)'s root directory is cached in the System (OS), and just doing a Dir on it is not guaranteed to spin up the drive itself.

Better to do:
dir K:\SpinUp.txt > K:\SpinUp.txt
which WILL guarantee that, upon completion, the drive containing K: will be spinning.
Click to expand...

I am lost here on what you did above. What does it do? I just did it in the dos prompt. Where do I go and verify?


Do I need to name my file with a .bat extension?
 
I am lost here on what you did above.
Click to expand...

What the new command does is create a file out of the directory listing on the destination drive. That way you can be sure that the drive wakes up.

Do I need to name my file with a .bat extension?
Click to expand...

Short answer: yes.
 
drescherjm said:
What the new command does is create a file out of the directory listing on the destination drive. That way you can be sure that the drive wakes up.



Short answer: yes.
Click to expand...

Create a file out of the directory listing on the destination drive. I have put "wake.bat" in the root of K: drive. That is the only file there.

I am lost. Thanks for explaining.
 
chong67 said:
Yes I do know the Schedular and I have done it to shut down my computer.

I have a usefulness for this.

Bc my hd spin up from sleep, I always miss the first 4 minutes of a recording on my WMC!

I dont want to do a 4 min early recording.

Let me see tonight if it work. Thanks!
Click to expand...

You lose 4 minutes of recording due to drive spinup? Your hard drive obviously doesn't take 4 minutes to spin up, so unless I'm missing something you might have problems elsewhere in your setup.
 
chong67 said:
Create a file out of the directory listing on the destination drive. I have put "wake.bat" in the root of K: drive. That is the only file there.

I am lost. Thanks for explaining.
Click to expand...

wake.bat probably should go on your OS disk.
 
There shouldn't be a comma, used to putting it there for grammatical reasons, it should be:
k:
dir

SirMaster said:
Is 5 minutes really a good idea? I was under the impression spinning up and down drives a lot is what wears them out really fast. Like turning on and off lightbulbs.

I don't think i'd want my hard drives spinning up much more than once a day at most. I have my spin-down time set to 5 hours right now. So hopefully they only spin down when i'm gone for extended periods.

I could be incorrect in this assumption though.
Click to expand...

It all depends on the situation and for my situation, 5 minutes is good. The HTPC part of the computer only records 8 shows a day with the majority of the records when we are watching TV anyways. The HDD that holds records probably only spins up and down 8-10 times a day which is no big deal to me. The NAS part only spins up once a day to check and fix errors and update parity data, and we really don't have much time to watch movies with a new baby.

As for the AC metaphor someone put, that doesn't apply whatsoever to HDD. If you don't run your AC, you get home and it's 90 degrees, good luck trying to get it to 72 vs. always running your AC at 80 and turning it down to 72 when you get home. This doesn't apply to hard drive spin downs at all because it only takes 8 seconds for the hard drive to spin up and seek files (some drives take up to 12 seconds, no big wow) and you'll be at 100%. 5 minute spindown means that it isn't using 5 volts (for 6 drives) like running your AC the whole day even if you aren't there.
 
I use my SSD to record a show using WMC and it start on time! When I move to hd, I loose about 1 minute of the show. Maybe I am killing it too big with with 5 minute spin up.

Still loosing some foreskin vs a big cut off your finger is a big difference. 1 min vs 5 min is big difference maybe. Why does hd spin up so slow?

1 min is late and too late.
 
Honestly, that doesn't seem to deal with the spindown problem because if had to access the HDD, it doesn't take 60 seconds before files start showing up; it may take 8-12 seconds at most. Double check your Windows clock to ensure it is starting on time since some of my recordings have been off due to that, e.g., it's 6PM but Windows thinks it 5:55PM so it won't record for another 5 minutes. Also, double check your WMC settings, and you can compensate by setting set to record X minutes before the show starts.
 
Do I have to this below every time I boot up my computer:

dir K:\SpinUp.txt > K:\SpinUp.txt
 
You were supposed to put those commands in a batch file (with a .bat extension) and use Task Scheduler to execute your batch file at the time you want the drive to spin up.
 
drescherjm said:
You were supposed to put those commands in a batch file (with a .bat extension) and use Task Scheduler to execute your batch file at the time you want the drive to spin up.
Click to expand...

This is what I put inside the wakeup.bat file:

==================
dir K:\wakeup.bat > K:\wakeup.bat
k:
dir


==================

And I have put it inside the W7 Schedular which I know how to do it.

Is this it ?

I went to the log to see if there is anything and there is not.
 
I think I know what is going on now.

Basically just do a directory listing of K: drive and pipe it or write the output it to the same file.

Right? From my half arse Unix days.
 
Can I tell you all a funny story about the WMC ?

I have record from WMC on the SSD. It record on time and right on the few seconds too. So this has nothing to do with my clock on my computer as it is correct.

Then is when it get hairy.

Because my SSD is small, I have to do a "extend" media thing to a hard drive. So I have to copy some of my records to a hard drive.

But I still record to the SSD but this slow things down because of the "extend" thing! But I am not watching anything. I guess the WMC is waiting for the hd to spin up? Why I dont know!

But doing this schedule thing does help. It looks like I am about 10 sec late!

Start recording few minutes earlier is NOT an option. Because if you do this, the next show will be start few minutes early but your first show will end early bc of this!

Get it?
 
chong67,

My HTPC clock will drift after a few days. I had to create a task scheduler to resync the nttp clock every day at 6pm. I think i found an article on hack7mc.com with instructions.

Also, if you have multiple tuners, you can force your back to back show to record with another free tuner by setting the show to record past 10 minutes. Anything less then 10 minutes, it will use the same tuner and cut off part of the next show.
 
af22,

I have the Silicondust Homerun tuner.

It has a dual tuner but I dont know if there is a option to pick which tuner to record.

If you have two shows that come at the same time and another show after that, I dont think you can do this.
 
Hello people.

I think the above code is wrong.

Isnt it suppose to be this: dir K:\wakeup.bat > K:\wakeup2.bat

Otherwise if you overwrite it the original above will not work anymore.

Right or wrong?
 
It look like it doesnt work. The wakeup2.bat file always have the same date at the VERY FIRST time it got created.

Need more help please.
 
How did you schedule wakeup2.bat to run? Maybe the user it runs as does not have the proper permissions.
 
chong67 said:
Hello people.

I think the above code is wrong.

Isnt it suppose to be this: dir K:\wakeup.bat > K:\wakeup2.bat

Otherwise if you overwrite it the original above will not work anymore.

Right or wrong?
Click to expand...

You are incorrect.

Contents of wakeup.bat:
Code: 
dir k:\ > k:\wakeup.txt

Note that the file that is being written is not the batch file that is being executed. The point here is to write a file to the disk, which will force the drive to spool up.

Edit: You could also be having a permissions problem. I get "Access Denied" when I try that command on my c: drive. I assume this UAC kicking in. It works if I write the output to a subdirectory that my user account owns. ("dir c:\ c:\beans\wakeup.txt")
 
BINGO!

This is correct now. Each time I click on it a few minutes later, it write to the destination file with a new time.

In my Schedular, in the General tab, I have it "Run whether user is logged in or not" in all my Schedular.

It is working greeeat now.

Thanks to everyone!
 
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