HDD hibernate & replace disks (none raid)

[Xairoo]

Hi,

 

I am planning to merge and replace my Synology and Xpenology servers.

Only because of HDD hibernation 🙂

One server is always on, the big one only at night with all other workstations to run backups.

 

Can Unraid put single HDDs into hibernation when they aren't used for a time? I read it a few month ago that this can be setup individually, it that true? Only the disks that get accessed will woke up/won't spin down? That's the reason why I want to change the system 🙂 Synology = all disks spinning or all hibernate.
 

I am running a few pools with raid 1 and two HDDs got replaced every week (basic type, just to keep important backups at a different place, that works very well. Using rsync to resync the data, totally okay).

 

- Will the HDDs (and pools of course) individually hibernate (also with PCIe SATA adapters)?

- Can I move "basic" drives out of the server (when powered off) and replace the disc with an other one? No matter what content, just like an HDD from an other Unraid server... do I have to mount or what ever the disk after replacing it?

 

Thanks! 😃

[JorgeB]

13 hours ago, Xairoo said:

Can Unraid put single HDDs into hibernation when they aren't used for a time?

Yes, each data device is a separate filesystem with Unraid, so they can sleep when not in use.

[JorgeB]

13 hours ago, Xairoo said:

Can I move "basic" drives out of the server (when powered off) and replace the disc with an other one? No matter what content, just like an HDD from an other Unraid server... do I have to mount or what ever the disk after replacing it?

Don't understand the question, you can replace any data device with another of the same size or larger, if there's parity assigned.

[Xairoo]

17 minutes ago, JorgeB said:

Don't understand the question, you can replace any data device with another of the same size or larger, if there's parity assigned.

My question wasn't well formed, sorry. And thanks for your feedback!

Currently I have a HDD swap bay (https://amzn.to/2W6ig1X) in my Xpenology. So I am able to replace the disk very fast. The HDD in this bay acts as a basic disk (no RAID or so).

 

Think about an USB HDD drive. Plug in, will mount automatically, able to access the data.

Or @ Windows: Assign a drive letter to a HDD, shut the system down. Replace the HDD with an other one and give the HDD the same letter. So you can switch these HDDs and Windows will think drive 1 is drive 2 (because of the name, not because of the content).
 

The reason:

I backup up my RAID 1 to the HDD in the bay with rsync (after the backup to my RAID 1 is done).

 

After a week or so I replace the HDD in this bay with a second HDD.

The other HDD is the one that was the week before in the bay.

Rsync will sync all the RAID 1 data to this disk. So finally if the RAID 1 and the HDD in the bay will fail, I still have the max. one week old data on the other HDD that is placed in a safe location.

So finally I have 2 HDDs for swap bay and this kind of cycle. One in the swap bay, one in a safe location.

 

Xpenology (Synology/DSM) handles this HDD as a normal HDD (because it's connect via SATA, the USB was just an example).

It just tells me that the system data (DSM stores it's system data across all drives) on this drive isn't "valid" or so (because the DSM content is "old" and DSM "knows" what is on SATA port X). But that's not a problem, I just ignore it. The sync with rsync to this drive works and I don't care about the DSM data on this drive.

 

Because I only use my servers as a backup storage and one for Plex, the drives don't have to run 24/7.

For that I could also use Windows, that will work too. But DSM or Unraid is better to handle the user, also it's more secure.

For example I enable write rules for some shares only sometimes when I have to write data to it (99,99% it get's only read because it's an archive) - think about ransomware.

And finally windows is too overblown. But one good reason would be... move one disk to an other Windows system will just work without extra software.

 

So I am playing around with the idea to use Unraid or Windows.

[Xairoo]

Looks like this won't work because of the array that Unraid use.

[trurl]

10 hours ago, Xairoo said:

Think about an USB HDD drive. Plug in, will mount automatically, able to access the data.

Or @ Windows: Assign a drive letter to a HDD, shut the system down. Replace the HDD with an other one and give the HDD the same letter. So you can switch these HDDs and Windows will think drive 1 is drive 2 (because of the name, not because of the content).

You can do all this with the Unassigned Devices plugin.