Energy Bill Savings - Drives Spindown - Multiple Arrays

[Gwendolyn Parker]

First of all a big thanks. I'm super happy I moved from Syno to a real and flexible NAS solution. You guys at limetech reduced my overall stress level caused by potential data loss quite much.

 

I have a 96 TB Array I did set up using mostly 14TB Drives (2x 14TB Parity). My data is very diverse, and the vast majority of it doesn't need to be accessed frequently. (I didn't need to access some shares for more than 18 months). Truly ice cold storage. It is however irreplaceable data or data where so much work has been put in I'd likely have a seizure if anything happens to it. Hence the inclusion in some redundant system, ie. Unraid.

 

The other part of the data I work daily with. Also mostly irreplaceable data mixed with a media library, TV shows and movies.

 

With the insanely increase in price of energy, (and price in my country are in the world top 10) I wanted to optimize my costs. Spinning down arrays is not a solution since Windows clients keep polling the array too frequently to make it worth it. (Unless I missed something)

 

My questions are as follows:

 

• Is it possible to have a second array that I would keep stopped and just start when needed ? (I'm confused with multiple pools vs multiple arrays)
• If the above is possible, how shall I proceed to "split" the array in 2. Keeping only 1 parity driver per array, then adding a 2nd parity disk to each?
• If not, is there a solution to keep the drives spun down for sure, despite Microsoft's invasive samba shares scanning eagerness ?
• Anything else you guys figured out to save $$$ on the energy bill ?

 

Of course a second Unraid NAS is the obvious answer, but I don't have spare hardware for the moment and not enough cash either.

 

Thank you !

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ChatNoir]

49 minutes ago, Gwendolyn Parker said:

Is it possible to have a second array that I would keep stopped and just start when needed ?

Not for the moment (6.9 or the coming 6.10). I might be possible in future releases, but not for a few months/years.

 

51 minutes ago, Gwendolyn Parker said:

If not, is there a solution to keep the drives spun down for sure, despite Microsoft's invasive samba shares scanning eagerness ?

This part I do not understand. My Array drives stay down for hours, possibly longer if I do not ask data from them. My main windows machine is connected 24/7 and do not cause any issue.

Are you sure you do not have programs on your windows machines causing the issue rather that the OS itself ?

[JonathanM]

3 hours ago, Gwendolyn Parker said:

It is however irreplaceable data or data where so much work has been put in I'd likely have a seizure if anything happens to it. Hence the inclusion in some redundant system, ie. Unraid.

 

You have copies elsewhere, correct? Unraid, or any RAID system, is not backup, it's high availability. Plenty of ways to lose data that aren't covered by redundancy.

[Gwendolyn Parker]

On 2/17/2022 at 11:35 AM, ChatNoir said:

This part I do not understand. My Array drives stay down for hours, possibly longer if I do not ask data from them. My main windows machine is connected 24/7 and do not cause any issue.

Are you sure you do not have programs on your windows machines causing the issue rather that the OS itself ?

 

Thanks ChatNoir. I investigated further but didn't find a solution yet. It will take time to figure out which device keeps spinning up the drives. I'm not the only one with the issue from what I can see. But it is likely a third party software indeed.

[Gwendolyn Parker]

On 2/17/2022 at 1:49 PM, JonathanM said:

You have copies elsewhere, correct? Unraid, or any RAID system, is not backup, it's high availability. Plenty of ways to lose data that aren't covered by redundancy.

 

I do. At least in part. My VR180-360° footage, the drives fill up faster than I can afford if I need to buy them double. I know HA is not backup, but IMO unraid offers the best compromise between risk and cost. I guess I'll end up buying more drives to build a second system.

[trurl]

1 hour ago, Gwendolyn Parker said:

It will take time to figure out which device keeps spinning up the drives. I'm not the only one with the issue from what I can see. But it is likely a third party software indeed.

If your appdata, domains, system shares are on the array, then your dockers/VMs will keep disks spunup since these files are always open.