Hello All,

 

Firstly I hope I am posting in the correct Forum and apologize in advance if this is not the case.

 

Basically the issue is that two of my drives don't go to sleep (spin down), even after a reboot.  I have attached my Diagnostics file in hopes it helps.

 

Particulars of my system are:

VERSION: 6.11.5

INSTALLED APPS: Community Applications and PLEX

DRIVES: 16 + Parity

DRIVES NOT SLEEPING: Parity and Disk 2

 

It appears to be reading and writing to these two drives.  

Even if PLEX is not running they still don't go to sleep.  They'll wake up after about a minute.  Even if I click "SPIN DOWN" they'll go to sleep and then wake again.

NOTE: Even though PLEX is set to AUTOSTART it doesn't start automatically on rebooting - not sure if this has anything to do with it.

I noticed the behaviour stating after one of my drives failed and I replaced it and also changed my PARITY DRIVE to a larger one.  I have done both of these things before so am pretty sure I did them right.  

 

 

 

titan-diagnostics-20221230-1013.zip

Your system share has files on disk2.

 

Ideally, appdata, domains, system shares would have no files on the array so docker/VM performance won't be impacted by slower array, and (as in your case) so array disks can spin down since these files are always open.

 

Nothing can move (or delete) open files, so you will have to Disable Docker and VM Manager in Settings before these can be moved to cache. And Mover won't replace files so if these also exist on cache they won't be moved and you will have to clean that up yourself. Install Dynamix File Manager plugin for that.

Thanks so much for your prompt reply.  I am a NEWBIE with respect to UNRAID but am trying to understand.  I MOVED the file that I had in my CACHE and then DISABLED Docker and VM Manager.  I rebooted and updated my PLEX.  Will keep you posted.

 

Thank you1

4 hours ago, valpersaud said:

I MOVED the file that I had in my CACHE

I don't know which file you are talking about. Or where you moved it to. You don't want to move files FROM cache. You want to move files TO cache so those array disks can spin down. Doesn't sound like what you might have done will help anything.

 

If Docker and VM Manager are disabled in Settings, and if User Share named "system" is still set to cache:prefer, go to Main - Array Operation and run Mover to get files for that share moved FROM array TO cache.

 

Then post new diagnostics.

Thanks for your message and my apologies - there was a file sitting in my CACHE drive waiting to be copied over early morning when my MOVER is automatically invoked.  So I had clicked MOVE manually under ARRAY OPERATION.

 

UPDATE - So after INITIALLY invoking MOVE and disabling DOCKER and VM MANAGER as described above... I rebooted and then enable DOCKER and VM MANAGER and ran PLEX and eventually all the drives went to sleep EXCEPT for the CACHE DRIVE that remained with the GREEN status.

 

I just DISABLED VM MANAGER and DOCKER again clicked MOVE under ARRAY OPERATION.  I have attached the NEW DIAGNOSTICS. (please note I cliecked SPIN DOWN and all the drives are asleep - for now).

 

ALSO - I am not sure why the CACHE DRIVE has three (3) FOLDERS remaining: appdata, domains, system

 

Thank you again for your kind reply and time!

 

 

titan-diagnostics-20221231-0955.zip

1 hour ago, valpersaud said:

all the drives went to sleep EXCEPT for the CACHE DRIVE that remained with the GREEN status

That's pretty much a given because once appdata, the docker image etc is on the cache drive, it will stay up and running due to how Plex et al operate.

 

1 hour ago, valpersaud said:

I am not sure why the CACHE DRIVE has three (3) FOLDERS remaining: appdata, domains, system

On a default system, those shares are automatically created unless you override the locations with another share to use.  Those 3 are set to use the cache drive, and this is how you want things set up

appdata                           shareUseCache="only"    # Share exists on cache
domains                           shareUseCache="prefer"  # Share exists on cache
system                            shareUseCache="prefer"  # Share exists on cache

 

Thanks, SQUID!

 

So there is no solution to get the CACHE DRIVE to Sleep when PLEX is running (I have PLEX running all the time).

 

Cheers!

No solution.  The problem is that both Plex and the docker subsystem will constantly access files.  

 

Drive spinning in and by itself is reliability wise the best thing for your spinner.  For power consumption replace the cache drive with an SSD (or add the SSD as an additional cache pool and only keep the appdata / docker image on it. 

Great idea @Squid about the SSD.  I actually had one in there before but the size was small.

 

Thanks again for your help and @trurl's.

 

I will monitor that things will continue to work fine and then close this thread with a solution found.