Array Stopped, Drives Still Spinning


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Had a drive fail a couple days ago and didn't have a spare ready to go immediately.  So, I powered down my server until the new drive arrived.  Upon receipt, I powered up the server so that I could use Unassigned Devices to Pre-Clear the drive first (connected via USB to the server) but did not start the array.  However, noticed all the drives, except the bad one, are spun up.  Since the pre-clear is going to take a long while and the server is effectively down until I replace the drive, I don't need them spun up.  I read a 2013/V5 and older post from Tom (http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=27796.msg245605#msg245605) where he said this is normal operation but was wondering if in the intervening years another option to spin them down has been made available.

 

Thanks, Y

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Thanks, Frank1940.  If I read what you suggested correctly, clicking the symbol (see photo) does not change spin up or down.  Clicking the drive itself gets me into the drive's settings page but nothing is offered there to immediately spin down or spin up the drive.

 

UnraidSpinDown,2016-07-23, rev.1.jpg

UnraidSpinDown2016-07-23_rev.1.jpg.81926839de0af7383d0c4aa6cdd5b5ad.jpg

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You are right.  If the array is stopped there is no little symbol to spin change state. 

 

There is a button on the "Array Operation" tab, but the description for that button, indicates that all of the drives will be spun down and, by inference, it would spin down the drive being precleared.  I would hope that the preclear operation could spin it back up as a part of its normal operation but I can not confirm that. 

 

That being said, I assume that you got a 3TB drive, that would take about 100 hours to do three preclear cycles (or 200 hours for a 6TB).  You should not do any real harm to the drives having them spinning for that period of time as they are designed to spin for tens of thousands of hours.  You would use a bit more electricity... 

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Thanks again, Frank1940.  The button(s) on the Array Operation tab to spin up and spin down drives are also not available, it appears, when the array is stopped so won't have a chance to test what that does to the drive being pre-cleared.

 

Yes, this is going to be a long pre-clear process; 6TB drive via USB 2.0, and I'm okay with that.  Perhaps it's a bit of paranoia since a drive just failed or simply that I don't see a reason to having the drives spinning for so long if they don't need to be, ultimately it is what it is at the moment...but...

 

I would make a request to the fine folks at Limetech that, if this feature truly is not available and if doing so does not break some other important function, the ability to spin down the drives if the array is stopped be added.

 

Thanks,

 

Y

 

 

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Thanks again, Frank1940.  The button(s) on the Array Operation tab to spin up and spin down drives are also not available, it appears, when the array is stopped so won't have a chance to test what that does to the drive being pre-cleared.

 

Yes, this is going to be a long pre-clear process; 6TB drive via USB 2.0, and I'm okay with that.  Perhaps it's a bit of paranoia since a drive just failed or simply that I don't see a reason to having the drives spinning for so long if they don't need to be, ultimately it is what it is at the moment...but...

 

I would make a request to the fine folks at Limetech that, if this feature truly is not available and if doing so does not break some other important function, the ability to spin down the drives if the array is stopped be added.

 

Thanks,

 

Y

 

The whole point of preclear is to have the array online all the time while new disks are zeroed. Not sure why you want to stay offline.

 

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The whole point of preclear is to have the array online all the time while new disks are zeroed. Not sure why you want to stay offline.

Because he wants to thoroughly test the disk before he uses it to replace a failed disk. He doesn't want the array online, because keeping the array online means all disks spin for any write activity and he wants to minimize the possibility of losing a second drive in the interim.

 

Testing a replacement drive while the array is in a failed state pending rebuild is a much different mindset than testing an additional drive at leisure while the array is healthy.

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