Possible to spin down unassigned drives?

[Marv]

Hi,

 

is it possible to spin down unassigned drives somehow?

Because I'm keeping one precleared drive in my tower in case a drive of my array would fail.

Unfortunately that drive is alwas spinning.

 

However, I'm using this command with the S3 sleep plugin after wake up to spin up all drives.

 

/usr/bin/wget  -q  -O  -  localhost/update.htm?cmdSpinupAll=Spin%20Up >/dev/null

 

As I'm a Linux noob I don't know if this only spins up the drives of the array or unassigned devices aswell.

If this is the case, how can I adjust the command above so that it only refers to the array?

Or is it normal that unassigned drives are always spinning?

 

Hope someone can help me out here.

[danioj]

I believe UAD Plugin keeps mounted drives spinning and the best way to stop it spinning is to unmount it. If the drive is truly what you say it's for then I can't see a need to keep it mounted.

 

As you are no doubt aware, unRAID does not manage disks outside of the array in any way - including  spin up/ down.

 

I might not be 100% in the unmount advice to spin down the disk but you could try it. If not the best place to put this is probably in the Unassigned Devices Plugin thread here:

 

https://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=45807.30

 

Maybe a Mod will move it for you! 

 

EDIT: It has just dawned on me that perhaps your use of the term Unassigned Device is not a reference to your use of the above Plugin. In which case, sorry. Waste of time post. I wouldn't expect unRAID to keep a drive not assigned to the Array spinning though given my disk management point above.

[Marv]

yeah I'm sorry, it didn't want to refer to the UAD Plugin. Maybe I expressed myself a bit too complicated.

I just did not assign the precleared drive to the array. I just want to be able to replace a drive of the array in case of a failure.

 

So how do I tell unraid to not spin up the unassigned drive when i wake up my server?

[danioj]

yeah I'm sorry, it didn't want to refer to the UAD Plugin. Maybe I expressed myself a bit too complicated.

I just did not assign the precleared drive to the array. I just want to be able to replace a drive of the array in case of a failure.

 

So how do I tell unraid to not spin up the unassigned drive when i wake up my server?

 

I have to admit I have no idea. I remember back in the day you could use hdparam to use the drives own spindown timer but I can't remember how. That of course doesn't answer the question of how to stop it spinning up.

 

I think I'll bow out and see if someone else knows .... Sorry!

[John_M]

I was discussed here last year.

 

Vanilla unRAID ignores disks that are outside of the array, so-called unassigned devices. But the Unassigned Devices plugin mentioned above can be used to manage them. The support thread is long but you might want to start reading from here.

 

[Matt173]

On 8/11/2016 at 6:10 PM, danioj said:

I believe UAD Plugin keeps mounted drives spinning and the best way to stop it spinning is to unmount it. If the drive is truly what you say it's for then I can't see a need to keep it mounted.

 

As you are no doubt aware, unRAID does not manage disks outside of the array in any way - including  spin up/ down.

 

I might not be 100% in the unmount advice to spin down the disk but you could try it. If not the best place to put this is probably in the Unassigned Devices Plugin thread here:

 

https://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=45807.30

 

Maybe a Mod will move it for you! 

 

EDIT: It has just dawned on me that perhaps your use of the term Unassigned Device is not a reference to your use of the above Plugin. In which case, sorry. Waste of time post. I wouldn't expect unRAID to keep a drive not assigned to the Array spinning though given my disk management point above.

 

I believe this comment/assessment is factually incorrect: Unraid very much greatly impacts unassigned devices. Even hdparm commands in the shell to manually spin down unassigned devices have zero effect (I am on version 6.3.5 as I write this reply). Unassigned devices keep spinning and this is a HUGE problem for me as I run FreeNas on a VM inside Unraid where I pass through the unassigned devices and because of this issue FreeNas cannot perform any power management such as spin down (let's not argue whether this is advised or not, I think a very solid case can be made that a media repo that is accessed 2-3 times a month should have its disks spun down) because Unraid holds a firm grip at power management even of the unassigned devices. 

 

Strangely, "Spin Down Delay" in Settings/Disk Settings only impacts disks on the grid but not unassigned devices. For my use case (freeNas on VM) this is a huge issue and I wonder whether there is a workaround how to avoid this. 

 

Another example that disproves your claim is when one manually spins down unassigned disks in the GUI and then clicks on the "VM" tab all unassigned disks are spun up again. Hence, Unraid very much controls unassigned devices. 

[Matt173]

On 8/11/2016 at 7:42 PM, John_M said:

I was discussed here last year.

 

Vanilla unRAID ignores disks that are outside of the array, so-called unassigned devices. But the Unassigned Devices plugin mentioned above can be used to manage them. The support thread is long but you might want to start reading from here.

 

 

I do not have the UA Plugin installed and yet UnRaid very much controls the Unassigned Devices. Unassigned disks are spun up not just during boot up but also during runtime of the server (such as when one clicks on the "VM" tab. This is a big problem for some users that pass through the unassigned disks to VMs. 

[John_M]

7 hours ago, Matt173 said:

 

I do not have the UA Plugin installed and yet UnRaid very much controls the Unassigned Devices. Unassigned disks are spun up not just during boot up but also during runtime of the server (such as when one clicks on the "VM" tab. This is a big problem for some users that pass through the unassigned disks to VMs. 

 

Of course unassigned disks are spun up during boot! Why would you expect them not to be? The boot process is outside of the operating system. Clicking on the VMs tab of the WebGUI doesn't make any of my spun down unassigned disks spin up. Presumably it does so in your case because of the way you are using your unassigned disks within your VMs - you give scant detail so it isn't easy to say. So I stand by what I said about vanilla unRAID ignoring disks outside of the array, despite it being over a year ago during which time much can change. You say you're passing your unassigned disks through to a FreeNAS VM - that's a somewhat more exotic flavour than plain vanilla.

 

Here's how hdparm behaves with my /dev/sdl (an unassigned disk that's mounted under control of the UD plugin):

root@Lapulapu:~# hdparm -C /dev/sdl

/dev/sdl:
 drive state is:  active/idle
root@Lapulapu:~# hdparm -y /dev/sdl

/dev/sdl:
 issuing standby command
root@Lapulapu:~# hdparm -C /dev/sdl

/dev/sdl:
 drive state is:  standby
root@Lapulapu:~#

If yours behaves differently it must be because something else is preventing it from spinning down - the fact that it's in use by a VM, do you suppose?