I have an UnRAID server with about 6 HDDs in it, total of about 9TB of storage.  I've moved all of my home media to it, and use a Buffalo Link Theater as a set-top box to play TV, movies, etc. that are sourced on the UnRAID server.

 

Buffalo have some old Java based software that is basically a uPnP server application with a custom user interface designed specifically for their set-top box.  Since moving all of my storage to the UnRAID server, I've noticed that the media server software from Buffalo often doesn't detect changes in content on the UnRAID folders.  I have to force restart their software to have it re-sync with the content on the file server.  This is clearly a fault of their application, but they stopped making these units a few years back so I'm kinda stuck with it.

 

I think it has something to do with the spin-down of the hard drives in the UnRAID server.  I'm thinking that the link theater media server software tries to access the shares on the UnRAID server I have, and due to the time delay in spinning-up disks that have gone to sleep after a spin-down period, basically gives up and never updates its list.  In an attempt to locate this as the specific cause of the problem, I'm turning off the spin-up/spin-down behavior so that the drives are permanently in spin-up mode all the time.

 

My question:  Is this a dangerous thing to do for my drives?  If the drives are left in perpetual spin-up mode, will this affect the reliability and life-span of the HDDs in the UnRAID server?

 

Myles

Probably not as long as they aren't getting too hot. Watch their temperature and make sure. Spin up and spin down can be more harsh on a drive. It's mainly done to save power.

I have an UnRAID server with about 6 HDDs in it, total of about 9TB of storage.  I've moved all of my home media to it, and use a Buffalo Link Theater as a set-top box to play TV, movies, etc. that are sourced on the UnRAID server.

 

Buffalo have some old Java based software that is basically a uPnP server application with a custom user interface designed specifically for their set-top box.  Since moving all of my storage to the UnRAID server, I've noticed that the media server software from Buffalo often doesn't detect changes in content on the UnRAID folders.  I have to force restart their software to have it re-sync with the content on the file server.  This is clearly a fault of their application, but they stopped making these units a few years back so I'm kinda stuck with it.

 

I think it has something to do with the spin-down of the hard drives in the UnRAID server.  I'm thinking that the link theater media server software tries to access the shares on the UnRAID server I have, and due to the time delay in spinning-up disks that have gone to sleep after a spin-down period, basically gives up and never updates its list.  In an attempt to locate this as the specific cause of the problem, I'm turning off the spin-up/spin-down behavior so that the drives are permanently in spin-up mode all the time.

 

My question:  Is this a dangerous thing to do for my drives?  If the drives are left in perpetual spin-up mode, will this affect the reliability and life-span of the HDDs in the UnRAID server?

 

Myles

My older Mediagate MG-35 media players similarally give up when initially scanning the disk for media.  It does not wait for them to spin up.  I solved that by putting into place two programs.

 

One is cache_dirs, the other is spinup_when_accessed.sh

 

cache_dirs attempts to keep the directory entries in memory, so they are immediately available to the media player. This eliminates the initial timeout when browsing for a movie.

 

The second script spins up all the disks containing content for a specific user-share when that share is accessed.  The idea is that it will take you a small amount of time to browse the movie listings to pick one to watch and while you are doing that the disks will be spun up.  By the time you press "play" on your media-player, the disk should be ready.

 

You can find cache_dirs here: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=4500.0

You can find spinup_when_accessed.sh here: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=4858.0

 

If you find that keeping the disks spun-up resolves your problems, then you might try adding these two scripts and letting them spin down.

 

Joe L.