HDD spin-up - unRAID or MediaPlayer?

[flambot]

Not sure where to post this??

 

I've been a long time user of unRAID for my video library. I use an XBox running XBMC to access it. After an upgrade of XBMC to a later version, I noticed that unRAID was spinning up all the movies drives (XBMC is set to load straight in the movie library at turn on).

 

Previously, I could browse my library WITHOUT the NAS on (as everything is loaded into a SQL library and cached locally), but now, browsing will spinup the HDD"s if the NAS is on. I could also switch from the movie side on XBMC to the TV Side without any HDD"s spinning up - now all the TV HDD"s spinup when I make the switch - OR - if the NAS is off, then switching to the TV side takes forever to load (when previously it was almost instantaneous). It is like the XBOX is now looking for something on the NAS (to verify something??), but local caching should negate this shouldn't it?

 

I have been trying to find the reason for this for a long time.  I have posted on XBMC forum several times without success. I have also tried heaps of later releases of the XBMC software and I still suffer this issue.  Then I realised I upgraded from 4.1 to 4.3.3 round about the same time as I upgraded to the later version of XBMC.

 

Could unRAID be responsible for spinning the HDD"s up independently of the XBMC software?  Everything in my media library is cached at the Xbox - so there is NO need to spin-up the drives. SO how do I find out what is going on?

 

I have also read something about a function  - I think it caches the dir structure locally (On the unRAID box)  - is it "IS" or "IR" or something. It supposedly refreshes automatically using a fairly short interval. Will this help alleviate this problem.

 

I realise a log will help, but I thought if I could get some pointers on what to look for I could start making some in-roads.

 

I have also noticed a tendency for the HDD"s on the unRAID box to sometimes stay spun up if I leave the Xbox on (which I've been doing to stop the HDD"s spinning up when I turn the xbox on). This issue seems related somehow as well - but it does NOT always happen.

 

Thx for the help.

[WeeboTech]

See this tool.

cache_dirs - an attempt to keep directory entries in RAM to prevent disk spin-up

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=4500.0

[flambot]

Thx WeeboTech - looks like it's just what I needed.  I'll give it go once I get my upgrade out of the way.