On Mon, Nov 13, 2017 at 02:04:42PM -0500, Gene Heskett wrote:
> On Monday 13 November 2017 13:42:13 Jon LaBadie wrote:
> 
> > On Mon, Nov 13, 2017 at 11:40:17AM -0500, Austin S. Hemmelgarn wrote:
> > > On 2017-11-13 11:11, Gene Heskett wrote:
> > > > On Monday 13 November 2017 10:12:47 Austin S. Hemmelgarn wrote:
> > > > > On 2017-11-13 09:56, Gene Heskett wrote:
> > > > > > On Monday 13 November 2017 07:19:45 Austin S. Hemmelgarn wrote:
> > > > > > > On 2017-11-11 01:49, Jon LaBadie wrote:
> > > > > > > > Just a thought.  My amanda server has seven hard drives
> > > > > > > > dedicated to saving amanda data.  Only 2 are typically
> > > > > > > > used (holding and one vtape drive) during an amdump run.
> > > > > > > > Even then, the usage is only for about 3 hours.
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > So there is a lot of electricity and disk drive wear for
> > > > > > > > inactive drives.
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > Can todays drives be unmounted and powered down then
> > > > > > > > when needed, powered up and mounted again?
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > I'm not talking about system hibernation, the system
> > > > > > > > and its other drives still need to be active.
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > Back when 300GB was a big drive I had 2 of them in
> > > > > > > > external USB housings.  They shut themselves down
> > > > > > > > on inactivity.  When later accessed, there would
> > > > > > > > be about 5-10 seconds delay while the drive spun
> > > > > > > > up and things proceeded normally.
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > That would be a fine arrangement now if it could
> > > > > > > > be mimiced.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > Aside from what Stefan mentioned (using hdparam to set the
> > > > > > > standby timeout, check the man page for hdparam as the
> > > > > > > numbers are not exactly sensible), you may consider looking
> > > > > > > into auto-mounting each of the drives, as that can help
> > > > > > > eliminate things that would keep the drives on-line (or make
> > > > > > > it more obvious that something is still using them).
> >
> > ...
> >
> > > > But if I allow the 2TB to be  unmounted and self-powered down,
> > > > once daily, what shortening of its life would I be subjected to? 
> > > > In other words, how many start-stop cycles can it survive?
> > >
> > > It's hard to be certain.  For what it's worth though, you might want
> > > to test this to be certain that it's actually going to save you
> > > energy.  It takes a lot of power to get the platters up to speed,
> > > but it doesn't take much to keep them running at that speed.  It
> > > might be more advantageous to just configure the device to idle
> > > (that is, park the heads) after some time out and leave the platters
> > > spinning instead of spinning down completely (and it should result
> > > in less wear on the spindle motor).
> >
> > In my situation, each of the six data drives is only
> > needed for a 2 week period out of each 12 weeks.  Once
> > shutdown, it could be down for 10 weeks.
> >
> > Jon
> 
> Which is more than enough time for stiction to appear if the heads are 
> not parked off disk.
> 
Don't today's drives automatically park heads?

jl
-- 
Jon H. LaBadie                 j...@jgcomp.com
 11226 South Shore Rd.          (703) 787-0688 (H)
 Reston, VA  20190              (703) 935-6720 (C)

Reply via email to