Backup disk power settings

[jordanthompson]

Hi all,
I know that the answer is usually "spin, spin, spin" for drives in most pools, but I have a single drive in a pool that I only use once or twice a day as backup for the NAS. I think (in this case) I would like to keep it powered down most of the time. In fact, I have an old Netgear ReadyNAS server that stays shut down most of the time and only wakes itself twice a week for "deep" rsync backup pushes from my TrueNAS server.

So, what settings should I use for it?

I have changed "HDD Standby" to 5 minutes ('cause when the backup is done, I won't need to access it for several hours at the earliest) and "Advanced Power Management" to Level 1 as per the screenshot.

Does this make sense? Am I over-thinking this?

Thanks in advance!

 

[ChrisRJ]

It is a bit of personal preference, I would say. Only I wouldn't do this with a data center drive, like a Seagate Exos, because those are definitely not made for regular spin-ups.

 

[jordanthompson]

The drives in my ReadyNAS are all WD Red Plus. I'm not sure about the single drive in my trueNAS

 

[joeschmuck]

I would recommend that you look at the SMART drive data periodically to make sure that the drive isn't spinning up more than you are expecting it to. Look for ID 4 which is the Start_Stop_Count and the ID 193 which is the Load_Cycle_Count. Watch these values to see if they are incrementing only a few counts a day. This will be an indicator on what your drive is doing.

The rationale behind leaving the drives spinning is to minimize the high current draw for when the drive motor has to spin up the platters. This can cause the drive motor electronics to fail prematurely. The motor itself is fine but the circuits that provide power to the motor are blown/damaged. Frequent spinups are discouraged and sometimes they happen for reasons that are unclear to the end user. For example, if there is a SWAP file on the one drive and SWAP space is accessed for whatever reason, the drive may spinup. It's not because you are looking for data or writing data, it's because the system wanted to do something. This is why I say to look at the SMART data, it will tell you what is happening. Maybe it will only show the drive spins up as you expected and that would be a good thing for you to know.

With that said, as @ChrisRJ said, it's personal preference and if you desire doing that, then it's fine. I just want to provide you the best information so you can make an informed decision.

I'm not sure about the single drive in my trueNAS

The SMART data will tell you what the drive is as well.

How to read the SMART Data:
In the GUI go to Shell
In the Shell window type smartctl -a /dev/ada0 | more
The screen will populate with data. Press Return to page through the data. Write down the values I mentioned above and the date/time you observed it. Wait at least 24 hours or longer and look at the data again, record it. Do this a few times to make sure it's doing as you expect.

If you feel it's good, then it's good. It's all about personal preferences. If it were a really bad thing to do, I'd tell you that.

Good luck and I hope that drive operates as you hope.