OK to turn on HDD Standby and Advanced Power Management?

[SwisherSweet]

My FreeNAS Server with 7 drives kicks out some heat. It doesn't overheat but I am wondering if there would be any problems if I enabled HDD Standby and Advanced Power Management features.

The server is for a home/office small business. Most of the time, it will sit idle.

If there wouldn't be any problems caused by enabling these features, does anyone have any recommendations on sensible settings for:

1. HDD Standby
2. Advanced Power Management

I don't know what Acoustic Level is, but I assume it allows you to make the disks quieter, perhaps for a recording studio situation???

Thank you.

 

[Kevin Horton]

My FreeNAS Server with 7 drives kicks out some heat. It doesn't overheat but I am wondering if there would be any problems if I enabled HDD Standby and Advanced Power Management features.

The server is for a home/office small business. Most of the time, it will sit idle.

If there wouldn't be any problems caused by enabling these features, does anyone have any recommendations on sensible settings for:

1. HDD Standby
2. Advanced Power Management

I don't know what Acoustic Level is, but I assume it allows you to make the disks quieter, perhaps for a recording studio situation???

Thank you.

The conventional wisdom is that spinning disks have a longer life if you allow them to keep spinning. The disks are the most expensive part of most NASs, so most folks avoid HDD standby to save money over the long run. YMMV.

 

[zoomzoom]

@SwisherSweet Building upon what @Kevin Horton mentioned, HDDs are like cars in the respect that stopping/starting is where the most wear and tear occurs.

Also keep in mind some motherboards are more compatible with OS enabled APM than others. For example, I have an AsRock C2750D4I and it will cause consistent CAM Status errors during FreeNAS' boot if APM is enabled in the OS, as well as once booted, resulting in timeouts and sluggish performance (esp. if CAM Status errors occur during boot or shutdown).