I have added a large drive to my desktop for back up purposes. I am
using rsnapshot to backup just a couple of times a week. Since the
drive will be rarely accessed I added:


/dev/sdb {
spindown_time = 180
}

To hdparm.conf to spin down the disk after 15 minutes of inactivity to
save power (yea goin' green!)


Everything is working right except when I go to restart or shut down the
pc. When I do that, right before init runs halt the hard drive spins up
and then the pc shuts off. Does the hard drive have to spin up in order
to flush a buffer or something before shut down? Any way to get around
this? The sudden spin up and then shut off doesn't seem like it would
be good for the disk, makes alot of noise when it does it too.


Is this just "normal" or what?

Thanks,
Sam


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On 10/14/08 12:12, Sam Leon wrote:
I have added a large drive to my desktop for back up purposes. I am
using rsnapshot to backup just a couple of times a week. Since the
drive will be rarely accessed I added:


/dev/sdb {
spindown_time = 180
}

To hdparm.conf to spin down the disk after 15 minutes of inactivity to
save power (yea goin' green!)


Everything is working right except when I go to restart or shut down the
pc. When I do that, right before init runs halt the hard drive spins up
and then the pc shuts off. Does the hard drive have to spin up in order
to flush a buffer or something before shut down? Any way to get around
this? The sudden spin up and then shut off doesn't seem like it would
be good for the disk, makes alot of noise when it does it too.


Is this just "normal" or what?


Yes. The drive must spin up before being dismounted.

I suggest that you only mount the drive when needed. Besides the
safety of preventing you from accidentally deleting needed files, it
boosts the likelihood that the kernel won't need to spin it up
during shutdown.


--
Ron Johnson, Jr.
Jefferson LA USA

Help a man when he is in trouble and he will remember you when
he is in trouble again.


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>
>
>
>---- Original Message ----
>From: ron.l.johnson@cox.net
>To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
>Subject: Re: Hard Drive Spin Down
>Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2008 12:25:58 -0500
>
>>On 10/14/08 12:12, Sam Leon wrote:
>>> I have added a large drive to my desktop for back up purposes. I
>am
>>> using rsnapshot to backup just a couple of times a week. Since
>the
>>> drive will be rarely accessed I added:
>>>
>>> /dev/sdb {
>>> spindown_time = 180
>>> }
>>>
>>> To hdparm.conf to spin down the disk after 15 minutes of
>inactivity to
>>> save power (yea goin' green!)
>>>
>>> Everything is working right except when I go to restart or shut
>down the
>>> pc. When I do that, right before init runs halt the hard drive
>spins up
>>> and then the pc shuts off. Does the hard drive have to spin up in
>order
>>> to flush a buffer or something before shut down? Any way to get
>around
>>> this? The sudden spin up and then shut off doesn't seem like it
>would
>>> be good for the disk, makes alot of noise when it does it too.
>>>
>>> Is this just "normal" or what?
>>
>>Yes. The drive must spin up before being dismounted.
>>
>>I suggest that you only mount the drive when needed. Besides the
>>safety of preventing you from accidentally deleting needed files, it
>
>>boosts the likelihood that the kernel won't need to spin it up
>>during shutdown.
>>
>>--
>>Ron Johnson, Jr.
>>Jefferson LA USA
>>
>>Help a man when he is in trouble and he will remember you when
>>he is in trouble again.
>>
>>
Ron is correct (as usual); there are lots of housekeeping that must
be done
before the system shuts down, many of which require HDD access.
Among them
are the graceful closing of files that may be open and the transfer
of data
from the memory caches, which are semiconductor, back to the HDD.
Larry
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>>with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.d
>ebian.org
>>
>>
>>




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On 10/14/08 14:41, owens@netptc.net wrote:
[snip]

Ron is correct (as usual); there are lots of housekeeping that must


Just on the easy stuff. Debian does so much for us, and daemons
like Postfix are so stable, with simple-to-read text files that they
can run unattended for years, leading to use-it-or-lose it
forgetting of lots of stuff that I used to need to know.


--
Ron Johnson, Jr.
Jefferson LA USA

Help a man when he is in trouble and he will remember you when
he is in trouble again.


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Sam Leon wrote:
> Does the hard drive have to spin up in order to flush a buffer or
> something before shut down? Any way to get around this?
Unmount the volume when not in use. Unmounted volumes do not need to
spin up during shutdown.

Ron Johnson wrote:

On 10/14/08 12:12, Sam Leon wrote:
I have added a large drive to my desktop for back up purposes. I am
using rsnapshot to backup just a couple of times a week. Since the
drive will be rarely accessed I added:


/dev/sdb {
spindown_time = 180
}

To hdparm.conf to spin down the disk after 15 minutes of inactivity to
save power (yea goin' green!)


Everything is working right except when I go to restart or shut down
the pc. When I do that, right before init runs halt the hard drive
spins up and then the pc shuts off. Does the hard drive have to spin
up in order to flush a buffer or something before shut down? Any way
to get around this? The sudden spin up and then shut off doesn't seem
like it would be good for the disk, makes alot of noise when it does
it too.


Is this just "normal" or what?


Yes. The drive must spin up before being dismounted.

I suggest that you only mount the drive when needed. Besides the safety
of preventing you from accidentally deleting needed files, it boosts the
likelihood that the kernel won't need to spin it up during shutdown.




Hmm, sounded like a good idea but with the drive unmounted and spun
down, it still spins up right before a shut down or a reboot.


Sam


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On Wed, Oct 15, 2008 at 07:16:33PM -0500, Sam Leon wrote:
> Ron Johnson wrote:
> >On 10/14/08 12:12, Sam Leon wrote:

> Hmm, sounded like a good idea but with the drive unmounted and spun
> down, it still spins up right before a shut down or a reboot.

Over the years I've tried to sort this out without success. I'd suggest
an external enclosure (eSATA?) so you can unmount, and actually turn off
when you don't need it. I don't know what happens to debian if you turn
off an eSATA-connected drive though. USB should be fine but then you
may not get SMART notification (see a recent thread).

Of course, there's always good'ol SCSI.

Or, the cheapest external multi-drive enclosure I've found is called
someone's old computer. Turn it on when you want to do a backup, backup
over rsync or NFS, and turn it off. If it does wake-on-lan you could
script it all from your main computer.

Doug.


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On 10/15/08 19:16, Sam Leon wrote:

Ron Johnson wrote:

On 10/14/08 12:12, Sam Leon wrote:
I have added a large drive to my desktop for back up purposes. I am
using rsnapshot to backup just a couple of times a week. Since the
drive will be rarely accessed I added:


/dev/sdb {
spindown_time = 180
}

To hdparm.conf to spin down the disk after 15 minutes of inactivity
to save power (yea goin' green!)


Everything is working right except when I go to restart or shut down
the pc. When I do that, right before init runs halt the hard drive
spins up and then the pc shuts off. Does the hard drive have to spin
up in order to flush a buffer or something before shut down? Any way
to get around this? The sudden spin up and then shut off doesn't
seem like it would be good for the disk, makes alot of noise when it
does it too.


Is this just "normal" or what?


Yes. The drive must spin up before being dismounted.

I suggest that you only mount the drive when needed. Besides the
safety of preventing you from accidentally deleting needed files, it
boosts the likelihood that the kernel won't need to spin it up during
shutdown.




Hmm, sounded like a good idea but with the drive unmounted and spun
down, it still spins up right before a shut down or a reboot.


Hmmm, very puzzling. I'd ask lkml.

Anyway, does this *actually* hurt anything, or just make a moment of
noise and kinda make you a bit worried?


--
Ron Johnson, Jr.
Jefferson LA USA

Help a man when he is in trouble and he will remember you when
he is in trouble again.


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Ron Johnson wrote:

On 10/15/08 19:16, Sam Leon wrote:

Ron Johnson wrote:

On 10/14/08 12:12, Sam Leon wrote:
I have added a large drive to my desktop for back up purposes. I am
using rsnapshot to backup just a couple of times a week. Since the
drive will be rarely accessed I added:


/dev/sdb {
spindown_time = 180
}

To hdparm.conf to spin down the disk after 15 minutes of inactivity
to save power (yea goin' green!)


Everything is working right except when I go to restart or shut down
the pc. When I do that, right before init runs halt the hard drive
spins up and then the pc shuts off. Does the hard drive have to
spin up in order to flush a buffer or something before shut down?
Any way to get around this? The sudden spin up and then shut off
doesn't seem like it would be good for the disk, makes alot of noise
when it does it too.


Is this just "normal" or what?


Yes. The drive must spin up before being dismounted.

I suggest that you only mount the drive when needed. Besides the
safety of preventing you from accidentally deleting needed files, it
boosts the likelihood that the kernel won't need to spin it up during
shutdown.




Hmm, sounded like a good idea but with the drive unmounted and spun
down, it still spins up right before a shut down or a reboot.


Hmmm, very puzzling. I'd ask lkml.

Anyway, does this *actually* hurt anything, or just make a moment of
noise and kinda make you a bit worried?




That is what I am wondering. Besides worrying, it also causes about a 5
second delay on shutdown while the kernel (or whatever) waits for it to
spin up, to then just shut it off.


Sam



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On Wed, 15 Oct 2008 20:33:11 -0400
"Douglas A. Tutty" <dtutty@vianet.ca> wrote:

...

> Or, the cheapest external multi-drive enclosure I've found is called
> someone's old computer. Turn it on when you want to do a backup, backup
> over rsync or NFS, and turn it off. If it does wake-on-lan you could
> script it all from your main computer.

But IIUC, the power draw, especially of an old and probably energy
inefficient computer, is much higher than that of a dedicated external
disk enclosure. I currently use an old computer, but I'm planning to
try some sort of home built NAS (openwrt on a router and an attached
external drive), and I'll see how that goes.

> Doug.

Celejar
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