Is there any OS/backup software that can fully idle the backup drive when not in use?

[boren]

I have an old Atom-based PC that I'd like to use as a dedicated backup server. It has a small SSD drive and a new 6TB drive which I intend to use for backups of other machines in my home (which all run Windows). My goal is that this drive will be completely idle (not even spin) except when backups are performed. Ideally I want it work no more than 1 hour a day.

Note that up until now I've been using my HTPC as a backup server (with the now-discontinued-for-home users CrashPlan software), but the backup disk is obviously spinning most of the time.

Which OS/backup software would you recommend?

 

[XavierMace]

The backup software has no bearing on the drive spinning down. Shutting down hard drives after periods of inactivity has been a feature of at least the last several versions of Windows. That said, I do know that there's been issues with some versions of Intel's RST preventing drives from spinning down.

 

[corkyg]

Consider putting it in a mobile rack and thus be able to physically turn it on and off.

 

[boren]

Shutting down hard drives after periods of inactivity has been a feature of at least the last several versions of Windows. That said, I do know that there's been issues with some versions of Intel's RST preventing drives from spinning down.

Wouldn't other periodical activities, such as indexing and anti-virus scanning (among probably many others), also wake up the drive?

The backup software has no bearing on the drive spinning down.

It's unfortunate if this is the case, because in theory a backup software (with sufficient permissions) could unmount a partition or switch the whole drive to offline, no?

Consider putting it in a mobile rack and thus be able to physically turn it on and off.

Physically means manually (I assume). This would prevent automating backup related activities, which is what I'd like to do.

 

[XavierMace]

Yes, so disable indexing and anti-virus scanning on that drive. I've never seen a backup program that unmounts the drive when complete, then remounts it for the next backup. Why is the drive running sometimes such a big deal?

 

[boren]

It's a big deal because it's shortening the life of the drive for no reason. If instead of running 1 hour a day it'll wake up multiple times and run a total time of 3 hours I think it's safe to assume its lifetime will be reduced. Maybe not by 3 times, but enough to be an issue.

Is there a way to monitor the total amount of hours in a day a drive is running? It would be interesting to experiment with disabling indexing and anti-virus scanning to see if this brings the drive close to the level of inactivity I'm looking for.

 

[deustroop]

You are really looking for an automated off/on switch ? I'm not sure household machines need backing up every day. Once a week perhaps if the systems are well managed. So set automated weekly backups then turn off the back up machine until the next week's routine starts.

 

[XavierMace]

It's a big deal because it's shortening the life of the drive for no reason. If instead of running 1 hour a day it'll wake up multiple times and run a total time of 3 hours I think it's safe to assume its lifetime will be reduced. Maybe not by 3 times, but enough to be an issue.

Is there a way to monitor the total amount of hours in a day a drive is running? It would be interesting to experiment with disabling indexing and anti-virus scanning to see if this brings the drive close to the level of inactivity I'm looking for.

It's generally accepted that starting/stopping is harder on the drive than just leaving it running, especially on older drives or drives that have been powered off for an extended period of time. That said, it's not generally by an appreciable amount. Google did a study some years ago that showed I think it was a 2%-3% increase in failure rate on drives being power cycled rather than left running. So if your that concerned about the drive's life span, I'd disable all power saving functionality on it and just let it spin.

 

[boren]

This is very interesting. Do you have a link to that study?

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Consider putting it in a mobile rack and thus be able to physically turn it on and off.

I do that for the disk used to manually -- but regularly -- back up the most important data files on my server.

But that's the problem with turning a drive on and off, for instance with the keyswitch of a hot-swap caddy. You want to have an automated and unattended backup, but turning the drive on and off defeats that entire scenario.

Just recently over the last couple months, I've simply left my server backup drive turned on and running. It's still good to have the bay and caddy mobile drive, though. If somehow the house is threatened in So-Cal by fire, I only have to remove the drive and take it with me.

 

[PingSpike]

Wouldn't almost any OS spin the disk down if you set the power settings for it when the disk wasn't in use? It shouldn't matter what backup software you use because the OS should just spin the disk back up when it needs to write.

 

[boren]

The problem is that the disk will be woken up by the OS many times a day for things like file-indexing and anti-virus scanning.

 

[XavierMace]

As I said, the fix for that is to disable indexing and scanning on that drive. I'll see if I can find Google's study, but if you look around you'll see it's a topic that's been discussed for years. I've got all consumer drives in the servers in my sig. I'm generally getting 45,000+ hours out of those drives. Having them on for only an hour a day obviously isn't going to make them last 45,000 days. So the real question is how much of a difference would it have to be either way for it to really matter. 2% of a drive that lasts 5 years would be just over a month.