Western Digital hard drives not spinning down

[Carson Dyle]

I have a Win2k8 R2 server running on a system with six HDD headers on the motherboard and a Supermicro AOC-SAT2-MV8 8-port PCI-X controller card. The drives are all in a JBOD configuration.

All of the hard drives connected to the motherboard spin down properly, regardless of make. On the Supermicro card, my Samsung drives spin down, but none of the Western Digital drives do. These are older WD20EARS (x3) and WD15EADS (x2) drives.

Any ideas of what I can do? This keeps five drives spinning 24/7 that I don't need to have spinning constantly.

 

[Carson Dyle]

Ugh.... Now that I look at again, none of the drive on the Supermicro controller are being spun down, not just the Western Digitals.

Any ideas?

 

[phis6]

Probably check the PSU first I think.

 

[Carson Dyle]

Probably check the PSU first I think.

Good idea. Then I'll check the case feet to make sure they're sufficiently soft, but not too soft.

 

[Red Squirrel]

It's better for the drives to leave them running anyway... ESPECIALLY if they're in any kind of raid or span solution, which, with today's big drives, they should be.

I have about 20 drives in my file server and I ensure they are always spinning 24/7 and never had any issues. The energy usage is fairly negligible. Nothing more annoying than trying to access data on a drive that is not spinning. Takes forever.

 

[Carson Dyle]

It's better for the drives to leave them running anyway... ESPECIALLY if they're in any kind of raid or span solution, which, with today's big drives, they should be.

JBOD, like I said.

I have about 20 drives in my file server and I ensure they are always spinning 24/7 and never had any issues. The energy usage is fairly negligible. Nothing more annoying than trying to access data on a drive that is not spinning. Takes forever.

Not the way I use them. If I want to play a TV show or browse action movies, it takes an extra 10-15 seconds. No big deal.

Spinning 14 drives in a server that is otherwise sitting idle still seems a waste of energy. At least five of them do spin down.

Doing some searching today, I came across a short review of another card and it mentioned that the card doesn't support drive spindown. So maybe that's the case with the Supermicro card as well.

 

[G73S]

you need WD Drive Utilities v1.1.0.51 to control the spin down time. I set mine to NEVER spin down as I want my external HDD always ready but you may choose what timing you want

I don't know if it'll work for internal drive but you can try

 

[Elixer]

I am also in the camp of never spinning them down.
When they do spin down, it causes more wear & tear on them.

 

[Carson Dyle]

I am also in the camp of never spinning them down.
When they do spin down, it causes more wear & tear on them.

That's one theory. But if there's any truth to it, it has to depend on the frequency of the up/down cycles. I access some drives once a day. Some drives once a week. There's no way I can be convinced that that amount of starting and stopping has any effect on drive life.