• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Windows 2000 and power management...

I

imported_goku

Diamond Member
I set power management in windows 2000 to shut off all HDDs after 3 minutes but the thing is it shuts off all but the primary drive where the OS resides. I find this extremely infuriating because thats the loudest drive in the system and this is a file server, one thats is fairly loud... Anybody know about this? Possibly how to fix this issue...
 
Is something being written to the primary drive frequently (ie, less than 3 minute interval)? I thought, under normal use, Windows will even spin down the primary master when idle.
 
You'd think but there isn't really anything accessing it at all, if anything, the secondary drives would be the ones not to shut down because they're the primary storage.
 
Originally posted by: goku
I set power management in windows 2000 to shut off all HDDs after 3 minutes but the thing is it shuts off all but the primary drive where the OS resides. I find this extremely infuriating because thats the loudest drive in the system and this is a file server, one thats is fairly loud... Anybody know about this? Possibly how to fix this issue...
Click to expand...

Run filemon and see whats touching the drive, but I highly suspect you'll see some app hitting the file system or registry (which eventually gets backed by the file system) so often you won't spin down.
 
Yup that helped a lot! It was a windows media service that was countinously paging the drive with reads... Now I see this other program ntfrs.exe intermittently writing to NTFS.log in c:\winnt\debug ... Which begs the question, why is it doing this? This is what is left that accesses the drive before the 3 minutes are up..
 
Let me guess your running AD on this machine also and it's a DC right? If so it won't spin the drive down because AD rights to it's log files constantly.
 
Yep, NTFRS is the process that replicates files (in a DCs case, the SYSVOL folder). Probably not service you should be messing with.

AD stands for Active Directory.

EDIT: I highly doubt Microsoft ever had in mind that people would be using power management features with DCs like you're attempting to do. You're probably SOL.
 
Oh, I see that you were referring to active directory... If the server isn't being directly accessed then why is it constantly writing to the drive?
 
Originally posted by: goku
Oh, I see that you were referring to active directory... If the server isn't being directly accessed then why is it constantly writing to the drive?
Click to expand...

AD=Active Directory. Windows 2000 Server will NOT shut down that drive if you have the NTFRS service running. The NTFRS service constantly polls the drive for changes in the SYSVOL folder. Also this service was never designed with Power Management in mind. Power managment normally would not be used on a server anyways, especially as one as important as a DC. You won't be able to get your main drive to spin down and have this machine be a DC also.

Just because your not accessing the drive Windows has many other processes running in the background that will access the drive. The fact that the machine is also a DC means that it has even more background processes running that may need to hit the drive.
 
Originally posted by: mikecel79
Originally posted by: goku
Oh, I see that you were referring to active directory... If the server isn't being directly accessed then why is it constantly writing to the drive?
Click to expand...

AD=Active Directory. Windows 2000 Server will NOT shut down that drive if you have the NTFRS service running. The NTFRS service constantly polls the drive for changes in the SYSVOL folder. Also this service was never designed with Power Management in mind. Power managment normally would not be used on a server anyways, especially as one as important as a DC. You won't be able to get your main drive to spin down and have this machine be a DC also.

Just because your not accessing the drive Windows has many other processes running in the background that will access the drive. The fact that the machine is also a DC means that it has even more background processes running that may need to hit the drive.
Click to expand...

Bleh, I guess I'm going to have to take one of my newer 40GB drives and replace the current 80GB in there ATM. The 40GB drives are much newer and quieter but I'm wondering, if I'm using GIGE would the performance be effected by using a slower drive as the main drive even if the other drives are being accessed? I currently have a 100Mb/s hub and I plan on getting a GIGE switch but I'm unsure if 1. performance will be effected and 2. what would be a good switch.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top