SOLVED How to Spin down

[Theapplefuture]

Hello Everybody,

Like I mentioned in another threat, I like my NAS to save some energy.
So I was given the advise to spin down my HDDs when not used.

First - In some online forums I found that my System Dataset (which should be stored on my first created dataset) must not be on the volume I want to spin down, is that right?
So, Can I just copy my System Dataset to an USB Stick and let my Drives spin down?

Second - If my HDDs are in spin down during a scrub, will they automatically be woken up?

And last question (sorry for that dumb question) - How do I spin them down?
I looked in FreeNAS and the only option I found was Hard Drive standby and some numbers which I think are the minutes after which they go into standby?
So is the only thing I have to do for this to set the time or do I have to do more?

Hope you can help me and thank you

P.S.: I have FreeNAS 11.1 installed and 6x Seagate IronWolf 8 TB installed

 

[Ericloewe]

So i was given the advise to spin down my HDDs when not used.

Very bad advice. You'll only wear out your disks more quickly, increasing the likelihood of data loss and increasing your expenses with replacement disks.

So, Can I just copy my System Dataset to an USB Stick and let my Drives spin down ?

No. The system dataset must live on reliable storage. That means no USB flash drives, no SD cards and probably no CF cards. You need redundant SSDs or HDDs.

 

[kdragon75]

First - In some online forums I found that my System Dataset (which should be stored on my first created dataset) must not be on the volume I want to spin down, is that right ?
So, Can I just copy my System Dataset to an USB Stick and let my Drives spin down ?

FreeNAS Docs - System Dataset

Second - If my HDDs are in spin down during a scrub, will the automatically be woken up ?

Yes, any activity will spin up the disks as needed with the exception of SMART checks if the option it set (seems to be missing from docs or im crazy

And last question (sorry for that dumb question) - How do I spin them down ?
I looked in FreeNAS and the only option I found was Hard Drive standby and some numbers which I think are the minutes after which they go into standby ?
So is the only thing I have to do for this to set the time or do I have to do more ?

FreeNAS Docs - View Disks
The docs are a bit lacking here but yes, here you can set the time out and under the Advanced Power Management drop down, select the sleep mode you would like to use.

 

[kdragon75]

Very bad advice. You'll only wear out your disks more quickly, increasing the likelihood of data loss and increasing your expenses with replacement disks.

The big thing here is that you don't want to spin down your drives 10 times a day. If you set something like a 4hr timeout your drives cant' spin down more than 6 times a day and that would be if you used them only for a few seconds every 4 hr... But Ericloewe is correct. This can and will cause more wear on your drives.

No. The system dataset must live on reliable storage. That means no USB flash drives, no SD cards and probably no CF cards. You need redundant SSDs or HDDs.

Again this is true to an extent. If you are running a home NAS and the system drive takes a dump, replace it and restore your config (because you backed it up right?). In a production environment I'm all for mirroring system drives. Beyond that point, please do get a small quality SSD. keeping your system dataset on a cheap USB drive will kill the drive faster than needed. Also FreeNAS updates on USB are just SLOW... like a few hours...

It's all about measured risk and what you deem acceptable.