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NAS drive disk spin-down setting 
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I've got a ReadyNAS RN104, with two 3TB and two 4TB drives in it, (the two 4 TB drives are replacements for 3TB disks, which both died) and I'm wondering why they have bitten the dust.

I'm wondering if it has something to do with the Spin-Down setting. It's currently set to spin down the disks after five minutes of inactivity, and I can't help but ask if the spinning down and back up again could be a contributory factor in their early demise?

The web page says that this setting can reduce the system's power consumption during periods of inactivity, but if it is a factor, then I'd rather pay a bit more in my electricity bill than have to replace another drive so soon.

Any opinions on my fantastical theory?

Thanks in advance,

John.

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Sat Sep 30, 2017 7:13 pm
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I guess frequently spinning up and down could have been a contributing factor. It's the most mechanically stressful thing the drive does.
However there are a few other things I'd look at as well.
Were both the failed drives bought at the same time and are they from the same batch? You could just have crapped out and got a couple of bad uns.
How old were the drives?
Were they NAS specific drives (WD Reds for example)? If they were normal desktop drives they may not have liked the additional vibration and heat they were exposed to in the NAS.

I'd pay particular attention to the age and batch numbers though - if you got all 4 3TB drives at the same time (or they're from the same batch) then I'd be a bit concerned about the other twos reliability.

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Sat Sep 30, 2017 7:56 pm
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davrosG5 wrote:
I guess frequently spinning up and down could have been a contributing factor. It's the most mechanically stressful thing the drive does.
However there are a few other things I'd look at as well.
Were both the failed drives bought at the same time and are they from the same batch? You could just have crapped out and got a couple of bad uns.
How old were the drives?
Were they NAS specific drives (WD Reds for example)? If they were normal desktop drives they may not have liked the additional vibration and heat they were exposed to in the NAS.

I'd pay particular attention to the age and batch numbers though - if you got all 4 3TB drives at the same time (or they're from the same batch) then I'd be a bit concerned about the other twos reliability.


The drives doesn't appear to be a NAS specific drive. No idea how old it is, as it was in the unit when I bought it, in used condition. The drive is labelled as being a Seagate Certified Repaired HDD.

Got the unit for a decent price, and it got me out of a hole, so I'm not going to grumble about replacing a couple of drives. I'll replace the 3TB units with 4TB NAS drives as an when, so it will end up being a 12TB array, and I'll turn off the Spin-Down option, once it has finished resyncing.

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Sun Oct 01, 2017 8:32 am
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5 minutes seems a bit quick. I would look at how often you use the drives and what sort of periods there are, when using the drives, without access and thus spinning down. If they are repeatedly spinning up and down in a session, you can try and prevent that by making the spin down period longer.

I'd look at an hour or so, then you are likely to go keep the drives spinning all the time you are at the computer / streaming films etc. but when you are out or asleep, they will still sleep.

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Sun Oct 01, 2017 10:12 am
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What big_D said. I’m not familiar with the ReadyNAS software but you could also check if it’s got some sort of ‘active hours’ setting if you regularly do work involving the NAS at the same sort of time most days.

Certified Repaired doesn’t sound particularly reassuring if you don’t know how old the drive is. I’d check the others and pull them sooner rather than later, especially as you’re planning to move to 4TB drives all round anyway.

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Sun Oct 01, 2017 11:22 am
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