Disk Spin Down power management settings

PapaBear wrote:

StephenB - I had more reference as to whether to shut down desktops at the end of the day and then cold boot the next morning as opposed to leaving them on overnight and letting the machine sleep. At one point at work there was so much stuff loading at boot that even on C2D desktops it took several minutes to boot. You could literally hit the power button, go get a cup of coffee and come back and still wait for the log on screen. In this situation, most users chose to leave them one overnight as it was just a few seconds for the PC to "wake up".

Yes.

I think there are four basic themes in the various posts on this particular topic:

(1) the potential impact of disk spin down on reliability/disk life. As far as I can see there is not a lot of data out there. But from what I have seen, I think it is prudent to set your spin-down threshold conservatively.

(2) the potential impact of disk spin down on NAS usability. That is what your example illustrates. Waiting for spin-up can be frustrating, and some devices and applications don't behave well when there is a spin-up delay. If I had one of those devices I would leave my disks spinning.

(3) Some users are more concerned about reducing their carbon footprint than the economics. Some of them are willing to invest a lot of time trying to sort out why their drives won't spin down as expected.

(4) Some users want to reduce acoustic noise from the NAS when it isn't in active use. Like the "green" users, some of them are willing to invest a lot of time trying to sort out why their drives won't spin down as expected.