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Sandshark's avatar
Sandshark
Sensei
May 03, 2025

Does disk spindown work for anyone?

After a few years of using rack-mount NAS (which don't support disk spin-down) I'm again using a desktop NAS as my primary and I find that disk spin-down doesn't really work.  They spin down, but spin right back up.  Here is a sample from spindown.log (which I presume is extracted from the syslog when the log .zip is created):

May 03 04:53:47 RN628A noflushd[11770]: Spinning up disk 1 (/dev/sda) after 0:00:34.
May 03 05:04:03 RN628A noflushd[11770]: Spinning down disk 1 (/dev/sda).
May 03 05:04:50 RN628A noflushd[11770]: Spinning up disk 1 (/dev/sda) after 0:00:44.

It happens on all drives, I just picked out the entries for disk 1.  I find it does the same on my Pro2 running OS6 and hosting my OwnCloud, I just never noticed till now.  None of my other NAS are on full-time, so I don't have spin-down enabled on them.

 

So, after 10 minutes of inactivity (or whatever time limit I set in the GUI), the drives spin down.  But they always spin right back up, presumably because there now is activity.  The only thing that makes sense is that they spin up due to the log entries.  Am I missing some configuration entry that would prevent this, or did Netgear just make a huge blunder and effectively disable spin-down?  

 

Seems this is not a new issue (see ReadyNAS-OS-V6-9-5-Discs-don-t-spindown-still) , but I'm wondering if something was missed in that thread and that some other configuration item is also involved since it didn't seem to affect everyone.  I can't see where noflushd has an option regarding a log file, so don't know where to even start trying to resolve this within SSH except possibly to put in my own spin-down task instead of using the one the GUI enables.  But I'm concerned doing that -- I don't want the OS to declare a disk bad because it's not responding fast enough when the OS doesn't know it's spun down.

 

I do note that the OS does not appear to call noflush directly.  ./etc/cron.d/spindown has this:

00 00 * * 0 root /usr/bin/spindown_schedule 1 &> /dev/null

But spindown_schedule seems to have no associated help.

 

noflushd is supposed to do this:

  • Write Caching:
    It temporarily caches write operations to prevent immediate writes to the disk, which could cause it to spin up. 
  • Triggered Flush:
    Writes are flushed to disk when a read request occurs, ensuring data integrity. 

So has Netgear created a case that it also reads the log and that's triggering the spin-up?  Or maybe it's reading something else that I can disable?

5 Replies

  • StephenB's avatar
    StephenB
    Guru
    May 03, 2025

    Sipindown is enabled on my main NAS (RN526) from 10 pm to 5 am - using the default setting of 5 minutes of inactivity. 

     

    Backup jobs run during that timeframe, so the system is not completely idle Here's one day's spindown activity.

    May 02 01:00:18 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 4 (/dev/sdd) after 0:03:40.
May 02 01:00:28 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 1 (/dev/sda) after 0:04:03.
May 02 01:00:28 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 2 (/dev/sdb) after 0:03:58.
May 02 01:00:33 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 3 (/dev/sdc) after 0:04:00.

May 02 01:17:11 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 1 (/dev/sda) after 0:07:50.

May 02 02:00:19 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 1 (/dev/sda) after 0:38:05.
May 02 02:00:29 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 2 (/dev/sdb) after 0:51:51.
May 02 02:00:29 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 4 (/dev/sdd) after 0:51:43.
May 02 02:00:34 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 3 (/dev/sdc) after 0:51:53.

May 02 02:15:34 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 4 (/dev/sdd) after 0:00:25.
May 02 02:15:49 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 3 (/dev/sdc) after 0:00:45.

May 02 02:28:07 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 1 (/dev/sda) after 0:08:07.
May 02 02:28:07 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 2 (/dev/sdb) after 0:13:06.
May 02 02:28:07 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 4 (/dev/sdd) after 0:07:27.
May 02 02:28:12 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 3 (/dev/sdc) after 0:07:20.

May 02 03:00:21 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 1 (/dev/sda) after 0:26:33.
May 02 03:00:21 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 2 (/dev/sdb) after 0:26:28.
May 02 03:00:21 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 4 (/dev/sdd) after 0:26:20.
May 02 03:00:26 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 3 (/dev/sdc) after 0:26:30.

May 02 03:05:49 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 1 (/dev/sda) after 0:00:18.
May 02 03:05:49 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 2 (/dev/sdb) after 0:00:13.
May 02 03:05:49 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 3 (/dev/sdc) after 0:00:10.
May 02 03:05:49 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 4 (/dev/sdd) after 0:00:05.

May 02 03:37:47 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 1 (/dev/sda) after 0:26:53.
May 02 03:37:47 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 2 (/dev/sdb) after 0:26:48.
May 02 03:37:47 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 4 (/dev/sdd) after 0:26:40.
May 02 03:37:52 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 3 (/dev/sdc) after 0:26:50.

May 02 04:00:41 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 1 (/dev/sda) after 0:17:43.
May 02 04:00:41 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 2 (/dev/sdb) after 0:17:38.
May 02 04:00:41 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 4 (/dev/sdd) after 0:17:30.
May 02 04:00:46 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 3 (/dev/sdc) after 0:17:40.

May 02 04:44:34 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 4 (/dev/sdd) after 0:33:30.
May 02 04:44:44 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 1 (/dev/sda) after 0:33:53.
May 02 04:44:44 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 2 (/dev/sdb) after 0:33:48.
May 02 04:44:49 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 3 (/dev/sdc) after 0:33:50.

May 02 23:00:18 NAS noflushd[25623]: Spinning up disk 4 (/dev/sdd) after 0:11:30.
May 02 23:00:33 NAS noflushd[25623]: Spinning up disk 1 (/dev/sda) after 0:11:48.
May 02 23:00:33 NAS noflushd[25623]: Spinning up disk 2 (/dev/sdb) after 0:11:58.
May 02 23:00:33 NAS noflushd[25623]: Spinning up disk 3 (/dev/sdc) after 0:11:55.

May 02 23:41:49 NAS noflushd[25623]: Spinning up disk 1 (/dev/sda) after 0:29:08.
May 02 23:41:49 NAS noflushd[25623]: Spinning up disk 2 (/dev/sdb) after 0:29:03.
May 02 23:44:44 NAS noflushd[25623]: Spinning up disk 4 (/dev/sdd) after 0:31:50.
May 02 23:44:49 NAS noflushd[25623]: Spinning up disk 3 (/dev/sdc) after 0:32:00.

     

    No really long spindowns (1 hour or more) - that is because snapshots are scheduled for some shares 24x7.  I'd probably get better results if I took the trouble to change that.

     

    Still, the disks were spun down about 3 1/2 hours over the 7 hour interval.

     

     

    • Sandshark's avatar
      Sandshark
      Sensei
      May 03, 2025

      OK, so your log doesn't show the spin-down events but mine does.  I believe it's the writing of the spin-down events that's spinning them back up, and this certainly adds evidence to that.  But why is your NAS not logging the spin-downs when both of my always-on ones do?  There must be some other setting involved unless you are on another OS version which does it differently.

      • StephenB's avatar
        StephenB
        Guru
        May 03, 2025
        Sandshark wrote:

        your log doesn't show the spin-down events  

        It does, I just removed them from my log excerpt. The full spindown log for May 2nd looks like this:

        May 02 00:16:25 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning down disk 3 (/dev/sdc).
May 02 00:16:27 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spindown of disk 3 (/dev/sdc) cancelled.
May 02 00:51:18 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning down disk 1 (/dev/sda).
May 02 00:51:20 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spindown of disk 1 (/dev/sda) cancelled.
May 02 00:56:20 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning down disk 1 (/dev/sda).
May 02 00:56:25 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning down disk 2 (/dev/sdb).
May 02 00:56:30 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning down disk 3 (/dev/sdc).
May 02 00:56:33 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning down disk 4 (/dev/sdd).
May 02 01:00:18 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 4 (/dev/sdd) after 0:03:40.
May 02 01:00:28 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 1 (/dev/sda) after 0:04:03.
May 02 01:00:28 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 2 (/dev/sdb) after 0:03:58.
May 02 01:00:33 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 3 (/dev/sdc) after 0:04:00.
May 02 01:08:33 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning down disk 2 (/dev/sdb).
May 02 01:08:38 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning down disk 3 (/dev/sdc).
May 02 01:08:41 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning down disk 4 (/dev/sdd).
May 02 01:09:16 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning down disk 1 (/dev/sda).
May 02 01:17:11 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 1 (/dev/sda) after 0:07:50.
May 02 01:22:11 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning down disk 1 (/dev/sda).
May 02 02:00:19 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 1 (/dev/sda) after 0:38:05.
May 02 02:00:29 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 2 (/dev/sdb) after 0:51:51.
May 02 02:00:29 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 4 (/dev/sdd) after 0:51:43.
May 02 02:00:34 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 3 (/dev/sdc) after 0:51:53.
May 02 02:14:54 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning down disk 1 (/dev/sda).
May 02 02:14:56 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spindown of disk 1 (/dev/sda) cancelled.
May 02 02:14:56 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning down disk 2 (/dev/sdb).
May 02 02:15:01 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning down disk 3 (/dev/sdc).
May 02 02:15:04 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning down disk 4 (/dev/sdd).
May 02 02:15:34 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 4 (/dev/sdd) after 0:00:25.
May 02 02:15:49 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 3 (/dev/sdc) after 0:00:45.
May 02 02:19:55 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning down disk 1 (/dev/sda).
May 02 02:20:35 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning down disk 4 (/dev/sdd).
May 02 02:20:50 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning down disk 3 (/dev/sdc).
May 02 02:28:07 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 1 (/dev/sda) after 0:08:07.
May 02 02:28:07 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 2 (/dev/sdb) after 0:13:06.
May 02 02:28:07 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 4 (/dev/sdd) after 0:07:27.
May 02 02:28:12 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 3 (/dev/sdc) after 0:07:20.
May 02 02:33:43 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning down disk 1 (/dev/sda).
May 02 02:33:48 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning down disk 2 (/dev/sdb).
May 02 02:33:53 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning down disk 3 (/dev/sdc).
May 02 02:33:56 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning down disk 4 (/dev/sdd).
May 02 03:00:21 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 1 (/dev/sda) after 0:26:33.
May 02 03:00:21 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 2 (/dev/sdb) after 0:26:28.
May 02 03:00:21 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 4 (/dev/sdd) after 0:26:20.
May 02 03:00:26 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 3 (/dev/sdc) after 0:26:30.
May 02 03:05:26 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning down disk 1 (/dev/sda).
May 02 03:05:31 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning down disk 2 (/dev/sdb).
May 02 03:05:36 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning down disk 3 (/dev/sdc).
May 02 03:05:39 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning down disk 4 (/dev/sdd).
May 02 03:05:49 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 1 (/dev/sda) after 0:00:18.
May 02 03:05:49 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 2 (/dev/sdb) after 0:00:13.
May 02 03:05:49 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 3 (/dev/sdc) after 0:00:10.
May 02 03:05:49 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 4 (/dev/sdd) after 0:00:05.
May 02 03:10:49 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning down disk 1 (/dev/sda).
May 02 03:10:54 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning down disk 2 (/dev/sdb).
May 02 03:10:59 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning down disk 3 (/dev/sdc).
May 02 03:11:02 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning down disk 4 (/dev/sdd).
May 02 03:37:47 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 1 (/dev/sda) after 0:26:53.
May 02 03:37:47 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 2 (/dev/sdb) after 0:26:48.
May 02 03:37:47 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 4 (/dev/sdd) after 0:26:40.
May 02 03:37:52 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 3 (/dev/sdc) after 0:26:50.
May 02 03:42:53 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning down disk 1 (/dev/sda).
May 02 03:42:58 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning down disk 2 (/dev/sdb).
May 02 03:43:03 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning down disk 3 (/dev/sdc).
May 02 03:43:06 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning down disk 4 (/dev/sdd).
May 02 04:00:41 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 1 (/dev/sda) after 0:17:43.
May 02 04:00:41 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 2 (/dev/sdb) after 0:17:38.
May 02 04:00:41 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 4 (/dev/sdd) after 0:17:30.
May 02 04:00:46 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 3 (/dev/sdc) after 0:17:40.
May 02 04:10:46 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning down disk 1 (/dev/sda).
May 02 04:10:51 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning down disk 2 (/dev/sdb).
May 02 04:10:56 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning down disk 3 (/dev/sdc).
May 02 04:10:59 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning down disk 4 (/dev/sdd).
May 02 04:44:34 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 4 (/dev/sdd) after 0:33:30.
May 02 04:44:44 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 1 (/dev/sda) after 0:33:53.
May 02 04:44:44 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 2 (/dev/sdb) after 0:33:48.
May 02 04:44:49 NAS noflushd[3790]: Spinning up disk 3 (/dev/sdc) after 0:33:50.
May 02 05:00:02 NAS noflushd[3790]: Quitting on signal...
May 02 05:00:02 NAS systemd[1]: Stopping Idle Disk Spindown Daemon...
May 02 05:00:02 NAS systemd[1]: Stopped Idle Disk Spindown Daemon.
May 02 22:00:22 NAS systemd[1]: Started Idle Disk Spindown Daemon.
May 02 22:00:22 NAS noflushd[25623]: Enabling spindown for disk 1 
May 02 22:00:22 NAS noflushd[25623]: Enabling spindown for disk 2 
May 02 22:00:22 NAS noflushd[25623]: Enabling spindown for disk 3 
May 02 22:00:22 NAS noflushd[25623]: Enabling spindown for disk 4
May 02 22:05:27 NAS noflushd[25623]: Spinning down disk 1 (/dev/sda).
May 02 22:05:29 NAS noflushd[25623]: Spindown of disk 1 (/dev/sda) cancelled.
May 02 22:48:30 NAS noflushd[25623]: Spinning down disk 2 (/dev/sdb).
May 02 22:48:35 NAS noflushd[25623]: Spinning down disk 3 (/dev/sdc).
May 02 22:48:43 NAS noflushd[25623]: Spinning down disk 1 (/dev/sda).
May 02 22:48:45 NAS noflushd[25623]: Spinning down disk 4 (/dev/sdd).
May 02 23:00:18 NAS noflushd[25623]: Spinning up disk 4 (/dev/sdd) after 0:11:30.
May 02 23:00:33 NAS noflushd[25623]: Spinning up disk 1 (/dev/sda) after 0:11:48.
May 02 23:00:33 NAS noflushd[25623]: Spinning up disk 2 (/dev/sdb) after 0:11:58.
May 02 23:00:33 NAS noflushd[25623]: Spinning up disk 3 (/dev/sdc) after 0:11:55.
May 02 23:07:33 NAS noflushd[25623]: Spinning down disk 1 (/dev/sda).
May 02 23:07:36 NAS noflushd[25623]: Spindown of disk 1 (/dev/sda) cancelled.
May 02 23:12:36 NAS noflushd[25623]: Spinning down disk 1 (/dev/sda).
May 02 23:12:41 NAS noflushd[25623]: Spinning down disk 2 (/dev/sdb).
May 02 23:12:46 NAS noflushd[25623]: Spinning down disk 3 (/dev/sdc).
May 02 23:12:49 NAS noflushd[25623]: Spinning down disk 4 (/dev/sdd).
May 02 23:41:49 NAS noflushd[25623]: Spinning up disk 1 (/dev/sda) after 0:29:08.
May 02 23:41:49 NAS noflushd[25623]: Spinning up disk 2 (/dev/sdb) after 0:29:03.
May 02 23:44:44 NAS noflushd[25623]: Spinning up disk 4 (/dev/sdd) after 0:31:50.
May 02 23:44:49 NAS noflushd[25623]: Spinning up disk 3 (/dev/sdc) after 0:32:00.
May 02 23:54:20 NAS noflushd[25623]: Spinning down disk 1 (/dev/sda).
May 02 23:54:22 NAS noflushd[25623]: Spindown of disk 1 (/dev/sda) cancelled.
May 02 23:54:22 NAS noflushd[25623]: Spinning down disk 2 (/dev/sdb).
May 02 23:54:27 NAS noflushd[25623]: Spinning down disk 3 (/dev/sdc).
May 02 23:54:30 NAS noflushd[25623]: Spinning down disk 4 (/dev/sdd).
May 02 23:59:20 NAS noflushd[25623]: Spinning down disk 1 (/dev/sda).

        The NAS is running 6.10.9 

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