Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2018 08:50:31 +0000 From: Arthur Chance <freebsd@qeng-ho.org> To: "J.B." <non.euc.geo.1854@gmail.com>, freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: How to prevent HDD spin-down. Message-ID: <faebeda5-0278-721e-381b-a08843327e82@qeng-ho.org> In-Reply-To: <f1fe7770-c9fe-d8c1-9639-e3f78f9c1911@qeng-ho.org> References: <99f2e64c-577c-20e1-b595-9b8391efaf8e@gmail.com> <f1fe7770-c9fe-d8c1-9639-e3f78f9c1911@qeng-ho.org>
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On 06/03/2018 08:40, Arthur Chance wrote: > On 06/03/2018 02:37, J.B. wrote: >> Hey. I purchased a new WD laptop hard disk drive, but it keeps spinning >> down and parking its heads after 25 seconds of inactivity. How can I >> disable that feature or extend the timeout to something less idiotic? I >> checked the BIOS, but there's no setting for it. I booted into a Linux >> (Debian-based) OS duel-booting on the same disk, and the disk doesn't >> spin down, so either Linux is doing something to override that feature, >> or FreeBSD is doing something to enable it (possibly a package I >> installed). Thanks. > > I had the same problem and fixed it with sysutils/smartmontools. Here's > the start of my /usr/local/etc/smartd.conf (my mailer will line wrap). > The attributes to monitor came from Backblaze's document on what SMART > values are useful. It's the "-e" line that prevents spin down, but note > that this is for a *server* system that's always on mains power. On a > laptop this will probably eat your battery, so you'll need to tweak the > value. Unfortunately ISTR the number isn't just the timeout in seconds > but is more complex. You'll need to search for the exact spec I fear. > > ---- smartd.conf ---- > # Monitor all disks. Use smartd_flags="-s /var/db/smartd/" > # and mkdir /var/db/smartd beforehand. > > # set defaults for all drives. The test schedule is > # long Mon 4 am, short all other days 5 am > # > # read_error_rate is ignored because nobody knows what it means > > DEFAULT -o on -S on \ # turn on offline tests, saving data > -e standby,off \ # turn off spin down > -H -f -C 197+ -U 198+ \ # report failures: health, old > age, sector problems > -t -R 5! -R 187! -R 188! \ # track attrs, report when > 5,17,188 raw changes > -I 1 -I 9 -I 194 \ # ignore > -l error -l selftest \ # report errors, selftest fails > -s (L/../../1/04|S/../../[234567]/05) \ > -m root@qeng-ho.org \ # mail root with problems > -M diminishing # repeat nags, but less frequently > > [The disks you want to monitor go here] > OK, I found this about the standby timeout settings: > The encoding of the timeout value is somewhat peculiar. A value of > zero means "off". Values from 1 to 240 specify multiples of 5 > seconds for timeouts from 5 seconds to 20 minutes. Values from 241 > to 251 specify from 1 to 11 units of 30 minutes for timeouts from 30 > minutes to 5.5 hours. A value of 252 signifies a timeout of 21 > minutes, 253 sets a vendor-defined timeout and 255 is interpreted as > 21 minutes plus 15 seconds. -- An amusing coincidence: log2(58) = 5.858 (to 0.0003% accuracy).
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