Cannot prevent external HDD from spin down

Malikos · 2017-07-27 08:46:52

Hello,

I have a problem with one of my external HDDs. This is a "GOODRAM HDD DataGO" disk, link: http://www.goodram.com/product/product/ … d-data-go/
It spins down after maybe 30 sec of inactivity which causes problems for my programs running from this drive, also for my databases which I store on it. In fact I'm not sure if it just spins down, or if it goes to sleep altogether.
edit: I think it goes to sleep, because the led goes off, while for my second HDD the led is always on.

This is a "standard" external HDD. I say standard, because I have a second ext. HDD made from laptop HDD which was packaged in a purchased case. This second "home-made" hdd does not cause any problems. In fact, I think it does spin down but spinning up take literally 0.5 sec, when for the first one it takes maybe 4-5 seconds. This lag causes write timeouts in databases etc.

I use tlp, however I have the same exact settings for both of my drives, also usb_suspend is disabled, runtime_pm is disabled etc. so I do not think that tlp is the case.

Interesting thing is that for a properly working HDD ("home-made") sudo hdparm -C /dev/sdd shows "standby" or "active/idle", but for the "spinning down goodram one" this command takes 4-5 sec as I said above, and the output is like this:

SG_IO: bad/missing sense data, sb[]:  70 00 01 00 00 00 00 0a 00 00 00 00 00 1d 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
 drive state is:  unknown

Does anyone know how to resolve this issue?

Last edited by Malikos (2017-07-27 08:52:32)

R00KIE · 2017-07-27 09:19:19

It might not be possible to solve. The usb-sata bridge in the goodram enclosure might be doing that by itself, while usually enclosures you buy without a disk do not do that. That said you could try setting the APM level with hdparm and/or set a higher standby timeout and see if it works.

Malikos · 2017-07-27 09:31:29

Thanks, but unfortunately

sudo hdparm -S 0 /dev/sdc

and

sudo hdparm -B 255 /dev/sdc

did not do anything.
The device responded, but the situation is exactly the same as before.
Maybe somebody has anything else to try?

seth · 2017-07-27 09:51:06

matter of usb autosuspend?

Malikos · 2017-07-27 10:27:09

Thanks, tried with this approach http://hamwaves.com/usb.autosuspend/en/index.html.
I've set all power/control to "on", but still no luck.
Is there no way to control such ill-considered hdd behavior?

seth · 2017-07-27 18:39:45

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Po … utosuspend - "usbcore.autosuspend=-1" will disable it alltogether.

Workaround?
Run a trivial daemon that accesses the disk every few seconds.

Malikos · 2017-07-27 20:13:50

"usbcore.autosuspend=-1" doesn't work either.
Yeah, maybe I make such daemon. For now, I just moved all thing that need frequent access to my other hdd.
Thanks for the help. All I know now for sure is that this is a shitty feature for a drive to have.

Arch Linux

#1 2017-07-27 08:46:52

Cannot prevent external HDD from spin down

#2 2017-07-27 09:19:19

Re: Cannot prevent external HDD from spin down

#3 2017-07-27 09:31:29

Re: Cannot prevent external HDD from spin down

#4 2017-07-27 09:51:06

Re: Cannot prevent external HDD from spin down

#5 2017-07-27 10:27:09

Re: Cannot prevent external HDD from spin down

#6 2017-07-27 18:39:45

Re: Cannot prevent external HDD from spin down

#7 2017-07-27 20:13:50

Re: Cannot prevent external HDD from spin down

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