Hard drive spindown does not seem to work

[GoogleCodeExporter]

There seems to be some process keeping the hard drive active. if i manually 
force the drive to spindown from the web interface, it just spins up again. log 
snippet below:

Nov 26 14:01:24 toaster daemon.info sysctrl: right disk (sda) standby
Nov 26 14:01:44 toaster daemon.info sysctrl: right disk (sda) wakeup

there are no other log messages until 14:18. running services are:

smb
ntp
inetd
cron
sysctl
syslog

is it likely to be samba or something else? here is a process list when logged 
in:

PID   USER     COMMAND
    1 root     init      
    2 root     [kthreadd]
    3 root     [ksoftirqd/0]
    4 root     [events/0]
    5 root     [khelper]
    6 root     [async/mgr]
    7 root     [sync_supers]
    8 root     [bdi-default]
    9 root     [kblockd/0]
   10 root     [ata_aux]
   11 root     [ata_sff/0]
   12 root     [khubd]
   13 root     [kswapd0]
   14 root     [aufsd/0]
   15 root     [aufsd_pre/0]
   16 root     [crypto/0]
   19 root     [scsi_eh_0]
   20 root     [scsi_eh_1]
   27 root     [mtdblock0]
   28 root     [mtdblock1]
   29 root     [mtdblock2]
   30 root     [mtdblock3]
   31 root     [mtdblock4]
   34 root     [usbhid_resumer]
   52 root     [loop0]
  145 root     [kjournald]
  498 root     syslogd -C -D -m 0 
  500 root     klogd 
  512 root     sysctrl 
  533 root     inetd 
  553 root     /bin/sh -- 
 1308 root     smbd -D 
 1380 root     crond 
 1452 root     dropbear -i 
 1453 dikkie   -sh 
 1837 root     sh 
 1961 root     [flush-8:0]
 2050 root     nmbd -D 
 2052 root     smbd -D 
 2123 root     ps 
 2125 root     smbd -D 

Original issue reported on code.google.com by tarka.t....@gmail.com on 26 Nov 2010 at 4:29

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Yes, the StandbyNow button does not warranty that the disk will be keep in the 
sleeing state.

Disks can spin up when services that access them are active.

Although you don't seem to be using those services, they are always working and 
answering requests from clients; depending on the clients request, which can be 
a simple network browsing open window, with no apparent activity, the disks can 
wake up.

Also, some Alt-F administering web pages has to wake up disks, in order to 
obtain some disk details.
The status web page don't wakeup disks if they are sleeping, but you must wait 
a little after putting them to sleep until you access it. But if disks are not 
sleeping, the status page prevents them to sleep.

However, in the long term, disks will go to sleep (*if* the submit button is 
used in the disk utilities web page).
At power up, or when hot-plugging, disks are said to spin down after xx minutes 
of inactivity. When this happens, the corresponding yellow led starts blinking 
at a hearth rhythm pace.

Just wait :-)

Original comment by whoami.j...@gmail.com on 26 Nov 2010 at 6:03

[GoogleCodeExporter]

So, have you checked that the disks eventually spin-down?

You have ntp setup to run once a day -- that makes cron run every minute. But 
cron files are not on disk (since 0.1B4 or B5, I think -- previously cron made 
disks wakeup)

A correction in my previous post:
When this happens [spindown], the corresponding yellow led starts flashing at a 
very low pace.
Earth-beat flashing happens on the power led during disk checking (fsck) at 
powerup or when hot-plugging.

Original comment by whoami.j...@gmail.com on 29 Nov 2010 at 10:19

• Changed state: Accepted

[GoogleCodeExporter]

hey,

yes, this seems to be working now, i think i had not actually pressed submit on 
the disk utilities page, i just assumed that because it said standby was 20 
mins in the box it was already set. maybe there should be a checkbox or 
something there to indicate whether spindown is actually activated?

now the logs indicate that the system spins up the drive usually twice a day, 
once for a cron script i run and once for ntp at 6am. if there are people in 
the office the drives seem to spin up unnecessarily every few hours, but i can 
live with that.

otherwise all good, working a lot better than the original firmware, is awesome 
to have a usable shell and sane path structure.

Original comment by tarka.t....@gmail.com on 30 Nov 2010 at 12:26

[GoogleCodeExporter]

When unconfigured, B6 shows a "0 minutes" timeout, providing a visual tip that 
the "Submit button" must be pressed after changing the input value.

Original comment by whoami.j...@gmail.com on 7 Jan 2011 at 3:27

• Changed state: Fixed