Hard drive will not spin down

[garciaba79]

The hard drive in my replaytv will not spin down. I have set the option in the claw portal and it says that spindown is enabled but when ever the replay is off the hard drive is still spinning. Anyone know how I can get it to spin down when off?

[adone36]

Newer models do not spin down, nor is there any benefit to doing so.

[garciaba79]

Ok, I did not know that newer models did not spin down. I thought it would save electricity and the life of the hard drive if it would spin down.

[replayrob]

Ok, I did not know that newer models did not spin down. I thought it would save electricity and the life of the hard drive if it would spin down.
A modern hard drive uses about 10 watts at idle when measured at the 110ac outlet.

[tlgs333]

That is widely open to debate (benefit to spindown or not).
Also, it will not spin down if it has things to do (maintenance/recording), even if it is "off". it will only spin down if there is nothing to do, and it has been a long time, and if the model/os os specific.

[Ace987]

Ok, I did not know that newer models did not spin down. I thought it would save electricity and the life of the hard drive if it would spin down. Don't even start with the pros and cons on the life of a hard drive with spin-down enabled. Or should we.... :D

Even with spin-down enabled, the drive would spin up at least twice an hour when the Replay checked to see if something was going to record. There was a huge debate over whether spinning up and down that often would make it last longer or not.

There's also folks out there (like me) with Replays in the bedroom. On a noisier drive (all drives get noisy after awhile who could stand the constant drive noise more than the spinup noise in the middle of the night.

Doesn't really matter anyhow since it clawfoot portal for spindown doesn't do anything on a 5k (and maybe 4k) Replay. As a matter of fact, on the older models, the drive was defaulted to spindown. The portal was there to keep the disk from spinning down which is the default on the newer Replays.

[replayrob]

Even with spin-down enabled, the drive would spin up at least twice an hour when the Replay checked to see if something was going to record.
That must be something specific to the ReplayTV, and could be changed in the OS if needed by the software engineers.
My HTPC uses S3/S4 sleep mode and it does not spinup/wake up to check for scheduled recordings twice an hour. It wakes up 5 minutes before the recording event is scheduled to begin and goes back to sleep 15 minutes after the recording is over. If I don't schedule/record anything or watch anything for a week, then the hard drive was dormant for seven days. I found that in S3 "sleep" mode my HTPC consumes 6 watts of power, if I set it for S4 "hibernate" mode- then it consumes only one watt! It's a huge power saver to have S3/S4 enabled, at standard idle my HTPC burns about 70 watts.
Agreed that if you have a busy recording/viewing schedule spinning up the hard drive multiple times a day doesn't sound like a good idea, but it's a shame that the option has been turned off on the ReplayTV's, at least give the end user the choice to use it.

[rseiler]

Oh well, I was looking for a way to set spin down, but if RTV needs to spin up twice an hour, it's pointless.

As a point of information, some disk configration tools (like HDDscan (http://hddguru.com/content/en/software/)) do let you specify a drive's own internal spindown timer.

If you happen to have a Hitachi, then you have even more control with the Hitachi Feature Tool, which allows you to configure its Advanced Power Management (APM) feature.

[replayrob]

If you happen to have a Hitachi, then you have even more control with the Hitachi Feature Tool, which allows you to configure its Advanced Power Management (APM) feature.
How about... "If you happen to have a Hitachi, - IF IT STILL RUNS- then you have even more control with the Hitachi Feature Tool."
The nic "Hitachi DeathStar" didn't come about for no reason :D :eek: :D
I've had a few Hitachi 3.5" HD's and most have been trouble. I stay far away from them now. Did they also have problems with their notebook 2.5" drives?

FWIW: My SA8300HD DVR does spindown it's hard drive. It reboots for about 15min every midnight. The spindown feature is great to have, if the software that controls it is intelligent.

[rseiler]

I thought the "DeathStar" name died out around the time Hitachi acquired the line from IBM. No? They're still having problems above and beyond what's normal? (I have a classic IBM 60GB here as a memento.)

Your SA8300HD sounds like it's done right. It wouldn't surprise me if Tivo does too.

[replayrob]

I thought the "DeathStar" name died out around the time Hitachi acquired the line from IBM. No? They're still having problems above and beyond what's normal?
Funny you should ask..... Go to Newegg, do a search for internal desktop hard drives, then select Hitachi as the Manufacturer. Once you find all the Hitachi hard drives... sort by "best rating". Look at the ones listed near the bottom. Looks like they still have some QC issues.... :eek: :eek:




"Died right after copying 200GB+ of family photos/music/movies. Drive no longer spins."

"I bought 2 of these drives, 1 was fine,the other died on first reboot of the server with the infamous deathstar "click of death"."

"I Purchased two of these drives for an IDE RAID (1)... First drive upon initialization reported 628 Non recoverable sectors with a S.M.A.R.T Rating of 2% Health.. the second drive (After abandoning the RAID Idea) Lost its MBR, Dropped format and would not take a new format without a BSOD. "


PS... strange that they still use the "Deskstar" name for the current line of drives. Kind of like calling your new car model "Gremlin" or "Edsel" :confused:

[Arvy]

I don't doubt the horror stories of Hitachi Deskstars, but the 2 yr old 250GB in my 5525 has never been a problem. It's networked, too. I've had to pull the plug a few times but doesn't everyone?