Standby/Spin Down of USB Ext HDD

[bolingj]

Hello,

I just recently set up Arch Linux Arm on a Pogoplug V2, E02. Currently, I am using a 2 GB USB stick as the OS and a 3 TB External USB drive as a Data Drive. Installed on the 2 GB USB stick is udevil for automounting, webmin, minidlna, SAMBA, Sickbeard, and Sabnzbd. Everything is updated including the kernal to 3.7. Everything is working great except standby mode for my EXT HDD. It was my belief that the EXT HDD drive would spin down or go to standby when not in use. However, when I type in

hdparm -C /dev/sdb

I always receive the response of Active/Idle. When I force the drive to go to standby with the command

hdparm -y /dev/sda

it spins downs and then immediately spins back up to Active/Idle status.

So my question is, Is this a problem? I leave my pogoplug on full time. Will the EXT HDD die faster if it is always in Active/Idle state vs switching between that and Standby. If so, any suggestions on how to get Standby mode to cooperate?

Thanks for any help!

[moonman]

It will actually die faster if you spin it up and down. That's what happened to my 2TB drive. I never spin hdds down anymore.
If you still want to spin it down, find out why it spins up. Maybe one of your running daemons is accessing the drive... run "ls of /dev/sdX" where X is the drive (probably "b" if you only have your usb stick and the drive)

[bolingj]

Thanks for your help. Just wanted to make sure it wasn't hurting anything by running full time.