File server spin up

kayomani · 20 Apr 2015 at 09:20

I have an older file server with about 15 disks in it using drivepool and it has the issue that when I access it after the drives have spun down due to inactivity then it takes about a minute for the network share to be accessibile.

Short of never having the drives spin down (power usage ugh!) does anyone know a way to reduce the wait time? It would be nice if there was software which cached the ntfs tables or something as its only performing reads.

DragonQ · 20 Apr 2015 at 10:08

I'd be interested to know about this too. My file server is set to spin down all the HDDs when they're not needed (which is most of the time), and when I access a share it takes maybe 10 seconds to spin up a drive. However, sometimes when I go into a subfolder it'll have the same 10 second pause. I can only assume my drive-pooling software (FlexRAID) isn't correctly spinning up ALL of the drives that store data for a particular network share.

bledd · 20 Apr 2015 at 10:20

Nothing you can do.

Either have them on all the time or live with it.

Frozennova · 20 Apr 2015 at 12:59

I stick to leaving my drives spun up permanently.

Saves the wait and also reduces wear on them

DragonQ · 20 Apr 2015 at 14:09

Frozennova said:
I stick to leaving my drives spun up permanently.

Saves the wait and also reduces wear on them

Costs maybe £5 per drive per year in electricity though.

Sin_Chase · 20 Apr 2015 at 14:11

£75 a year is not exactly a lot for a 15 disk file server.

Why 15 disks?

kayomani · 27 Apr 2015 at 00:27

Its a 6 year old file server/htpc and thats just kinda what collected over time.

Realistically the disks aren't really the main power consumers in the box as its an i7 920 with a 6950, I was just trying to save power where I could. Not the ideal choice but its the only spare hardware I have as I am holding out for Skylake to rebuild it.