I have an external WD 8TB hard drive connected to my Dell Wyse 5070 via USB 3.0. Recently I’ve done a full Ubuntu Server reinstall (on internal SSD). Now when I’m trying to configure everything as I previously had I’m struggling with the external HDD standby time setup.
Previously I configured it somehow so the HDD went standby about 15 minutes after no activity detected.
Right now I’m not able to setup it in a similar manner. For example sudo hdparm -S 5 /dev/sdb has no effect after 25 seconds. Hence, the hard drive is active all the time and never goes standby.
sudo hdparm -I /dev/sdb gives
ATA device, with non-removable media
Model Number: WDC WD80EDAZ-11TA3A0
Serial Number: VG00T1YG
Firmware Revision: 81.00A81
Transport: Serial, ATA8-AST, SATA 1.0a, SATA II Extensions, SATA Rev 2.5, SATA Rev 2.6, SATA Rev 3.0; Revision: ATA8-AST T13 Project D1697 Revision 0b
Standards:
Used: unknown (minor revision code 0x0029)
Supported: 9 8 7 6 5
Likely used: 9
Configuration:
Logical max current
cylinders 16383 16383
heads 16 16
sectors/track 63 63
--
CHS current addressable sectors: 16514064
LBA user addressable sectors: 268435455
LBA48 user addressable sectors: 15628053168
Logical Sector size: 512 bytes [ Supported: 4096 4160 4224 512 520 528 ]
Physical Sector size: 4096 bytes
Logical Sector-0 offset: 0 bytes
device size with M = 1024*1024: 7630885 MBytes
device size with M = 1000*1000: 8001563 MBytes (8001 GB)
cache/buffer size = unknown
Form Factor: 3.5 inch
Nominal Media Rotation Rate: 5400
Capabilities:
LBA, IORDY(can be disabled)
Queue depth: 32
Standby timer values: spec'd by Standard, no device specific minimum
R/W multiple sector transfer: Max = 16 Current = 0
Advanced power management level: disabled
DMA: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5 *udma6
Cycle time: min=120ns recommended=120ns
PIO: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
Cycle time: no flow control=120ns IORDY flow control=120ns
Commands/features:
Enabled Supported:
* SMART feature set
Security Mode feature set
* Power Management feature set
* Write cache
* Look-ahead
* Host Protected Area feature set
* WRITE_BUFFER command
* READ_BUFFER command
* NOP cmd
* DOWNLOAD_MICROCODE
Advanced Power Management feature set
Power-Up In Standby feature set
* SET_FEATURES required to spinup after power up
SET_MAX security extension
* 48-bit Address feature set
* Device Configuration Overlay feature set
* Mandatory FLUSH_CACHE
* FLUSH_CACHE_EXT
* SMART error logging
* SMART self-test
* Media Card Pass-Through
* General Purpose Logging feature set
* WRITE_{DMA|MULTIPLE}_FUA_EXT
* 64-bit World wide name
* URG for READ_STREAM[_DMA]_EXT
* URG for WRITE_STREAM[_DMA]_EXT
* WRITE_UNCORRECTABLE_EXT command
* {READ,WRITE}_DMA_EXT_GPL commands
* Segmented DOWNLOAD_MICROCODE
unknown 119[6]
* unknown 119[7]
* Gen1 signaling speed (1.5Gb/s)
* Gen2 signaling speed (3.0Gb/s)
* Gen3 signaling speed (6.0Gb/s)
* Native Command Queueing (NCQ)
* Host-initiated interface power management
* Phy event counters
* NCQ priority information
* READ_LOG_DMA_EXT equivalent to READ_LOG_EXT
Non-Zero buffer offsets in DMA Setup FIS
DMA Setup Auto-Activate optimization
Device-initiated interface power management
In-order data delivery
* Software settings preservation
unknown 78[7]
unknown 78[10]
unknown 78[11]
* SMART Command Transport (SCT) feature set
* SCT Write Same (AC2)
* SCT Error Recovery Control (AC3)
* SCT Features Control (AC4)
* SCT Data Tables (AC5)
* SANITIZE feature set
* CRYPTO_SCRAMBLE_EXT command
* OVERWRITE_EXT command
* reserved 69[3]
* reserved 69[4]
* DOWNLOAD MICROCODE DMA command
* WRITE BUFFER DMA command
* READ BUFFER DMA command
Security:
Master password revision code = 48059
supported
not enabled
not locked
not frozen
not expired: security count
supported: enhanced erase
812min for SECURITY ERASE UNIT. 2min for ENHANCED SECURITY ERASE UNIT.
Logical Unit WWN Device Identifier: 5000cca0bfc05a54
NAA : 5
IEEE OUI : 000cca
Unique ID : 0bfc05a54
I can see that Advanced power management level is disabled. Can this be related to the issue?
What’s more, sudo hdparm -y /dev/sdb works as expected. It immediately puts the HDD to sleep.
Any ideas how can I investigate it further?
>Solution :
Hopefully your drive will respond to the -B flag in hdparm, which will allow you to enable/disable the power management feature. From the docs:
-B Get/set Advanced Power Management feature, if the drive supports it. A low value
means aggressive power management and a high value means better performance.
Possible settings range from values 1 through 127 (which permit spin-down), and
values 128 through 254 (which do not permit spin-down). The highest degree of
power management is attained with a setting of 1, and the highest I/O performance
with a setting of 254. A value of 255 tells hdparm to disable Advanced Power
Management altogether on the drive (not all drives support disabling it, but most
do).
You can check your drive’s current value like this:
sudo hdparm -B /dev/sdb
Given the output from -I, I would expect the number to be something like 254, which does not allow auto spin-down.
With this in mind, let’s set a value between 1 and 127, which Dows allow spin-down:
sudo hdparm -B 127 /dev/sdb
Note: Based on the documentation, a higher number means better performance. As 127 is the highest one can go while still permitting spin-down, this seems the most logical option.
If no error is reported, you may be able to set a 5-minute spin-down like this:
sudo hdparm -S 60 /dev/sdb