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    pfsense HD constant spin-up and spin down

    General pfSense Questions
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    • chpalmerC
      chpalmer
      last edited by

      at system_advanced_misc.php

      bottom of page.. what is your HD standby time set to?

      Triggering snowflakes one by one..
      Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4590T CPU @ 2.00GHz on an M400 WG box.

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      • provelsP
        provels @aciampoli
        last edited by

        @aciampoli Look on the bright side. Maybe it's finally dying! :)

        Peder

        MAIN - pfSense+ 24.11-RELEASE - Adlink MXE-5401, i7, 16 GB RAM, 64 GB SSD. 500 GB HDD for SyslogNG
        BACKUP - pfSense+ 23.01-RELEASE - Hyper-V Virtual Machine, Gen 1, 2 v-CPUs, 3 GB RAM, 8GB VHDX (Dynamic)

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        • stephenw10S
          stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
          last edited by

          Yeah you should be able to disable the spin-down as @chpalmer said above.

          Or of you have a loud drive you can set /var and /tmp as ram drives. I've done that previously for exactly that reason and it leaves the drive spun-down almost all of the time. That's also a setting in Sys > Adv > Misc.

          Steve

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          • A
            aciampoli
            last edited by

            @chpalmer here is the section in system_advanced_misc.php
            *$section->addInput(new Form_Select(
            'harddiskstandby',
            'Hard disk standby time',
            $pconfig['harddiskstandby'],
            ['' => gettext("Always on")] + array_combine($opts, $vals)
            ))->setHelp('Puts the hard disk into standby mode when the selected number of minutes has elapsed since the last access.%1$s' .
            '%2$sDo not set this for CF cards.%3$s', '<br />', '<strong>', '</strong>');

            $form->add($section);*

            @stephenw10 any disadvantages in putting /var and /tmp in ram?

            chpalmerC 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • A
              aciampoli
              last edited by

              @stephenw10 made the changes to set /var and /tmp as ram drives, drive is still spinning up and down as we speak.

              Adriano

              provelsP stephenw10S 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • provelsP
                provels @aciampoli
                last edited by

                @aciampoli What is the make and model of drive? I have seen several WD drives with excessive head parking issues (as short as 8 seconds. WD Green/Red models come to mind.

                Peder

                MAIN - pfSense+ 24.11-RELEASE - Adlink MXE-5401, i7, 16 GB RAM, 64 GB SSD. 500 GB HDD for SyslogNG
                BACKUP - pfSense+ 23.01-RELEASE - Hyper-V Virtual Machine, Gen 1, 2 v-CPUs, 3 GB RAM, 8GB VHDX (Dynamic)

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                • stephenw10S
                  stephenw10 Netgate Administrator @aciampoli
                  last edited by

                  @aciampoli
                  Hmm, and it did apply those? It rebooted?

                  You might have to removed the 'don't spin down' setting to allow it to spin down. Though in my case I did not.

                  You might have something else writing to the drive, maybe a Squid cache for example.

                  Steve

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                  • A
                    aciampoli
                    last edited by

                    @provels seagate 500LM030-2E717D
                    @stephenw10 yes it applied and rebooted.

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                    • RicoR
                      Rico LAYER 8 Rebel Alliance
                      last edited by

                      Can you please try another PSU?

                      -Rico

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                      • A
                        aciampoli
                        last edited by

                        @Rico No I don't think changing the PSU will do anything as a default PfSense install doesn't give me this issue.

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                        • stephenw10S
                          stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                          last edited by

                          A clean install does not do this? Does it remain spin down or spun up?

                          What packages are you running?

                          Steve

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                          • A
                            aciampoli
                            last edited by

                            @stephenw10 correct, for testing I did a clean install on this computer and let it sit there, I didn't hear any spin ups/downs, but I cannot say what state it was in up or down.
                            As for packages

                            Avahi
                            iperf
                            openvpn-client-export
                            pfBlockerNG-devel
                            Shellcmd

                            Currently the system is not in prod, and is sitting on my lan, no traffic is going through it except for me using ssh/web portal

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                            • stephenw10S
                              stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                              last edited by

                              Logging from pfBlocker is what I would suspect there then. Though I would have expected that to be in /var and hence in RAM if you enabled that.

                              Steve

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                              • chpalmerC
                                chpalmer @aciampoli
                                last edited by

                                @aciampoli said in pfsense HD constant spin-up and spin down:

                                @chpalmer here is the section in system_advanced_misc.php
                                $section->addInput(new Form_Select(
                                'harddiskstandby',
                                'Hard disk standby time',
                                $pconfig['harddiskstandby'],
                                ['' => gettext("Always on")] + array_combine($opts, $vals)
                                ))->setHelp('Puts the hard disk into standby mode when the selected number of minutes has elapsed since the last access.%1$s' .
                                '%2$sDo not set this for CF cards.%3$s', '<br />', '<strong>', '</strong>');
                                $form->add($section);

                                Your install looks broken.. HDSetting.jpg

                                Triggering snowflakes one by one..
                                Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4590T CPU @ 2.00GHz on an M400 WG box.

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                                • A
                                  aciampoli
                                  last edited by

                                  Update from my end, I think I figured it out...
                                  After @chpalmer last msg, I went back to the "Hard disk standby time" settings and it was set to 180, which even if the systems was using the 180 mins it still didn't make any sense as to why is was spinning up/down so quickly. What I did is set it back to Always on and after saving and rebooting there are no more spin ups or downs.

                                  thank you.

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