[solved] HDD always spinning

Help and Support Help
1

Hello,

maybe a stupid question, but my usb-hdd is always spinning.
It’s warm, but not getting hot or so, but it’s definetly not how it should work, it should go into some power save thingie when the system is idle.

I didn’t find any settings regarding this, do I have to mess around with config.txt?
Or did I miss something?

I’m using the latest Volumio release (3.779) on a PI 4 (4GB), the drive is connected to one of the USB-3 ports, it’s an external enclosure with it’s own power supply.

Any help would be very appreciated, thanks.

2

Hey @john10_70,

Not all USB attached spindles can be controlled. Seagate are notorious amongst the pack.

What does shown when:

sudo ls /dev/disk/by-id/

Kind Regards,

3

volumio@volumio:~$ sudo ls /dev/disk/by-id/
[sudo] password for volumio:
mmc-SD256_0x81f8b0ef
mmc-SD256_0x81f8b0ef-part1
mmc-SD256_0x81f8b0ef-part2
mmc-SD256_0x81f8b0ef-part3
usb-Seagate_Expansion_HDD_00000000NT17ARQC-0:0
usb-Seagate_Expansion_HDD_00000000NT17ARQC-0:0-part1
usb-Seagate_Expansion_HDD_00000000NT17ARQC-0:0-part2

member of the pack, it seems.

4

Hey @john10_70,

Have you ever use Seagate Dashboard with your device? This is where USB controller is updated and enslaved to system services for power control. Things like hdparm or hd-iddle will have issues with it.

Kind Regards,

5

no, this device was never connected to any other system, it must think this is a pi-controlled volumio universe.

6

Hey @john10_70,

We can try something. However make a proper backup of your configurations, music libraries, etc.

Once ready,

sudo apt update
sudo apt install hdparm
sudo hdparm -S 10 /dev/sda1

Kind Regards,

7

doesnt do any change, still spinning.
hdparm throws error:

volumio@volumio:~$ sudo hdparm -S 10 /dev/sda1

/dev/sda1:
setting standby to 10 (50 seconds)
SG_IO: bad/missing sense data, sb: 70 00 05 00 00 00 00 0a 00 00 00 00 24 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

there have been warnings while installing hdparm:
dpkg: warning: files list file for package ‘ices2’ missing; assuming package has no files currently installed
dpkg: warning: files list file for package ‘icecast2’ missing; assuming package has no files currently installed
dpkg: warning: files list file for package ‘plymouth-themes’ missing; assuming package has no files currently installed
dpkg: warning: files list file for package ‘libxslt1.1:armhf’ missing; assuming package has no files currently installed

8

weird, hdparm doesn’t seem to work at all with this device:

volumio@volumio:/dev$ sudo hdparm -I /dev/sda1

/dev/sda1:
SG_IO: bad/missing sense data, sb: 70 00 05 00 00 00 00 0a 00 00 00 00 24 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

ATA device, with non-removable media
Standards:
Likely used: 1
Configuration:
Logical max current
cylinders 0 0
heads 0 0
sectors/track 0 0
–
Logical/Physical Sector size: 512 bytes
device size with M = 10241024: 0 MBytes
device size with M = 10001000: 0 MBytes
cache/buffer size = unknown
Capabilities:
IORDY not likely
Cannot perform double-word IO
R/W multiple sector transfer: not supported
DMA: not supported
PIO: pio0
volumio@volumio:/dev$

manually standby/sleep triggering with no effect:

volumio@volumio:/dev$ sudo hdparm -y /dev/sda1

/dev/sda1:
issuing standby command
SG_IO: bad/missing sense data, sb: 70 00 05 00 00 00 00 0a 00 00 00 00 24 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

volumio@volumio:/dev$ sudo hdparm -Y /dev/sda1

/dev/sda1:
issuing sleep command
SG_IO: bad/missing sense data, sb: 70 00 05 00 00 00 00 0a 00 00 00 00 24 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

9

Hey @john10_70,

Output suggests that the params over USB controller are not being parsed. This will require further analysis.

I will return to this topic once have something worth testing. Perhaps other community members can step in with their expertise.

Perhaps solution like this one can help:

Kind Regards,

1 Like
10

thanks, your support is amazing!

I will test the utility, maybe a workaround until this can be adressed further.
It’s not that burning pain once one knows, but these usb expansion drives are not designed for 24h-duty, and will die over time expectable sooner.

1 Like
11

Now tested the suggested nifty hd-idle utility.
Result: perfect, problem solved sustainable.

Steps I did:

  • downloaded binary package hd-idle_1.21_armhf.deb
  • installed with
    dpkg -i hd-idle_1.21_armhf.deb
  • adjusted config
    sudo nano /etc/default/hd-idle
  • started hd-idle and enabled it at boot time
    sudo systemctl start hd-idle
    sudo systemctl enable hd-idle

Right after dpkg spin down can be tested on shell:

hd-idle -i 50

Thanks a lot Nerd, very valuable help!

1 Like