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Asked: 2023-10-20 01:48:48 +0800 CST

Spin down hot spare when not in use

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I have an avago raid controller managing an array of 4 disks + 1 hot spare.

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EID:Slt DID State DG     Size Intf Med SED PI SeSz Model                  Sp Type
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252:0     3 Onln   0 5.457 TB SATA HDD N   N  512B WDC WD6002FRYZ-01WD5B1 U  -
252:1     5 Onln   0 5.457 TB SATA HDD N   N  512B WDC WD6002FRYZ-01WD5B1 U  -
252:2     6 Onln   0 5.457 TB SATA HDD N   N  512B WDC WD6002FRYZ-01WD5B1 U  -
252:3     7 Onln   0 5.457 TB SATA HDD N   N  512B WDC WD6002FRYZ-01WD5B1 U  -
252:4     4 GHS    - 7.276 TB SATA HDD N   N  512B WDC WD8004FRYZ-01VAEB0 U  -
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All is working well, but I notice that the storcli output shows the GHS disk as spun up. Why keep the GHS spun up - won't that just wear out a disk which is otherwise idle? Is it possible to spin down this drive until it is needed?

raid

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    When a disk is spun-down for extended period of time, the bearings can dry to the point the HDD can no longer spin-up correctly. For this reason, a true hot spare should generally be kept spun-up.

    • 5

  2. As far as I know this is standard behavior because manufacturers want to have all the disks in array to have similar spin ups. And usually disks broke on spin up. So this way RAID controller try to minimize the risk and be able to use spare disk ASAP.

    • 1