Mac Pro software RAID - drives don't sleep

[Cabbage]

I'm running a Mac Pro 8 core x 2.8GHx (early 2008) and I've got two 1TB Hard Drives running under software RAID 0.

I use this config as my boot up disk, but I notice the drives never sleep, even if I leave the computer for a long time unattended. I've checked the "put hard disks to sleep when possible" option in the energy saver system pref but still no luck.

Does anyone know if you can get the drives to sleep in a software RAID?

 

[patpro]

I'm running a Mac Pro 8 core x 2.8GHx (early 2008) and I've got two 1TB Hard Drives running under software RAID 0.

I use this config as my boot up disk, but I notice the drives never sleep, even if I leave the computer for a long time unattended. I've checked the "put hard disks to sleep when possible" option in the energy saver system pref but still no luck.

Does anyone know if you can get the drives to sleep in a software RAID?

I don't know about the sleeping capabilities of HD in soft RAID, but you might want to check that each HD is able to sleep out of the RAID. Unfortunately, a RAID 0 makes this check uncomfortable.

 

[Tesselator]

You don't need to know the sleep abilities of anything. You can't sleep your boot volume without sleeping the whole machine AFAIK.

Use Apple's CHUD SpindownHD.app and see if your boot volume ever goes "idle".






.

 

[DoFoT9]

You don't need to know the sleep abilities of anything. You can't sleep your boot volume without sleeping the whole machine AFAIK.

Use Apple's CHUD SpindownHD.app and see if your boot volume ever goes "idle".

not aware of the settings on a MP, as i have none. but on the iMac, MBP, iBook, and older iMacs that i have owned the HDs have all spun down when not in use (and the machine was still "awake"). interesting.

 

[Zerozal]

I think you might be on to something, because I am having similar sleep issues with my system. I suspect that it's due to my RAID 0 array, but am not completely sure.

After a fresh reboot sleep works fine, but it seems that after I've been using the Mac for a while (can't really nail down the specifics), it just fails to go to sleep. The display will sleep, but the tower won't. Everything sleeps file if I manually select Sleep apple:->Sleep), just not automatically.

*shrug*

 

[Tesselator]

I think the OP is talking about drive spindown on idle and not system sleep.

But in any case I boot from a RAID and my system will always sleep unless there's a fouled locked file causing trouble - and it's rare that a file ever causes that - once a year, less?

Drive spindown as defined in the "Energy Saver" prefs panel needs the drive to be idle for a period of time before it can kick in. And either a boot drive can't be spun down or boot drives are never idle - I dunno which or if it's both but I've never had a boot drive (single or RAID) that would allow this to happen. I have drive activity showing in the menu bar and I've never seen it idle for more than about 10 seconds - usually more like 3 - even after leaving the system for several days.

 

[Macinposh]

SW Raid10 system here and I dont have recollections of those disks going to sleep unless the system goes to sleep. But have had a lot of troubles of my internal sata disk (drive bay 5) and fw disks going to sleep even when have tried to set them on "never sleep". Havent found a fix on that problem...

 

[Cabbage]

I think the OP is talking about drive spindown on idle and not system sleep.

But in any case I boot from a RAID and my system will always sleep unless there's a fouled locked file causing trouble - and it's rare that a file ever causes that - once a year, less?

Drive spindown as defined in the "Energy Saver" prefs panel needs the drive to be idle for a period of time before it can kick in. And either a boot drive can't be spun down or boot drives are never idle - I dunno which or if it's both but I've never had a boot drive (single or RAID) that would allow this to happen. I have drive activity showing in the menu bar and I've never seen it idle for more than about 10 seconds - usually more like 3 - even after leaving the system for several days.

Thanks for the replies guys.
But I booted up using the "original" single drive and after leaving the computer the boot drive appear to go idle. But the RAID drives don't appear to go idle even though it's not the boot drive.

The RAID drives are 2x Seagate 7200.12 1TB drives which I'm pretty sure would sleep by themselves, but I'll do some more tests.

 

[Tesselator]

Thanks for the replies guys.
But I booted up using the "original" single drive and after leaving the computer the boot drive appear to go idle. But the RAID drives don't appear to go idle even though it's not the boot drive.

The RAID drives are 2x Seagate 7200.12 1TB drives which I'm pretty sure would sleep by themselves, but I'll do some more tests.

For what it's worth I haven't used a single drive for booting in a very long time. And of course the time slash memory equation applies.