[TriLUG] network storage drive spin up policy: how often for longest life? And can the SMART parms be hacked (reset)?

[Brian via TriLUG]

On 12/2/20 1:14 PM, Pete Soper via TriLUG wrote:
> how often should I spin them up, or should I just leave 
> them spinning if my goal is longest life? 

Here's something to consider:  No physical thing is 100% perfect.  As it 
applies here, the drive platters are not 100% balanced, and no two 
drives spin at 100% exactly the same speed.  So if you have more than 
one spinning drive in a chassis, really bad resonances can be set up 
from the drives' differing vibration patterns.  I once added a drive to 
a machine and it went from a relatively quiet thing to going WUM WUM WUM 
pretty noticeably thanks to the drives' vibration interaction.

All that to say, if you really want to maximize drive lifetime in a 
multi-drive chassis, they need to be mounted with some vibration 
isolation.  One way to do it, if you have a fairly typical chassis, is 
to buy some rubber grommets whose I.D. fit the 6x32 screws, and drill 
out the chassis holes to fit the grommets' O.D.  You might need slightly 
longer screws, too.  Put the grommets in the holes, then put the screws 
in through the grommets, and don't tighten them down too aggressively; 
the whole idea being allowing the drive to wiggle a bit relative to the 
chassis.

Anyhoo, just my $0.02.

Cheers!
-Brian