Recently got a DS1821 and installed plex. Unlike my PC, Plex doesn’t let the NAS disks hibernate. I’ve tried disabling every maintenance and logging option but still Plex keeps calling back home. I only use my NAS for a few hours a day and few days a week so please avoid the rationale NAS is meant to be 24x7. Any help to avoid my turning off and on plex server everytime I need to use it will be highly appreciated.
Plex on a NAS will never hibernate. PMS is always doing something and will write to the drives, even when idle, 2-3 times per minute. It will be held in the OS disk output buffer but the write rate is steady and well within the typical 5 minute idle time trigger.
There have been many complaints about it over the years.
There are two schools of thought:
Thinking #1 :
- NAS rated drives are designed to operate 24/7/365
- Drives which run 24/7/365 are temperature stable.
- When the heads are loaded, floating over the platter, they are the most stable. Heads are more likely to crash as they extend from their parked position than they are floating in the air cushion over the disk.
- Drives , like light bulbs. rarely go bad when left on.
- Drives, like light bulbs, will most likely go bad when turned on. reason? Rapid heating from ambient temperature and loading the heads
- Drives have a lifetime limit, inherent to the mechanism, of about 300,000 “head-load” cycles. If the drives were to power up, load, perform an operation, retract, and power off every 5 minutes (288 times / day) then the mechanism will be at design limit after 2.85 years.
Thinking #2:
- Save power
- Lower operating cost (12 watts active vs 2 watts standby) – see below.
Power and operating cost.
- 12 watts / hour
- 20 cents / KWH (kilowatt hour)
- 24 hours/day * 30 days/month * 12 watts = 8640 watts/month = 8.640 Kwh/month
- 8.640 Kwh * $0.20 = $1.78 / drive / month
At 2w/hr, if sitting completely idle for the entire month = $0.28
Why have the NAS powered on at all if it will be idle for a month?
Thanks for the detailed response. That’s what I don’t get, why does Plex need to write so frequently when no new files are added to library (and hence no need of metadata refresh) and no videos are being streamed as well.
On power usage front, it’s 25W in hibernation vs 60-70W when all 8 disks are spinning. NAS unit is silent while hibernating which is a big plus in an office environment.
If there’s any setting or config edit which can help fix this behaviour of Plex, I’m willing to try it. While Plex works much better than other options I’ve tried so far, I’ll unfortunately have to dump it if hibernation issue can’t be resolved.
I’m just setting up my NAS so don’t have many apps. I’ve tested that disks hibernate when PMS is stopped and don’t come back on unless accessed by PC. I’ve left NAS with PMS on for more than a day and disks never goto sleep. I find this behavior of continuously scanning for TV tuners and castable devices odd - one can always manually scan them, or at least give an option similar to automatic library scanning.
Looks like I got the answer to my question, even though that may not be what I was looking for, thanks everyone who pitched in. If anybody knows how to curate Plex behavior (even if unofficial), I’ll appreciate that. I’ll try scripting over the weekend to see if I can stop PMS after x min of inactivity and then turn back on when device wakes up. Else, I’ll have to explore alternatives, which is sad since Plex fits most of my other needs pretty well.
Respectfully,
Do you like all the things it does for you or do you want manual action/control ?
That’s the first decision.
If you like it all automatic, as it currently is, then disks always running is the cost.
It’s not like they’re going to fail quicker by running all the time – actually they last longer when constantly running. (the 10 year light bulb and 8 year always on HD scenario)
You can mitigate some of the logging by dumping to syslog (a manual edit),
however:
- We will not be able to support the configuration
- The logs will need to be managed through DSM.
syslog - I’ve already done that, I’m hoping to further mitigate logging over the weekend.
It’s not a simple auto vs manual question but being forced to keep disks running unnecessarily. I’ve been going through the logs and still don’t understand why system keeps scanning and dumping logs instead of having triggers. Being a product guy that annoys me, especially for a software I’m paying for, I expect engineers to do better and be efficient.
However, Plex over NAS has a massive userbase who don’t seem to have an issue so I understand why this may not be a priority.
Analogies or tests correspond to certain test scenarios, specific user scenarios can be different. Disks in my NAS hibernate at 28c and spin at 37-38. My experience tells me they’ll survive longer due to reduced temps than few stop-starts per day.
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