How do I know if it's spun down? (209)

[dodgy]

Hi,

Perhaps a stupid question, but how can I tell if my drives are spinning down on my 209?

If it helps I'm looking at the device and have the following lights:

A green light (the power light?)
Two yellow hard drive lights
A yellow network light
A blue lightblub shaped light (no idea what this is)

Thanks

[Pancho]

This may sound stupid but just put your hand on it. Can you feel/hear the hard drive going? The old garage mechanic's method of connecting your ear via a metal rod to the box would help if you are not sure. In standby mode the temperature of the unit goes down. Check after it should have been in standby mode for a while; e.g. in the morning before you start any computers up.
Checking this morning I find the Power Light is on (Blue) and the LAN light is on (Yellow). The temperature of the box is quite cool and the 'feel' of the unit is silent. Prior to posting this the Status light is on (Green) and I can feel the hard drive is running. I have a TS-101 with a 500Gb Maxtor drive in it.

[Janardan]

My qnap 209 pro is in a location that makes it hard to "feel" if the harddrives are spinning. I can see the lights just fine. I notice that the status light is off when I have not used it in over 5 mintures, however I still see the two lights for the harddrives blinking on occation. This does not make sense to me how the harddrive lights can blink but the staus lights be off (per the manual when the status light is off then harddrive is in standby). I know then when I am actively transfering large file to the QNAP unit, I can see the status light turn on and the two harddrive lights blink. When I am doing a firmware upgrade the status light blinks between red and yellow.

Thus I would say these lights are not clear as to what is happening with the unit.

I believe that the harddrive do go to standby but not certain.

[Darrin]

If the "i" status is not on, then the drives have spun down. The fan will continue to run.
If I access the drive, I can hear the hard drives spin up and feel it on the top of the unit, the "i" lights up green and stays on until it goes back to standby mode.


Yes the disk lights do flicker, not sure why.

I do notice that simply opening windows explorer will make the drive wake up, even if I'm looking at files on the C drive. So if any computers on the network are running windows explorer, the drive will spin.

You can also hear the difference, there is a slight hum when the drives are spinning.

[Janardan]

Thanks for your help. I did notice all the things you mentioned. So I guess my drives do spin down. Has anyone tried putting a quiter fan in their units?

[christian]

Thanks for your help. I did notice all the things you mentioned. So I guess my drives do spin down. Has anyone tried putting a quiter fan in their units?

I am pretty sure that you will loose your garanty .... you have to destroy the warranty sign !

[johnA]

If the "i" status is not on, then the drives have spun down. The fan will continue to run.

This is not necessarily the case, my i light goes out per the schedule but the drive does not spin down. I can feel it (and just hear it) and the power consumption of the unit remains the same.

[jhe]

And my light stays on sometimes when drives are spun down. I can tell when I hear them spin up.

[Janardan]

After posting this original thread, I am not convinced that you can tell if the drives have spun down or not short of putting your hand on drives to see if still spinning (or listen to them spin up). I am not cnvinced the "i" light truely refelects the status of the harddrives. I wonder if this is better with the new beta 2.0 firmware?

[pietjepuk76]

Could you post here the brand and type of your hard drive? I'm having the same problem with a ST3500320AS SD04 (see other thread), and I'm wondering if this is related to a specific hard drive or not. Thanks!

[Janardan]

I have (two) Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 500 GB SATA Hard Drives in RAID 1 config.