Turning Off NAS Every Night?

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Wardrop
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Turning Off NAS Every Night?

Post by Wardrop »

I plan to buy a QNAP 659 Pro+ sometime over the next month or two. I plan to only have the NAS on during the day for noise and power consumption reasons. I'm wondering how QNAP's handle being turned on and off on a regular basis? Also, how does one safely turn off the device? Is there a shutdown button or anything of the likes, or does a shutdown need to be triggered in software?

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Don
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Re: Turning Off NAS Every Night?

Post by Don »

You can schedule a shutdown and startup via the firmware. You can also shut down via the web admin gui. Most electronic devices will last longer if left powered up all the time. Also invest in a decent UPS. You will be glad you did.
Use the forum search feature before posting.

Use RAID and external backups. RAID will protect you from disk failure, keep your system running, and data accessible while the disk is replaced, and the RAID rebuilt. Backups will allow you to recover data that is lost or corrupted, or from system failure. One does not replace the other.

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onlyalex
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Re: Turning Off NAS Every Night?

Post by onlyalex »

I go with Don's post anytime... I can almost asure you that if you power off /on everynight your HD in the NAS will run out within a Year.... Taking the cost of getting 1 to 4 new drives withing a year and compare that to the small amount of Power cost you will save there is no reason left to turn it off.

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macnap
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Turning Off NAS Every Night?

Post by macnap »

onlyalex wrote:I go with Don's post anytime... I can almost asure you that if you power off /on everynight your HD in the NAS will run out within a Year.... Taking the cost of getting 1 to 4 new drives withing a year and compare that to the small amount of Power cost you will save there is no reason left to turn it off.
1 year? That'd be worse durability than a common desktop computer. And QNAP NAS is but a simplified Linux box.

I say that's an over exaggeration.
QNAP TS410 -> (8 years) -> TS431X (Plastic casing?) :-0
micke
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Re: Turning Off NAS Every Night?

Post by micke »

macnap wrote: 1 year? That'd be worse durability than a common desktop computer. And QNAP NAS is but a simplified Linux box.

I say that's an over exaggeration.
From a general point of view I agree with Don and onlyalex -- that is, constant power-cycling does add extra wear and tear to the hardware and if one single component is bad you might find out sooner instead of later ;-)

On the other hand, I have a mythtv server (i.e. running Linux) created from standard components that starts automatically before a TV recording shall take place and then shutdown after the recording is finished (with only power to the network card for WoL). Has been running like this for almost 6 years without any issues. Upgraded the HDD recently, but not because it has shown any indications of hardware problems (it is still used as the system drive); only because I wanted larger storage.

/Mike
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Re: Turning Off NAS Every Night?

Post by P3R »

I agree about that being an exaggeration. And should they fail within the year, they're still covered by warranty.

I am turning my desktop and laptop on almost every day and I haven't had one of those disks fail on me yet. The two disks that have failed have been after about 2 years each in a NAS running 24x7. But the twins of those failing disks that had exactly the same usage (they were originally used as RAID 1) are still in action. Disk failures are rarely that predictable.

If it was necessary or the most practical because of noise I wouldn't be scared about turning a NAS off nightly. Yes it will probably shorten the life of the unit somewhat (but hardly as dramatically as suggested here), then so be it. My units are always on but that is more a matter of convenience.
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onlyalex
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Re: Turning Off NAS Every Night?

Post by onlyalex »

In my opinion it's not an exaggeration. Sure you got warranty for atleast 1 year that you can use if the hd break down before that. It's not the hd that is hard to lose if it break's its all the important data on the disk/s that is hard to lose. I usaly have 2-3 good years on my drives before run out, this is drives running 24/7 . At my work i see many computers hd's that gets fried and stop working 1-2 years mostly cos they turn of there computers. Just do some reading on how an hd works and you will understand.

If you want to turn it of go ahead, you will wear the drives out faster than if you would let them on. If it's within a year or within warranty great you will have new one's. If you have a good backup so you dont lose any data thats great news... In the end doing misstakes is the only way to learn. If i did not had the same senario applied to me a couple of years ago, i would not have had the knowled of it today, yet alone know how to awoid it from happening.

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Re: Turning Off NAS Every Night?

Post by P3R »

onlyalex wrote:It's not the hd that is hard to lose if it break's its all the important data on the disk/s that is hard to lose.
All hard disks will eventually fail so if you haven't grasped the concept of backups yet, it's only a matter of time until this will happen regardless of if you power down or not. So clearly that's not a valid argument for your opinion.

At least one backup of all vital data is always necessary.
At my work i see many computers hd's that gets fried and stop working 1-2 years mostly cos they turn of there computers.
And you're absolutely sure everything else was equal? And you've included several thousands of hard disks in your evaluation and investigated each and every one of them afterwards to rule out every other factor? And you did document everything thoroughly to make sure you weren't being biased by your own feelings?

Let's just say that I mildly question the scientific validity of that investigation and think that you may have exaggerated the relevance of it to back your personal opinions.
Just do some reading on how an hd works...
:lol:

Actually I already did that, about 25 years ago when I started working in this industry. Hand coding the bad blocks list in when low level formatting and all that. Began installing RAID in Compaq servers 1990 if I remember correctly :wink:

We did make the same recommendation you do now in the nineties but hard disks have become way more reliable since then.

Today I recommend using things the way is fitting and most practical. In the datacenter of course everything is 24/7 but in a home environment one have to consider other things as well. It would, for instance, be stupid trying to sleep next to a running NAS out of fear that it will explode if turned off. Remember that noise was mentioned (before) power savings here.

I already did agree that the lifetime could be marginally shortened by regularly powering down but it shouldn't be the only thing affecting the decision. Variations on different units of the same product (also known as luck) will be more influential in deciding the lifetime. In my opinion you're putting far to much emphasis on that single critera.
If i did not had the same senario applied to me a couple of years ago, i would not have had the knowled of it today, yet alone know how to avoid it from happening.
Well my experiences, gained over a little more than a couple of years, didn't lead me to exactly the same conclusions.
AndyGardiner
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Re: Turning Off NAS Every Night?

Post by AndyGardiner »

In general I'd agree that 24/7 is better than a regularly power cycling as much wear occurs during spin-up and head load/unload.
However in most 'retail' environments people are using 'retail' drives which are now specifically designed to spin down and up again so perhaps my traditional view of how to maximise drive life is no longer valid?
NicolasG
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Re: Turning Off NAS Every Night?

Post by NicolasG »

If it's the noise the problem just move the nas in a large closet :)
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FatherNigel
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Re: Turning Off NAS Every Night?

Post by FatherNigel »

Twelve years later than the last posting, and with energy costs going through the roof, I wonder whether attitudes to turning the system off every night have changed? I now only use my QNAP for backing up our computers, and providing access to photos and videos, so running the system from 6 - 11pm each day would be adequate. I wonder whether others would agree?
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FatherNigel
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Re: Turning Off NAS Every Night?

Post by FatherNigel »

Before anyone jumps on me - I'd forgotten that computers have to be switched on for their contents to be backed up! So perhaps the QNAP should be on from 2pm to 11pm! Is that better?
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dolbyman
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Re: Turning Off NAS Every Night?

Post by dolbyman »

A 12 year old post is better left alone...necroposting is not permitted here...(forum etiquette)..please open a new one

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