My Synology NAS wakes up hard drives for no reason.

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My Synology NAS wakes up hard drives for no reason.

6
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NAS
Synology DS218
Hello,
I have a Synology DS218 which I set-up few weeks ago. I was having issues where my hard drives (6TB IronWolf) wake up from hibernation without any reason. I have disconnected the LAN cable but hard drives still wake up few times a day and always wake up every night at 11:36pm eastern time.

I have created a system log after enabling the hibernation debugging feature. I submitted the log to Synology support but I was told "The logs don't mention a specific event. However, I do see it trying to write to a couple of sectors in hibernation log but I cannot tell what is causing this activity".

So I am turning to this forum to see some helpful soul can please take a look at my NAS log and tell me what is causing my hard drives to wake-up. I cannot upload the log file with my post because it is 4MB in size and it is too large to attach. I am sharing a link to the file here : Link to Log
Thanks in advance.
 
Not a solution. Just wanted to say that I gave up on drives sleeping.
I here you. I have already turned off my Synology after reading all the hibernation issues with Synology. Actually my Synology only started hibernating when I disabled the UPNP and port forwarding. I have just built a Odroid based NAS unit using OpenMediaVault and I am experimenting with it since I have a feeling tha I have to decommission the Synology. This Odroid SBC (single board computer) uses SD card to store the OS, hopefully it would not have all the disk hibernating issues that I am having with Synology.


Have a look here DiskStation Manager - Knowledge Base | Synology Inc.

See if any service on the list is also running on your nas. If so then that’s your answer.

I have already read the Knoledgebase article about Hibernation issues. I have actually reinstalled the 'Diskstation Manager' with all default settings and did not install any optional service. I have also unplugged the Ethernet cable. But hard drives still spin-up randomly. I never had such issues with 10 years ownership of Dlink DNS-321. I have heard great reviews about Synology but I am sorely disappointed.

Is there any chance some can take a look at the log files and crack this mystery?
Thanks.
 
To be honest, I wouldn’t worry about it, let them spin, that’s what they’re designed to do, might cost you a few cents per year. There are also theories that the more you have them start and stop (hibernate) the more wear you put on the drives and potential for failure.
 
To be honest, I wouldn’t worry about it, let them spin, that’s what they’re designed to do, might cost you a few cents per year. There are also theories that the more you have them start and stop (hibernate) the more wear you put on the drives and potential for failure.
totally agree

@ rhoniel
don't take it personaly - sometime we have to count how much we can get from time consumption (to find a solution) and what we can receive.
An example:
218 NAS Power Consumption difference (full vs hibern) is about 9W x 24h x 365Ds =79kWh/Y (savings from non stop operation)
IronWold 6G SATA is about 8W Average Operating Power, then 8W x 24h x 365Ds =70kWh/Y (non stop operation)
Then if you can save 50% (12h/day) of the HDD + NAS power consumption, you will save 79+35kWh = max. 114kWh/Y
How much is it in price of kWh per few cents? Monthly less as 1-3 coffee couples.
Price of the damaged 6TB IronWolf from frequently switching from/to hybern. by the Startup current is in range 182-230USD.
 
I have just built a Odroid based NAS unit
I had to DuckDuckGo Odroid NAS to know what is it :)
You’re a brave soul. Good luck with that.

For me the Synology is doing the job. A few of my friends keep complaining about its price vs. its components (especially the processor). And it’s true, if you take the components individually that’s what one might conclude, but as a whole, a package, the price vs. value is justifiable (to me at least).

Please do let us know what are your thoughts once you run the Odroid NAS compared to your experience with Synology.
 
To be honest, I wouldn’t worry about it, let them spin, that’s what they’re designed to do, might cost you a few cents per year. There are also theories that the more you have them start and stop (hibernate) the more wear you put on the drives and potential for failure.

Agreed. This is why you should have WD Red's or something in your NAS. My disks run 24/7 due to all the services running on my NAS'es.
 
If you reeeaaaally want the NAS to shut down, you can setup scheduled power downs, although the NAS will be totally unreachable during these times.
 
Thanks for all of you who has spent time reading my posts and posting comments.

My previous NAS experience is with Dlink DNS-321 which I have been using since 2009. I never had any issues with hibernation with Dlink. I installed two 2-GB drives in 2009 and these drives still have zero read errors and working perfectly. I access my NAS may be 4-5 times a month and I do not run any add-on services like Twonkey, Plex or bit-torrent.

So my expectations from Synology were high. [U] WST16[/U] has mentioned about the higher prices of Synology. I actually could have bought Zyxel NAS for $150 less but I opted to pay more because I though I am paying for a better product with higher than average quality control. I did not want to have issues with my NAS only because I wanted to save few bucks and I am planning to run it for 10 more years. I thought the hibernation would work 'just fine' in Synology because it is an expensive unit and I can prevent wear & tear on the hard drives since I access the NAS only 4-5 times a month.

I also liked Synology since I could attach a USB hard drive to expand the storage but the thing is when I access the external USB drive, the NAS also spin-up the hard drives installed in the NAS unit. So I built Odroid-HC2 based NAS to store temporary (less critical) files as central location. Its speed is impressive approaching that of Synology and I have heard Odroid is much faster then Rasberry Pi. The web user interface is more polised than my ancient Dlink. However I am still tinkering with the system and can post final impressions in few weeks.

So is there any chance that some one can take a look at my NAS logs?
 
planning to run it for 10 more years
That’s a very long time in the technology field :)

any chance that some one can take a look at my NAS logs?
I gave up a long time ago. Let them spin :D
But as mentioned by others above, the jury is still out on whether this is beneficial or not. My advice (if you don’t mind), is not to worry about it and join us. We’re the full time spinners :D
 
Last edited:
may I ask you a question, what is the primary purpose of your NAS?

Its a 2nd stage back-up as another drive attached to my router is first stage back-up. That's why I do not have to access Synology as much.

I think I might have found the reason as why my DS218 was waking up every night at 11:36pm. I have read on QNAP knowledge base that DHCP IP address lease renewal can also wake up their NAS units. My router assigns an IP address lease for 1440 minutes (1 day) so I thought its worth a shot to assign a static IP address to the NAS unit outside the range of IP address which are being assigned by router.

I have assigned a static address to NAS (outside the DHCP severs managed range) about 3 days ago and so far my NAS has not come out of hibernation. It may be incidence of some sort but I am cautiously hopeful at this point. BTW I have also disabled all the log functions including hibernation log and disabled the USB copy feature. And I am running RAID 1 instead of Synology hybrid RAID system.

On the other hand my Odroid-HC2 is coming out of hibernation as much as two times an hour due to legacy Cron Jobs running every hour.

PS: can someone tell Synology Support to add static IP address as a trick to their knowledge base article about drive hibernation pitfalls.
 
What I've done for ages is reserve IPs from DHCP server, if possible (depends on the implementation of the server) outside the DHCP dynamic range. Then all devices can either use DHCP for a combination of {dynamic; reserved} IP, default gateway/router, DNS, and search domains.

For client devices they get all this from DHCP but for NAS and servers they usually get a manual assignment of the info that the DHCP would provide. This means that NAS don't rely on a DHCP to correctly assign the IP and if things go wrong I can connect directly with ethernet and manually configure the Mac to be in the same subnet.
 
Alright this is an update to my situation.
I think I rebooted my Synology DS218 and then it started spinning-up again randomly. So I gave up and started looking for alternatives two months ago.

I found that Zyxel NAS326 has onboard NAND memory and it stores some of its OS files on that on-board memory. So I started reading Zyxel forums. . However the real jem that I discovered was a forum user name 'Mijzelf '. He is a developer level coder. He knows all the inner working of the Zyxel NAS units ( and probably all others). He has developed a TweaksPackage which copies all the third-party add-ons from the installed hard drives and to the USB drive (if present). He also figured out that some daemons can keep the disks busy and he has addressed these daemons in his TweaksPackage. This package is now officially supported by Zyxel. After I enabled some of these settings, the Zyxel does not spin-up again unless it is accessed. However after NAS unit is rebooted, I have to apply the TweaksPackage settings again.

Oh .... and after I toyed with Zyxel, I sold my Synology.

Another update on the Odroid-HC and OMV combo. My Odroid-HC was coming out of sleep state every hour and then it was going back to sleep in 5 minutes (even when I have entered the settings for it to spin down after 2 hours). There were some awesome users on OMV forum who has helped to figure out that spin-down time of Odroid-HC is controlled by the SATA chip's firmware and I have to disable SMART check-up which is waking up the drive. After applying those work-around, my Odroid is rock solid and never wakes up. I actually likes it better than Zyxel because I have connected a USB flash drive to Odroid unit and even when I access the USB drive, the main Hard Drive does not spin up. Its awesome and it is not possible with Synology or Q-NAP.

I thought I would post it here as it may help some one going though similar situation as I was. End of the rant......
 
thx for the summary, now I have better knowledge, that Zyxel also can provide NAS solution.
I still miss the point, why is the Hybernation main driver of NAS purchase for such occasional usage of the NAS (4-5x a month).
But each of us has a kind of irrational in mind. Life is like boxed chocolate ...
Good luck!
 

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