HDD Spin down

[kermitxyz]

I have read several discussions about this but some are quite old now.

I have a HDD in pass-through mode used for backup. I would like the drive to spin down when not in use to (a) save power, and (b) save wear and tear.

I have tried this with hdparm in the VM (Debian) but apparently there is an issue with Proxmox not supporting this.

Does anyone know how (if?) it can be done?

 

[groque]

Just to clarify, are you passing through the entire SATA/SAS controller, or just the individual hard drive to the VM?

If you're only passing through the drive via a virtual disk or using a device passthrough like /dev/sdX or /dev/disk/by-id/xxx, the VM doesn't get access to the hardware’s power management features. It's seeing a virtualized representation, which limits what tools like hdparm can do.

To allow proper spin-down and hardware control, you'd need to passthrough the entire controller (PCIe passthrough), giving the VM direct access to the drive.

 

[kermitxyz]

Hi groque

Thanks for your reply. As you suspect I am currently just passing through the drive virtually. I'll get a PCI SATA card which will allow me to pass through the whole controller and thus get the drive to spin down. At least, I will try!

 

[gfngfn256]

If you have only passed through the disk itself as here, then AFAIK you should probably try configuring hdparm on the host node with that drive.

 

[kermitxyz]

If you have only passed through the disk itself as here, then AFAIK you should probably try configuring hdparm on the host node with that drive.

As I understand it, this cannot be achieved just by passing through the disk, you have to pass a complete controller. But please correct me if I am wrong!

 

[gfngfn256]

But please correct me if I am wrong!

I will correct you. Because I have suggested something completely the opposite of what you have said!

To be able to have DIRECT access to a disk (hdparm, smartctl etc) from within a VM, you usually need to have the actual controller passed through to the VM. This is what you refer to.

However what I have suggested in your case, where in fact ONLY the disk itself is passed through to the VM; then you should be able to pass the hdparm/config FROM THE PROXMOX HOST - which still has direct access to the controller & disk.