Synology NAS: hdd hibernation and disk life

Question

I've a Synology NAS with 2 WD Red hard drives. I've enabled the hibernation for the drives, so they stop after 20 minutes inactivity.
However, we use the NAS a lot and the disks get powered up very frequently. I was wondering if hibernation could cause earlier failure of the drives in the situation, and if I should disable it. I understand hibernation saves energy, but I care about the integrity of my data more.
Thank you!

Solution 1

I think hibernation would be more risky than just leaving the disk spinning simply because you are exercising the motor more. Steady state should be more reliable. However I can't find any studies supporting the theory.

Solution 2

The documentation says they are good for 600k load cycles with a 3 year warranty.

600k/(365*3) ~= 548

That is ~540 stop/start cycles per day. That sounds ok for me for normal power cycling as described.

Comments

[TomTom]

What does the documentation say? Generally drives have a datasheet and the startup planning is part of that, you know.

[ItalyPaleAle]

@TomTom I'm not a real hardware expert, I'm not really sure! The NAS is for home use only, so price was a big factor (together with online reviews for quality and reliability)

[TomTom]

Ever considered READING? "No hardware expert" is not the same as "incapable of reading". And as professional admin (requirement to ask here) I would assume you are capable of reading. Normally restart limits are part of the datasheet. And quite explicitly so.

[ItalyPaleAle]

@TomTom I didn't know there was a documentation, and that a documentation said that. And there's no need to be this rude.

[TomTom]

No, you ahve not. You have put random words into google. Datasheet. Datasheet. "WD RED DATASHEET" and you get something. Maybe you should pay someone to do that?

[TomTom]

Documentation gives 600k cycles. Over 5 years of 365 days that resutls into 547 restarts per day under warranty.

[ItalyPaleAle]

That's the same file I linked you. And as I told you, even after I read the docs, I did not know what it meant. That's why I asked here. There's no need to be rude.

[TomTom]

@Qualcuno And I am not as rude. Realism please. If you dont know computer hardawre, do not go to a place where end users are not supposed to be.

[raja]

Personally I don't care about "under warranty" warranty won't get your data back, and the warranty is 3 years. The fact that they call out that the number of cycles is different than the MTBF hours tells me it an additional risk. So the question is is the power saving worth the risk? If the data is redundant then I'm inclined to say the risk of data loss is probably outweighed by the savings, particularly as you add disks. If however as posted the disks are used heavily anyway so that there is little savings I'm inclined to turn it off.

[TomTom]

That is as ignorant as it gets - for a forum for professional admins. Warrants is cost. Data protection - here is a hint: No raid is a backup. Never. So, you want not to loose your data, keep MULTIPLE backups on OFFLINE media. Which a professional would do anyway. Which puts the risk into "there is inconvenience and cost". But if the data is at risk becasue of that - then someone is gross incompetent and ignoring the backup side.

[raja]

Noone ever suggested that disks are somehow equivalent of backups but you certainly don't need the added expenses of recovery from failed disks because you knowingly took on additional risks, additionally unless you've invested in CDP your backup is not going to contain data between backups.