I believe everything is spinning up my drives

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klepp0906
Posts: 49
Joined: Mon Oct 28, 2019 6:25 pm

I believe everything is spinning up my drives

Post by klepp0906 »

So i have a lot of hard drives. 120TB worth. Some arent used often, not even daily - so i spin them down. Lately ive found them waking so much its impossible to get them back to sleep without setting the sleep timer to something obnoxiously short.

My procmon experience doesnt even border on rudimentary, im just a user. Still I set it up as best i could and noticed two things. One was obvious, tortoisesvn cache was spinning things up i'd prefer it did not. That was handled easily enough.

the other, was all these entries which i presume are the result of everything. The reason I say so, is entirely due to indexing of some sort being the likely answer for one. For two, a google search for the obscure directory listed in one of the entries led to a superuser post, where someone said those entries ended up being exactly that(this).

Operating under the assumption that is the case, the obvious would be simply to stop using everything - but I dont want to of course. I just want my drives to stop being woken.

That leaves me wondering about my options.

I have the portable version, but have installed the service. My ideal would be for everything to still work, and to update the database - but only when I went to search said drive. Not perpetually and/or in the background as it seems to be doing now. (unless theres a way to have that continue but only when the drive is already awake via other means) I know the updating of the database doesnt take long at all. problem is it happens frequently enough that with a reasonable sleep time, its going on and off all day long. It doesnt get my time to stay asleep.

Here are the entries JIC

https://imgur.com/a/AGnDetq
void
Developer
Posts: 15352
Joined: Fri Oct 16, 2009 11:31 pm

Re: I believe everything is spinning up my drives

Post by void »

Thank you for your post.

How are you indexing these drives? are they indexed as NTFS volumes under Tools -> Options -> NTFS? or as folder indexes under Tools -> Options -> Folders?

Please try increasing the monitor retry delay:
  • In Everything, type in the following search and press ENTER:
    /monitor_retry_delay=86400000
    Where 86400000 is the number of milliseconds to wait before attempting to re-monitor a volume after an error. (86400000 = 24 hours)
    The default value is 30000 (30 seconds)
  • If successful, you should see monitor_retry_delay=86400000 in the status bar for a few seconds.
Please try disabling folder update rescan asap:
  • In Everything, type in the following search and press ENTER:
    /folder_update_rescan_asap=0
  • If successful, you should see folder_update_rescan_asap=0 in the status bar for a few seconds.
  • This will prevent Everything from scanning a folder index when a scheduled rescan was missed.
Please let me know if the issue persists.
klepp0906
Posts: 49
Joined: Mon Oct 28, 2019 6:25 pm

Re: I believe everything is spinning up my drives

Post by klepp0906 »

Hello, thank you very much for your reply.

I have them set as local NTFS volumes

I will look into the settings you suggested and let you know how it goes.

assuming neither of those are the issue, or everything turns out to not be the issue in the first place. How do i revert those values to default?

the one is evidently

/monitor_retry_delay=30000

is the other just a value of 1 instead of 0?
void
Developer
Posts: 15352
Joined: Fri Oct 16, 2009 11:31 pm

Re: I believe everything is spinning up my drives

Post by void »

To restore the default settings:

Set the default monitor retry delay:
  • In Everything, type in the following search and press ENTER:
    /monitor_retry_delay=30000
  • If successful, you should see monitor_retry_delay=30000 in the status bar for a few seconds.
Set the default folder update rescan asap:
  • In Everything, type in the following search and press ENTER:
    /folder_update_rescan_asap=1
    1 = on
    0 = off
  • If successful, you should see folder_update_rescan_asap=1 in the status bar for a few seconds.
https://www.voidtools.com/support/everything/ini/#monitor_retry_delay
https://www.voidtools.com/support/everything/ini/#folder_update_rescan_asap
therube
Posts: 4610
Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2009 6:48 pm

Re: I believe everything is spinning up my drives

Post by therube »

folder_update_rescan_asap applies (only) to Folder Indexes?

monitor_retry_delay says "after an error".

Just what does that mean & will that actually cause a sleeping drive to not spin up?
Is a drive being asleep treated as an error?
And what, by default, if the drive responds (spins up) within 30 seconds, it is then monitored?
Or the drive spins up (in it's own time), but monitoring is not resumed until 30 seconds has passed?
But that can't be, because then what does the 24h do?

Is the drive still going to spin up?
void
Developer
Posts: 15352
Joined: Fri Oct 16, 2009 11:31 pm

Re: I believe everything is spinning up my drives

Post by void »

folder_update_rescan_asap applies (only) to Folder Indexes?
Yes.
monitor_retry_delay says "after an error".

Just what does that mean & will that actually cause a sleeping drive to not spin up?
Everything will read the USN Journal on NTFS indexes.
If this read fails for any reason (including the drive being offline) Everything will attempt to re-read the USN Journal every 30 seconds.
Is a drive being asleep treated as an error?
Yes, Everything will see this volume as error 3, path not found.
And what, by default, if the drive responds (spins up) within 30 seconds, it is then monitored?
If the spin up generates a 'new device' event the 30 second delay is waived. Although, There shouldn't be a new device event for drive spin-up.
Everything will wait until the 30 second delay expires. This delay starts when the read failed occured. So it could be anywhere from 0-30 seconds before Everything re-reads this device.
Or the drive spins up (in it's own time), but monitoring is not resumed until 30 seconds has passed?
But that can't be, because then what does the 24h do?
Checks if the re-reading of the USN journal is causing the spin up.

I thought the following might be occurring:
Everything is reading the USN Journal on volume E:.
There is no activity on volume E: and it spins down.
Some time in the future, the read on the USN Journal fails.
Everything will set a 30 second delay on this disk
after this delay expires, Everything will re-open the E: drive.
The re-opening of this volume causes the disk to spin up.



The icon requests could also be spinning the drive up.
I'll look into adding a icon filter.
One way to test this now is to use filelists instead of folder/ntfs indexing as filelists do not request icons.
void
Developer
Posts: 15352
Joined: Fri Oct 16, 2009 11:31 pm

Re: I believe everything is spinning up my drives

Post by void »

In case this is related to gathering icons please try the latest nightly build and disable icon handler shell extensions:
  • In Everything, type in the following search and press ENTER:
    /icon_shell_extensions=0
  • If successful, you should see icon_shell_extensions=0 in the status bar for a few seconds.
This will prevent Everything going to disk to load icons.
therube
Posts: 4610
Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2009 6:48 pm

Re: I believe everything is spinning up my drives

Post by therube »

With that change, I believe things are working "correctly", now.
(Only a relatively quick look, only partially paying attention...)
Seems that searches ensue without wake-up.
Attempting to open, or content-menu action, then awakens the drive...

Before, searches would pause as the drive awakens.
Now, searches are unimpeded & drive only awakens when some specific action is taken to "open" the file.
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