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Delaying Hard Drive Power Up?

Posted by Cliff on from the saving-wear-and-tear-on-the-power-supply dept.

Bamfarooni asks: "Does anyone know of a device that will delay powering up your hard-drives (or other internal devices)? We're trying to put a pile of IDE disks into a big disk server but the spin-up power for these disks is about 3x the maximum operating current. Rather than put in something really big like an 800W power supply, if we could just put something in-line that delayed the power through specific connectors for ~1 second, then we could mange with the built-in power supplies we already have." An interesting thought, but wouldn't the BIOS need to be aware of whatever delay is introduced? Otherwise it may interpret the delay wrongly and think that the drives on the IDE chain have timed out and are faulty.

4 of 53 comments (clear)

  1. SCSI Can do this by Xunker · · Score: 5, Informative

    I know you probably realize that SCSI does/can do this. But I also know that you're probably using IDE because SCSI drives of comparable size will be like twice the cost.

    But, you might look into a hybrid solution by using SCSI-to-IDE converters. I'm not sure if the 'delay spinup' feature is dependent on the drive itself or just the SCSI Host Card, but if it's the SCSI card that does delayed spinup, you might be able to do this.

    Something like this is what I'm thinking about. Of course, they charge $70 each adapter (which means per drive, too) -- though you may be able to get a better deal somewhere else.

    Also, depending on OS, have you looked into a firewire solution? THey don't delay spinup, but you can use external power with them (via the drive or the hub/repeater).

    --
    Hilary Rosen's speech was about her love of money and her desire to roll around naked in a pile of money.
  2. Umm... by haplo21112 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What not put the Drives in a separate box, with its own power supply that way you can start that box 10 seconds before the main CPU box....ATX tower case 350`400watt power supply fits/powers 8-12 drives $100...cheap and easy.

    --
    Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
  3. Time delay relays by bbk · · Score: 5, Informative

    Any good electronics shop or catalog should have 120v relays with a preset delay on them (usually 5-20 seconds). I have several 5 second ones on a rack of AV gear where I work, ganged together so equipment turns on 0, 5 and 10 seconds after the switch is thrown.

    They're pretty cheap ($20), and if you've got drives on a separate powersupply, hooking it up should be trivial.

    BBK

  4. Cheapass by Ratbert42 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Rig some toggle switches on both power lines to each drive and have the operator manually turn on the drives as the machine is powering up.

    Or do the right thing and go SCSI.