On new RPI4 image, I cannot spin down hd.
On previous versions of RPI, I could spin down disks with:
osmc@rpi4:~$ hdparm -S 241 /dev/sda1
/dev/sda1:
setting standby to 241 (30 minutes)
HDIO_DRIVE_CMD(setidle) failed: Inappropriate ioctl for device
Now it doesn’t work.
What is suggested method for spinning down mechanical disks?
Same hard drive and caddy?
Did you try sudo hdparm -S 241 /dev/sda1?
It executes with sudo.
osmc@rpi4:/mnt$ sudo hdparm -S 241 /dev/sda1
/dev/sda1:
setting standby to 241 (30 minutes)
osmc@rpi4:/mnt$
But still, there is no spin down.
On osmc@RPI3 and thi the same disk, it worked with no problems.
Then likely something is keeping IO to the disk open.
Is the Pi 3 on the same version of OSMC as the Pi 4?
Pi 3:
osmc@rpi3:~$ cat /etc/os-release
PRETTY_NAME=“Open Source Media Center”
NAME=“OSMC”
VERSION=“November 2020”
VERSION_ID=“2020.11-1”
ID=osmc
ID_LIKE=debian
ANSI_COLOR=“1;31”
HOME_URL=“https://www.osmc.tv”
SUPPORT_URL=“https://www.osmc.tv”
BUG_REPORT_URL=“https://www.osmc.tv”
Pi 4:
osmc@rpi4:~$ cat /etc/os-release
PRETTY_NAME=“Open Source Media Center”
NAME=“OSMC”
VERSION=“August 2021”
VERSION_ID=“2021.08-1”
ID=osmc
ID_LIKE=debian
ANSI_COLOR=“1;31”
HOME_URL=“https://www.osmc.tv”
SUPPORT_URL=“https://www.osmc.tv”
BUG_REPORT_URL=“https://www.osmc.tv”
On PI 3 I used to run hdparm from /etc/rc.local and everything worked well.
The devices are clearly on different versions.
I suspect that Kodi v19 may behave differently or your skins / add-ons may be different.
Sam, we could test your theory in a way to bring down mediacenter, run hdparm and wait for spin down.
If it spins down, you theory is correct.
I will do it right now, and report back results here.
osmc@rpi4:~$ systemctl stop mediacenter
osmc@rpi4:~$ sudo hdparm -S 2 /dev/sda1
/dev/sda1:
setting standby to 2 (10 seconds)
osmc@rpi4:~$
But the disk is still running (after much more than 10 seconds). 
Looks like it is not kodi related or I am missing something.
I found that I can spin down disk with:
osmc@rpi4:~$ sudo hdparm -y /dev/sda1
and if it helps:
osmc@rpi4:~$ sudo hdparm -B /dev/sda1
/dev/sda1:
APM_level = not supported
Run
sudo lsof | grep /media/
(/media/ assuming you use the automounter). That would show if there are files being opened on the disk.
Looks like you already in the past needed to use a manual approach
My disk is WD Green 4TB as well.
I have put it back on PI 3 for comparison, and I found that spin down is not working on it.
Looks like I have lost this feature with some osmc update. I am sure it worked in the past.
on PI 3 the disc is mounted as:
/dev/sda1 on /mnt/wde4tb type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=0,group_id=0,default_permissions,allow_other,blksize=4096)
root@rpi3:/mnt# hdparm -B /dev/sda1
/dev/sda1:
APM_level = not supported
root@rpi3:/mnt# hdparm -S 2 /dev/sda1
/dev/sda1:
setting standby to 2 (10 seconds)
On PI 4 it is mounted as:
/dev/sda1 on /mnt/wde4tb type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=0,group_id=0,default_permissions,allow_other,blksize=4096)
On PI 3 or PI 4, lsof doesn’t return anything:
root@rpi4:/home/osmc# lsof | grep wde4tb
root@rpi4:/home/osmc#
Looks like after some osmc upgrade from the past I don’t have this option anymore.
I also saw hdparm option:
-J Get/set Western DIgital “Idle3” timeout for a WDC “Green” drive (DANGEROUS)
Has enyone used it, or have some experience with it?
Well, I have found the solution for the problem.
Long time ago, in year 2016, I had a similar discussion in this forum.
In mean time, I thought that osmc has solved this problem for us, so I forgot about it.
Now when I installed PI 4, as the disc was always on, looks like I was wrong.
Anyway, at one point in year 2016, @cocomic (thanks again) suggested a solution in his reply External USB HDD is not spinning down - #22 by cocomic
So, all you have to do is:
in /etc/rc.local put:
hdparm -S241 /dev/sdx (value 241 is for 30 minutes)
in /etc/udev/rules.d/80-udisks.rules put:
KERNEL==“sd*[!0-9]”, ATTR{removable}==“0”, ENV{ID_BUS}==“usb”, ENV{DEVTYPE}==“disk”, ENV{UDISKS_DISABLE_POLLING}=“1”
KERNEL==“sd*[!0-9]”, ATTR{removable}==“0”, ENV{ID_BUS}==“ata”, ENV{DEVTYPE}==“disk”, ENV{UDISKS_DISABLE_POLLING}=“1”
KERNEL==“sd*[!0-9]”, ATTR{removable}==“0”, ENV{ID_BUS}==“scsi”, ENV{DEVTYPE}==“disk”, ENV{ID_VENDOR}==“ATA”, ENV{UDISKS_DISABLE_POLLING}=“1”
That’s all.
Enjoy jour quite time.
HTH
Please post a log from your system – I suspect you have additional packages installed which are causing interference.
Sam which log do you need?
As I proof that everything works well, I have created a cron script that reads disk state (hdparm -C /dev/sdx) every 5 minutes and puts it into the log. Here is the output:
root@rpi4:~# tail -f hdparm.log | grep "drive state is"
drive state is: standby
drive state is: standby
drive state is: standby
drive state is: active/idle
drive state is: active/idle
drive state is: active/idle
drive state is: active/idle
drive state is: active/idle
drive state is: active/idle
drive state is: standby
drive state is: standby
As you can see there are 6 (5*6=30 min) active/idle, and than disk goes into standby.
Full system logs – because I suspect something like smartmontools is installed, which will intefere…
You mean from kodi osmc add-on?
At the moment I don’t have access to the TV, but I have an access ot PI over ssh.
Please, give to me a shell command whose output you heed.
grab-logs -A