Does my ASUS router keep checking network hard drives?
Does my ASUS router keep checking network hard drives?
Hey, I have an ASUS RT-ACRH13 router with some hard drives inside a Mediasonic enclosure plugged into the USB port. The drives spin 24/7 all day and night. If I plug the ProBox directly into my computer instead of using the router, the drives stop spinning. So it seems like the router is reading them constantly. Is that right? Does this happen? It makes a little bit of noise (not too loud but annoying), so I think it's hurting the hard drive life, but I don't see any real problems. Should I worry? Can I fix it? Thanks for your help!
Spin down is a special setting added by Merlin firmware. This firmware is basically the standard ASUS-WRT setup with some hidden tricks unlocked, but your router (which is the same as an RT-AC58U) does not support this feature from Merlin. I get why ASUS would hide such a thing so that most users don't find it, because their USB ports are very slow and make people think they only need to use flash drives for their NAS storage. Also, you probably don't need a spinning disk on your stick right now. Since the setting is hidden but available, there might be a way to turn it on using command line tricks through Telnet. Just like with Windows, this sends a spin-down signal after the hard drive sits idle for a bit. Both Tomato and DD-WRT have a simple checkbox for spinning down but they don't support your router either. Generally, if you want long life from a router, look only at models that get strong support from third parties so security updates keep coming even after factory firmware stops working. OpenWRT 3rd party does support your Atheros router but probably isn't right for anyone who is nervous because it's not that easy to set up as the stock version. The other option would be to ask the hard drive maker for a firmware that spins down when idle for some time, like most consumer drives do. Most better drives meant for RAID or 24/7 recording don't have this setting because if they don't respond fast enough it could make your RAID array fail or cause software to crash.
Thanks for getting back to me, and it was really helpful. But I am not sure where this leaves me. It sounds like there are no solutions unless I change my router. Since the router works fine otherwise, I don't think that will help. If you have any other tips, please let me know. The hard drives are an Hitachi HDS723030ALA640 and a Western Digital WD20 EZRX-00D8PB0. I also have two Samsung SSDs inside the case, which Windows can read if I connect them to the computer, but not over the network. I will ask a separate question about that. Anyway, thanks again. If there is something I can do to stop these drives from running all the time (other than just turning the box off, which I am already doing), please let me know.