kyyhkynen's Smart_Spindown script for MBWE blue rings is a fantastic energy saver and noise reducer, but to get it operating properly there are some things not in the Tutorial that you should be aware of. The key to making it work is to get the disk usage down to the bare minimum by removing all the unnecessary background processes. It is necessary to do everything in the tutorial (install, reduce disk usage, and create a RAM disk), but here are a few things I discovered that are also important.
1. The section of tutorial for reducing disk usage says to modify "/etc/init.d/S15wdc-fuel-gauge" by commenting out "$FGD &". This file wasn't anywhere on my MBWE, but i did find a file in that same folder called "fuel-gauge.sh". I made the modification in that file instead. This modification is important as it stops the wdc-fuel-gauge from accessing the disk every few minutes, and it also allows the auxiliary scripts mentioned in the tutorial, smart_spindown_onspinup and smart_spindown_onspindown, to operate properly.
2. If you have installed TeinturMan's Feature Pack, then you probably have a script called "kill_idle_fcgi" running all the time. This script needs to be disabled because it is unnecessarily spinning the disks every 10 minutes. You can disable the script by finding it in /etc/crontabs/root Use Nano to comment out the kill_idle_fcgi.sh line in the file "root". If you see any other scripts that are scheduled to run at specific time intervals listed in "root", comment them all out as well.
3. Also associated with Feature Packs is the php controls which will constantly be accessing the disk if they are not enabled properly. Use MyBook Features Manager to select Memory Mode under the Web_Server heading. Make sure that all four of the menu selections are set for "On Demand". If they are set to PreLoaded, then PhP and others will run in the background all the time spinning the disk.
4. Now that you have PhP on-demand, you will need some way of starting it up when you require it. I have a bookmark in my browser for http://<mybook_IP_Address>:82 By selecting this address, it tells Php to start up, and THEN i can open up any of my other web interfaces that use Php. The smart_spindown tutorial details what script initiates the PHP on-demand. I want to point out that the only time i need to use the http://<mybook_IP_Address>:82 to start up Php is when the MBWE has been rebooted. A spindown to hibernate from Smart_spindown does not turn off Php on-demand.
5. If you have the OpenVPN Feature Pack installed, then when OpenVPN is running, it will be accessing the disk every 10 minutes and this is a problem for Smart_Spindown. The solution is here
6. If you have No-IP installed as a Features Pack or any other way, No-IP will be set up to run at specific time intervals. If you have it set up with Features Pack, then use the Feature Pack web interface to set the No-IP refresh interval to something long but useful. I set mine to one day (1440 minutes). If for some reason my external IP address changes when I am traveling and I need VPN access, I only have to wait 24 hours at the maximum for it to be ready for use again.
7. Assuming you have followed the tutorial exactly as it says, then you know how to monitor your disk for activity using SSH. Put the drive into Smart_Spindown with a 30 second wait time for disk inactivity. Then sit and wait for the spindown to be interrupted or not. If it is interrupted, then check the log file for any items that say "dirtied inode on md3". These are the only items that matter as they are the initiators of all the other activity you see in the log. Identify them, locate the script that controls them, and comment the script out. Do this as a trial and error, commenting out one script at a time and then rerunning the Smart_Spindown test each time. Aside from "kill_idle_fcgi", OpenVPN, and the Php scripts, I didn't have anything else interrupting Smart_Spindown on my drive, but you may have other processes if you have different hacks installed than I do.
Hope this helps! I was only able to find these solutions with the help of TeinturMan and kyyhkynen. Big thanks to both of them
MyBookLive Duo 4T
FeaturesPacks, Twonky, ownCloud