Wait for HDDs to spin up?

[alk630]

Having had a quick search of the forum and not finding anything, is there a feature built anywhere into Asset to allow HDDs, which have previously gone to sleep, a delay of enough time to spin back up to speed? After prolonged periods of inactivity, the delay in spinning up to speed appears to result in a 'Server Error' on first use of the Cadence control point. This is never a problem at any other time.

[Spoon]

Re: Wait for HDDs to spin up?

This is browsing? or playing?

[alk630]

Re: Wait for HDDs to spin up?

Playing the first track after prolonged periods of inactivity. Windows 7 x64 and Asset are installed on a SSD and the music stored on Raid10 HDD. I can browse perfectly, presumably because the database is always readily available, but seem to get a 'Server error' on first play as the disks spin up.

Everything works perfectly once the server disks are up to speed, but the problem above has always been a niggle.

[Spoon]

Re: Wait for HDDs to spin up?

There is little asset can do, because it is the player which is timing out, not asset, when asset is asked to play a file, it will try to open the file and if it takes 10 seconds (or 1000 seconds) for asset to gain access to the file, it is waiting.

[alk630]

Re: Wait for HDDs to spin up?

Thanks Spoon... thought I'd check first. I suppose the answer now is to stop the disks spinning down in the first place.

[simes_pep]

Re: Wait for HDDs to spin up?

I have Asset running on a RPi, accessing a network share on a ReadyNAS unit, where the disks spin down after a period of inactivity. Asset is accessed through the Naim app on an iPad. The ReadyNAS and HDD have enough cache so that Asset can index the library without physically spinning up the disks, and the Naim app has enough loaded on the iPad, in its memory, to browse the available library and navigate through the top-level. Once a Album or track is selected, there is sometimes a delay, while the disks spin up, but no errors.
Can you introduce some cache or RAMdisk on the SSD, that buffers between the Control app, Asset and the physical HDDs?

Simon.

[alk630]

Re: Wait for HDDs to spin up?

Thanks for taking the time to reply @simes_pep.... I guess, like Spoon said, that this is down to a simple time-out setting in the Cadence control point app. I have e-mailed Cyrus to see if this can be extended because I can't be the only person affected by this problem. I'm not sure if a cache or RAMdisk will make any difference - as stated, I can browse my collection perfectly, and it is only when the first track is selected after a period of inactivity that the problem arises, so your suggestion would likely mean having to cache the whole music collection... I am open to suggestions if you can help further though...

[simes_pep]

Re: Wait for HDDs to spin up?

Hi,
I am not having to set or perform any caching, it just the NAS must be caching the index files for me, so that the Control Point and Asset have time to respond to my user input, ahead of the disks being required to spin up, so there is no server error experienced. My suggestions we can add some further cache to the NAS, just so Asset can respond to your initial inputs. The difference is that for me Asset is running on RPi, dedicated for this task (headless, stripdown Linux) and not Win7.
Simon

[alk630]

Re: Wait for HDDs to spin up?

I will wait and see what Cyrus have to say on the matter - they are usually fairly quick to respond to problems, so will post their reply here in case anyone else has similar issues....

[alk630]

Re: Wait for HDDs to spin up?

It appears this issue was caused by the length of time taken by each of four HDDs in RAID 10 spinning up sequentially from sleep and causing time-out issues with the Cyrus Cadence control point. This was eventually stopped by preventing the HDDs spinning down, but having the HDDs constantly spinning is not an ideal situation and Cyrus are not keen on expanding the Cadence timing bracket.

Another similar problem can also be caused by Powerline (Homeplug) adaptors, some of which enter a standby mode after periods of inactivity and sometimes fail to wake up promptly. This can be easily remedied using the tool provided on the following web page, which can be used to stop the plugs going into standby. This tool works for a variety of different manufacturer's products, so I hope someone may find it useful:

http://digiex.net/downloads/download-center-2-0/drivers/14554-tp-link-homeplug-powerline-power-save-switch-tool-download.html