Thread: Lumin L1 NAS...Leave on or Stand by?

At best you’re going to get anecdotal answers to this. For the real answer you’d need to have a friend who’s an engineer at Western Digital.

Keep it cool, keep it well-ventilated, feed it clean power, back up your data after any significant changes, and just keep it turned on.

Mine is SSD and always stays on. If it were spinning, it would still always stay on. I doubt the predictability of MTBF is sufficient to say whether on or standby is going to make a meaningful difference, so just save yourself the trouble.

Originally Posted by aniwolfe

Lumin L1 NAS...Leave on or Stand by?

I listen almost everyday for an hour or 2. What method would be best, when not in use for extending the life of the L1 Hard Drive? Thanks in advance.

I suspect it will turn itself off if not called to provide files for a period of time. My NAD M50.2 is effectively a NAS (but also includes CD player and ripper and streamer) and it goes to sleep when ignored after a few minutes - and restarts instantly when asked for a fresh file. I'm sure any well-designed audio NAS will do the same to maximise hard drive longevity and minimise energy consumption. Peter

Originally Posted by aniwolfe

I listen almost everyday for an hour or 2. What method would be best, when not in use for extending the life of the L1 Hard Drive? Thanks in advance.

You should do whatever you're comfortable with. I personally believe spin up/down operations hurt longevity.

For those using SSD, standby or power down should be avoided as much as possible.

In Windows, please perform a Drive (right click) properties - Tools - Error checking - Check - Automatically fix file system errors

Originally Posted by Hear Here

I suspect it will turn itself off if not called to provide files for a period of time. My NAD M50.2 is effectively a NAS (but also includes CD player and ripper and streamer) and it goes to sleep when ignored after a few minutes - and restarts instantly when asked for a fresh file. I'm sure any well-designed audio NAS will do the same to maximise hard drive longevity and minimise energy consumption. Peter

That is only if the user has selected hard drive hibernation as an option. Otherwise the disks continue to spin. It is also not clear that constant spinning isn't better than starting and stopping.

Originally Posted by dminches

That is only if the user has selected hard drive hibernation as an option. Otherwise the disks continue to spin. It is also not clear that constant spinning isn't better than starting and stopping.

Most standard Windows PCs shut down their hard drives after a period of non-use (and of course at the end of the day when the PC is shut down), so I guess the safe and sensible Lumin option is to select hard drive hibernation - in fact I'd be worried if it continued spinning if I didn't use the unit for a few days. The twin drives in my NAD M50.2 shut themselves down after a period of non-use and I'm pleased they do. Forcing a shut down when they are still working (eg if the amp turns off other items via its Trigger), certainly is to be avoided though. Thanks. Peter

That's one of the first things I'd disable after installing Windows. This is even more important for SSD.