4pin Molex PC Pwr Switch and Programmable??

[Ron Reaugh]

Many are starting to use big ATA HDs as a backup medium. Many of these
backups will be done unattended at night. That leaves these backup only HDs
powered and spinning both before and after they need to be. This increases
their exposure to data loss.

I'm looking for a way to power and unpower a serial ATA HD under program
control.
Anyone have any good ideas about what might be already available or how to
do this?

 

[Clint]

Assuming you're using an OS that has power saving features, have you checked
to see if that would work? Theoretically, they should spin down after so
many minutes, and then come back to life when you need them. I don't know
if that's on a drive-by-drive basis, or if all the drives shut down and
start up at the same time.

Clint

 

[kony]

Assuming you're using an OS that has power saving features, have you checked
to see if that would work? Theoretically, they should spin down after so
many minutes, and then come back to life when you need them. I don't know
if that's on a drive-by-drive basis, or if all the drives shut down and
start up at the same time.

Clint

When it's working properly that occurs drive-by-drive. It's beyond me why
Ron doesn't consider that adequate unless the board is buggy and won't
power manage the drive(s) correctly. In such a case a bios update might
be sought.

 

[~ Q ~]

Clint - typed:

Assuming you're using an OS that has power saving features, have you
checked to see if that would work? Theoretically, they should spin
down after so many minutes, and then come back to life when you need
them. I don't know if that's on a drive-by-drive basis, or if all
the drives shut down and start up at the same time.

Clint

My experience with 2 WD1000JBs with h/d spindown under WXP was to
disable it - very quickly but mainly when occasionally accessing the
pagefile or browsing files on the slaved disc. There doesn't seem to be
an obvious way to select the drives individually though, the only
problem would be a h/d spinning down when you don't want it to as in my
case - makes the system stutter horribly for 10secs. Spinning down h/ds
in regular use will potentially shorten their life, a price I'm willing
to pay with a 20min Standby timer in use for noise management to say
nothing of power saving. IIRC, only the 2nd disc with the pagefile &
files spundown in normal use & the pagefile could be left on the OS
volume but waking up the 2nd disc to access files would remain a
problem. On my next clean install of XP, I'll look into rearranging the
file & backup placement across both discs.

When I run either NTBackup or Drive Image as a scheduled task at night
in my bedroom, the machine will wake from total silence, do their stuff
then resume standby mode without even powering up my CRT (except when DI
reboots into DOS). The other solution would be to get a tape drive for
backups or possibly an external h/d used exclusively for backups where
its power can be controlled with a switch. If it can be done with an
external h/d, I see no reason for bringing out a switch to say a 5.25"
bay cover to control an internal one. I don't know of any existing s/w
to control the IDE bus in a manner that would be useful here.

 

[Ron Reaugh]

Assuming you're using an OS that has power saving features, have you checked
to see if that would work? Theoretically, they should spin down after so
many minutes, and then come back to life when you need them. I don't know
if that's on a drive-by-drive basis, or if all the drives shut down and
start up at the same time.

Unfortunately it's all drives and I'd like something independent of that.

 

[Ron Reaugh]

When it's working properly that occurs drive-by-drive. It's beyond me why
Ron doesn't consider that adequate unless the board is buggy and won't
power manage the drive(s) correctly. In such a case a bios update might
be sought.

This is an independent security situation and not power saving functionality
that I'm after.

 

[Ron Reaugh]

Clint - typed:

My experience with 2 WD1000JBs with h/d spindown under WXP was to
disable it - very quickly but mainly when occasionally accessing the
pagefile or browsing files on the slaved disc. There doesn't seem to be
an obvious way to select the drives individually though, the only
problem would be a h/d spinning down when you don't want it to as in my
case - makes the system stutter horribly for 10secs. Spinning down h/ds
in regular use will potentially shorten their life,

All correct but not relevant to what I'm after. I looking for a sure
positive way to under program control turn a HD off and on. A way that no
trojan would be likely to bypass.
Note in my original post that the HDs in question are removeable backup
media. I want to do the equivalent of an 'tape eject' at the end of a
backup.

a price I'm willing
to pay with a 20min Standby timer in use for noise management to say
nothing of power saving. IIRC, only the 2nd disc with the pagefile &
files spundown in normal use & the pagefile could be left on the OS
volume but waking up the 2nd disc to access files would remain a
problem. On my next clean install of XP, I'll look into rearranging the
file & backup placement across both discs.

When I run either NTBackup or Drive Image as a scheduled task at night
in my bedroom, the machine will wake from total silence, do their stuff
then resume standby mode without even powering up my CRT (except when DI
reboots into DOS). The other solution would be to get a tape drive for
backups or possibly an external h/d used exclusively for backups where
its power can be controlled with a switch.

There ya go...I need such a programmable switch.

If it can be done with an
external h/d, I see no reason for bringing out a switch to say a 5.25"
bay cover to control an internal one. I don't know of any existing s/w
to control the IDE bus in a manner that would be useful here.

Not interested in trying to fool with the SATA bus. Just controlling the
power is sufficient..maybe just serial I/O in a script file.

Some HDs have password capability...I wonder if there's a way to give it the
password in real time( not boot time) and then rescind the password
activation under program control....that would do it also.

 

[JT]

Many are starting to use big ATA HDs as a backup medium. Many of these
backups will be done unattended at night. That leaves these backup only HDs
powered and spinning both before and after they need to be. This increases
their exposure to data loss.

I'm looking for a way to power and unpower a serial ATA HD under program
control.
Anyone have any good ideas about what might be already available or how to
do this?

Put it in a box with an external powersupply, and use one of the
inexpensive computer controlled outlets/switches available for the home
automation market. I would mention X10, but hated their camera adds;(
http://home-automation.org/Hardware/
has a list of a lot of companies that might supply what you need.

If you are up to building yourself, look at
http://www.qsl.net/yo5ofh/hobby circuits/computer_circuits.htm and some
of the other sites found from googling for "computer hobby relay interface"

JT

 

[Ron Reaugh]

Put it in a box with an external powersupply, and use one of the
inexpensive computer controlled outlets/switches available for the home
automation market. I would mention X10, but hated their camera adds;(
http://home-automation.org/Hardware/
has a list of a lot of companies that might supply what you need.

If you are up to building yourself, look at
http://www.qsl.net/yo5ofh/hobby circuits/computer_circuits.htm and some
of the other sites found from googling for "computer hobby relay

interface"

Well, the drives in question are on removeable trays. I suppose I could
use explosive bolts and a spring<g>. So internal is required. I was hoping
that such had already been done before so that a new design/build could be
avoided.

 

[Clint]

You can find external SATA carriers (quick search in google turned up a few,
but more were available for ATA), but I'm not sure that's what you're
looking for either. That would let you easily eject the drive to make sure
nothing would get written to it when you don't want it to, but it wouldn't
give you the level of automatation you're looking for.

I'll shut up now, since I don't know how to do what you want it to do. If I
was you, I'd look at getting a USB interface device, and writing a custom
device driver to talk to that. They're available on the net. Then a simple
relay to connect or disconnect power shouldn't be too difficult, but I've
never done anything like that.

Clint

 

[Ric H]

Well, the drives in question are on removeable trays. I suppose I
could use explosive bolts and a spring<g>. So internal is required.
I was hoping that such had already been done before so that a new
design/build could be avoided.

what are you actually trying to achieve here? if it's an off-the-wall
physical security type arrangement, then there *will* be better proven ways
of doing this. contact me offline if you'd like some professional input, if
you'd prefer...!

ric h

 

[Ron Reaugh]

what are you actually trying to achieve here?

Read the whole thread. Having backup media online when it doesn't need to
be is a threat to the data from either a power glitch or a software threat.
HDs as a backup media in environments with only modest needs is here to
stay. Now I'm looking to close off some additional threats in an elegant
fashion. The backups will be done in the middle of the night and the
process will be unattended. The goal is to spin/power the drive only during
the backup and then leave it unpowered and unable to be powered without
special code or scripts.

 

[Dorothy Bradbury]

What about power threat *during* the backup?
o Use UPS

What about s/w threat *during* the backup?
o Script to disconnect machine from all gateways/net
o Script to virus scan
o Script to backup

Re power-on/off hard drive...
o Build cheap simple network file server
o Script pulls data off your machine(s)
o Script shuts down after doing so

If still not enough, use extra network cards & non-TCP/IP protocol,
ECC RAM, Linux as file-server with absolutely minimal services.

 

[Ric H]

Read the whole thread. Having backup media online when it doesn't
need to be is a threat to the data from either a power glitch or a
software threat. HDs as a backup media in environments with only
modest needs is here to stay. Now I'm looking to close off some
additional threats in an elegant fashion. The backups will be done
in the middle of the night and the process will be unattended. The
goal is to spin/power the drive only during the backup and then leave
it unpowered and unable to be powered without special code or scripts.

have done. i'm not being funny, just genuinely interested, and it's not
clear from the thread exactly what's required that's not been done to death
in a fairly standard redundant system.
backup media online a threat? um, ok, let's run with this. do it to tape.
do it to cd. do it to a SAN. do it to a RAID 5 array. cluster it over
multiple boxes and put them in different timezones if you think it'll help.
powering down a drive doesn't increase its robustness, you see, in fact
there'd be some milage in thinking it might reduce it if you repeatedly do
it as the drive'll be spinning up and down all the time and it tends to be
bearings that fail. if you're worried about drive live, typically you'd
whack in a RAID 5 array or similar, and pull tape backups off periodically
if it's important enough to do that.

if by "without special code or scripts" you mean you want to implement a
redundant backup strategy using some jury-rigged switch that unplugs your
drives, then i'd suggest it's probably not the right route to go down.

if you want a simple solution, why not robocopy or ghost across a crossover
cable to another PC and schedule regular jobs using WinAT or similar?

i'm trying to help here, i really am.

ric h

 

[Ron Reaugh]

-snip

have done. i'm not being funny, just genuinely interested, and it's not
clear from the thread exactly what's required that's not been done to death
in a fairly standard redundant system.

Redundant systems have nothing to do with this.

backup media online a threat? um, ok,

Exactly. What do backups protect from? A number of things including SW
malicious or otherwise gone bad and power glitches and hardware gone bad.

let's run with this. do it to tape.

Tapes are a mess for the small/medium business with modest backup needs.

do it to cd.

Too small for good image backups. Remember that many backup strategies
requires the greatest consideration to how one bare metal restores.

do it to a SAN. do it to a RAID 5 array. cluster it over
multiple boxes and put them in different timezones if you think it'll

help.

Too expensive for a small business. But a robust geographically distributed
WAN backup solution ALWAYS includes some cycle that is offline or only near
line....spin it down.

powering down a drive doesn't increase its robustness,
WRONG!

you see, in fact
there'd be some milage in thinking it might reduce it if you repeatedly do
it as the drive'll be spinning up and down all the time and it tends to be
bearings that fail.

Wrong, in fact it's the power semiconductors that are most stressed by
repeated power cycling. Modern HDs have power cycle ratings in the 10Ks.

if you're worried about drive live, typically you'd
whack in a RAID 5 array or similar, and pull tape backups off periodically
if it's important enough to do that.

Too expensive and archaic for small configurations.

if by "without special code or scripts" you mean

I mean something that's not goona be in a trojan or random code gone crazy
more often than every 1e6 years.

you want to implement a
redundant backup strategy using some jury-rigged switch that unplugs your
drives, then i'd suggest it's probably not the right route to go down.
Huh?

if you want a simple solution, why not robocopy or ghost across a crossover
cable to another PC and schedule regular jobs using WinAT or similar?

That is exactly how it's goona be done except I'll be using Acronis
TrueImage. I don't want the removeable backup drive spinning except during
the backup.

 

[Ron Reaugh]

What about power threat *during* the backup?
o Use UPS

Another threat but one that'll go uncovered in this implementation. Cost
benefit/risk analysis....

The biggest threats during the unattended nightly backup period are likely
physical premises destruction(fire ect.) and theft. Hmm those are some of
the major threats that backups cover in the first place. That's why one
does at least two cycles where all cycles are never on premsises at the same
time.

What about s/w threat *during* the backup?

Another threat but one that'll go uncovered in this implementation. Cost
benefit/risk analysis....

o Script to disconnect machine from all gateways/net
o Script to virus scan
o Script to backup

Re power-on/off hard drive...
o Build cheap simple network file server
o Script pulls data off your machine(s)
o Script shuts down after doing so

If still not enough, use extra network cards & non-TCP/IP protocol,
ECC RAM, Linux as file-server with absolutely minimal services.

Doesn't help anything much and is too expensive. What I propose covers most
all the bases needed. I'm just trying to see if there's a convenient and
inexpensive way to cover some of the risk to the backup HD during the
connected period but while not actually doing the backup.

The greatest risk to a HD(other than being dropped) is while the drive is
powered. Take a 8-5 business where the premises are unattended for 13-14
hours a day(more than 50%). Let's say the backup takes 3 hours at 2AM.
That leaves the drive unnecessarily powered nearly half a day on every
working day...oh and then there's Friday night......
YEAH I want to be able to power down the BU HD while it's not actually doing
the backup.

 

[pwilson]

Read the whole thread. Having backup media online when it doesn't need to
be is a threat to the data from either a power glitch or a software threat.
HDs as a backup media in environments with only modest needs is here to
stay. Now I'm looking to close off some additional threats in an elegant
fashion. The backups will be done in the middle of the night and the
process will be unattended. The goal is to spin/power the drive only during
the backup and then leave it unpowered and unable to be powered without
special code or scripts.

I believe I understand what you are trying to do. Disconnecting the power
to the HD seems like a valid, if somewhat paranoid, approach to minimizing
threats to the data once the backup is finished. Unfortunately, I don't
have an elegant solution for you, but if I were to do it, I would get an
output card with a pair of dry contacts on it. Wire the normally closed
contact on the card in series with the mobile rack key switch. This will
give you complete program control over the power to the HD.

I haven't done anything like that in years, but those type of cards used to
be commonly available. I assume they still are.

 

[Ron Reaugh]

I believe I understand what you are trying to do. Disconnecting the power
to the HD seems like a valid, if somewhat paranoid, approach to minimizing
threats to the data once the backup is finished.

And beforehand if the HD can hold more than one backup cycle.

Unfortunately, I don't
have an elegant solution for you, but if I were to do it, I would get an
output card with a pair of dry contacts on it. Wire the normally closed
contact on the card in series with the mobile rack key switch. This will
give you complete program control over the power to the HD.

I haven't done anything like that in years, but those type of cards used to
be commonly available. I assume they still are.

ISA maybe but PCI with a couple of reed relays or some such??? Anyone??

 

[pwilson]

And beforehand if the HD can hold more than one backup cycle.


ISA maybe but PCI with a couple of reed relays or some such??? Anyone??

A quick search on Ebay -
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3469398168&category=3673

Although that card looks it is used to switch AC, it should switch 12 VDC
equally well.

 

[Ron Reaugh]

A quick search on Ebay -
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3469398168&category=3673

Although that card looks it is used to switch AC, it should switch 12 VDC
equally well.

It's not programmable. It just closes a relay if the PCI bus is powered.
However I did find some programmable industrial PCI relay cards.