Hi all,

Hoping someone can help me achieve this:
1. Have my HDs spin down while idle
2. Be able to monitor temps while spun down

Running speedfan (or other temp monitoring proggy, HWMonitor etc) prevents the drives from spinning down.

If I exit speedfan, let the drives spin down, then launch speedfan, they all spin up again.

Is there any way around this? Can anyone shed some light on this behaviour?

Thanks

There is no workaround. The commands that retrieve the SMART data require the drive to be powered up.

You could always put a temperature sensor on the outside of the drive for readings. However, I'd be fairly confident the drive is at a safe temperature when spun down...

Second.

Generally the temps should be fine on standby. They are highest during long continued access, so that's what you should care about.Dunno how you monitor the temps, but at least on linux you can make smartctl skip the readout when the drive is in some mode you specify.