0

I have following situation in my PC. I have one SSD drive with Windows 10 and two HDD connected in RAID 1 for data. I am learning Linux and for now I would like to boot it from Flash Drive. Would it be possible to safely turn off SSD + 2xHDD from Linux to avoid their working during using Ubuntu? I am wondering because my friend told me that it can be risky and I would have some problems with synchronization of RAID when I run my Windows. Thanks in advance!

horytnik
  • 25
  • You can always open your PC and unplug the SSD and two HDDs. Then boot Ubuntu from the flash drive. If you don't mount these drives and try to access the data from them while in Ubuntu it should be okay to disconnect them. – user68186 Mar 04 '21 at 22:30
  • Yeah, I thought about this but it would be not comfortable to unplug and plug them several times per week. Anyway thanks! – horytnik Mar 06 '21 at 11:36
  • I don't have a Windows computer with RAID1. However, I have booted Ubuntu on my computer from an external drive. Ubuntu does not mount the internal drives when it boots from the internal drives. So, your friend may be wrong. To be safe you should disable fast start in Windows. The fast start option does not shut down Windows drives properly. – user68186 Mar 06 '21 at 21:25
  • See this question for details. – user68186 Mar 06 '21 at 21:31

1 Answers1

0

This can be accomplished pretty well with the udisksctl utility:

sudo udisksctl power-off -b /dev/sdX

Note: Be sure to change /dev/sdX to the actual device you would like to power down. You can list all devices with sudo udisksctl status.

This will safely power down a storage device until the next boot. After issuing this command there is no way to restart the device without a reboot, which should prevent unintended access to the device.

  • Great, thank you. Will it not affect any RAID settings? Should I have any order of powering off the drives like SSD first and next HDD or not? – horytnik Mar 06 '21 at 11:35
  • The RAID settings are either configured via the motherboard or via Windows. If all three drives are told to spin down at the same time (by human standards) then there should not be any issues. –  Mar 06 '21 at 11:42
  • What do you mean "spin down at the same time (by human standards)"? If I use sudo udisksctl status, I get three devices and I need to use sudo udisksctl power-off -b /dev/sdX three times? Will this be "the same time" – horytnik Mar 06 '21 at 14:25
  • @user1091774 I have one more question. Why if I power off my drives by sudo udisksctl power-off -b /dev/sdX i still see them in the status? How can I be sure that they are powered off?. – horytnik Mar 21 '21 at 21:39