Spin up/spin down
The question of whether this is worth it depends on the cycle time, and is relatively simple to calculate.
Answer three questions:
1) How much energy is required to spin up the drive(s)?
2) How muich energy is used per second when is use?
3) How long is it going to stay off?
1 and 2 are dead easy, 3 is the tough one - by the time you know that you would have saved energy, it's too late to do so. So you have to predict it.
A few years ago I spent some time doing essentially the same calculations for a compressed air system - calculating the cost of pumping up the system from empty versus the cost of leaving it running over the weekend.
Surprisingly, it turned out to not really be worth it.
Same question, different context.