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Forum Discussion
NAS204 HD and CPU Temp
I purchased a NAS204 and I am using 2 WD Hard drives in it.... WD2001FFSX, 7200 rpm, 64mb cache, Red Drives @ 2TB each.
I am new to this NAS and slowly getting the hang of it. Seem to work well...
nh19926 wrote:
that the operating temp is suppose to be 32 deg to 104 F, or 0 to 40C....Mine unit is NOT running at the temps indicated in the manual of my RN-204
The datasheet is giving you the ambient temperature range the unit can run at - not the CPU temp.
nh19926 wrote:
definitely want to change out fans for Noctua - will doing that void my warranty?
Yes it will void it.
You could try 6.5.0 beta, as it has a "run cool" fan control setting.
Your temps do sound too high to me. My RN202 has 6 TB Red drives which use ~5.4 Watts when in operation. Your 2 TB Red Pros use about 6.5 - more than the Reds I have installed, but not that different.. My system temp is 37C, the two drives are 28C and 30C - much cooler than yours. I'm running 6.5 RC2 with the fan control set to "run quiet". Maybe someone from Netgear will comment.
I decided to try and place a computer fan at the front of my RN204, in front of the drive bays. The fan is sitting on a small stand and is a normal chassis computer fan being run from an external power supply.
I wanted to try this to see if I could drop the temp by adding extra cooling, as I believe Netgear's stock fans are not sufficient.
By placing my 4" square fan at the front of the RN204 with the front drive bay door open, I have dropped my cpu temp from 58C to 44C, or from 136F down to 111F currently. I believe if I had a higher rpm fan I could drop it further.
I believe although the unit is working.... the cooling is not good. As I indicated before, this is a new unit I bought.... I did see you said it will void the warranty, but the excessive heat is unwarranted and could further fatigue my hard drives too.
Netgear, do you have any explanation why it is running hot? I have only had this running for almost a week..... new out of box.
Those temps are fine. If there was a problem there would have been alerts about it.
mdgm wrote:
Those temps are fine. If there was a problem there would have been alerts about it.
I agree they are safe, but I'm not convinced there is no issue.
The temps are certainly higher than I'd expect. And there is some evidence that running the disks at lower temps will prolong their life. For instance figure 5 here: https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~gurumurthi/papers/acmtos13.pdf.
Perhaps some other RN200 series user who is using WD Red Pro disks can share their temps.
nh19926 wrote:
I believe Netgear's stock fans are not sufficient.
What speed are they running at? Also, what is the ambient room temperature?
Is the volume still being synced/built? That will increase the power used by the disks (and the heat they generate).
I suggest trying the "run cool" fan control setting in 6.5.0-rc2 before you jump to a conclusion on the stock fans. You should be able to downgrade back to 6.4.2 production firmware if you like.
Netgear wrote back to me this moring and told me to try and clean out my fan on the RN204 - this is absurd. The unit is 6 feet off the ground in a clean area, free from obstruction, and only been running for a week. Rather than address a cooling issue with the RN204, and modify their firmware to allow the end user to run his internal fan at full speed, they tell me to blow out the fan area with a can of air; a new unit. This does not instill faith in Netgear if that is all they can offer.
As I indicated the other day... the extra fan i placed in front of the drive bays.... a Cool Master 1200 rpm / 44 CFM fan has now dropped my RN204 temps down.
With the extra fan running this morning my temp is down to 30C (86F) for my hard drives and the cpu is 36C (97F). This is a BIG drop from the stock fan running 136F (58C)
We are talking about a 39 deg F drop in temp..... I feel the RN204 has cooling issues. Netgear did advise if I changed the fan to a Noctua it would void the warranty, so will leave it as-is for 3 years until the warranty is up; or possible look at another unit to replace this new one.
Netgear..... would someone please update the firmware to (allow) a user to set his fan speed. I would like my internal fan to be on full "all the time", including the cpu fan (if it has one).
Finally, with my front fan sitting there on the RN204 bringing cool air into it, I see my RN204 internal fan speed dropped to 800 rpm's because my front fan is cooling better than theirs. Netgear,
Please stop being cheap and make your future units have better cooling, better fans..... you make a nice NAS, but they you ruin it by cutting corners and being cheap on cooling. Stop penny pinching.
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