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ReadyNAS fan speed spikes
I just recently got an RN428 unit for home use, and popped in some HDDs I had lying around for a test run with a small volume. So far, I only have 3 out of 8 bays filled, with total system temp remai...
Ok, so I finally got my hands on some new drives, namely HGST Dekstar NAS 4TB drives. Plugged them in, and had the unit recreate the volume. So far (about 4 hour in) no random fan spikes anymore, and all drives report a realistic temperature arounf the 45C mark.
The conclusion seems to be that crappy old drives with faulty temp reporting will throw off the temp snesors and cause the fans to spike every once in a while. The problem doesn't appear to be something in the unit itself. Fan speeds also seem to increase with somewhat better incremental steps if the drives do get hotter.
Faustus wrote:
So far, the only activity on the NAS is the building of the X-RAID volume (as stated earlier, no apps running, and no data being read/written).
Well, data is being read/written to the disks (every block of every sector is either read or written when the volume is built. I'd wait and see if the spikes continue after the volume is built.
What disks are you using?
Faustus wrote:
I'm worried that if this keep happening, especially when I add more disks and the unit get warmer, this will happen more often, making the NAS unusable to me.
Are you worried about the temperatures? Or about the noise?
The NAS will be able to keep the disks at a reasonable temperature (mine are between 34 and 37C at the moment, and is also set to balanced). But the fan will come on from time to time, and it would be best to put the NAS in a location where that isn't a problem.
StephenBI'm using 1 WD Green diskc and 2 Barracudas, so far. More of those will be added as soon as I get my data migrated off my old NAS. As I say in my update, the spikes continue, although they seem generally farther apart than before.
I'm primarilty worried about the noise. I've never had a NAS be this noisy before. I'm running a 5-bay right now, which I practically can't hear even under load. However, this NAS, even running idle (or mostly idle) is making as much noise as a rackmounted unit.
What does your temperature graph look like? FWIW, here's mine (526x - using the balanced fan setting):
As you can see, the temps will vary depending on activity, and that of course will affect the fans. I upgraded two disks a week ago (and you can see the higher temps at the very beginning of the graph when the second one was resyncing). On May 13th I was running rsync to transfer about 3 TB of data to another NAS. The small daily spikes after that are when the daily backups run.
With little/no activity the fan runs at about 860 rpm.
Faustus wrote:
However, this NAS, even running idle (or mostly idle) is making as much noise as a rackmounted unit.
I can hear mine when the fan kicks into a higher speed, but it certainly doesn't sound like a rackmount unit. It's possible you have a defective fan - you could try contacting support via my.netgear.com.
Also - is the NAS in the same spot as the older one? You could try swapping them, just to see if the fan is inducing some vibration in whatever the NAS is on, or if there is some resonance/reflections off of nearby surfaces.
I've attached a screenshot of the temp gauge. It only goes back a day, since that's how long it's been on. I'm assuming the big drops correspond to the fan speed spikes, although there have been a whole lot more spikes in the past 24 hours than drops in the graph.
Usually the fan would run at about 1050 rpm (balanced setting), but the spikes invariably take that up to ~3200 rpm for about a minute. Both the old NAS and this one are in the same room, although the new NAS is set on a shelf about 20cm higher than the old one. The noise it makes is purely the fans (it sounds like it's trying to take off), no vibrations or echoes. If anything, the new NAS is in a less confined space than the old one, which should reduce both noise reverberations and heat retention.
- My thinking is that the temperature sensitivity is set way too low, causing it to exhaust like crazy whenever the system reaches 32C (and CPU about 42C). Looking at your graph, and assuming that the drops correspond to fan speed increases, I conclude the follwoing:
Your system can handle temperatures at least 5C degrees above what mine can; - You only get about one spike a day (whereas I get them much more often);
- Overall, your fans expel heat more effeciently, seeing as temperature seems to stay around the same level during the day.
Consequently, I'm wondering the following:
- Is there a way to set thethreshold temperature to some higher value?
- Is there a way to set the fan speeds so that they increase speed in more of a curve pattern (instead of only a high and low setting and nothing in between)?
I've never had a NAS this noisy before, and it's not like my previous ones were from some brand that is awesome at cooling or anything.
Sorry for the double post, but I can't figure out how to add a second attachment to the old post:
I just had a double spike, with about a minute or two between them. Not only that, but the spike don't even seem to be doing anything than blow air. The disks are 1c degree cooler than before the spike. This is just so weird. I don't get why this keep happening.
I've attached a screen shot of the reported disk temps. Weirdly enough, two disks report 0C degrees, which is probably due to some firmware thing on their side. Both those disks are the Barracuda ones.
- My thinking is that the temperature sensitivity is set way too low, causing it to exhaust like crazy whenever the system reaches 32C (and CPU about 42C). Looking at your graph, and assuming that the drops correspond to fan speed increases, I conclude the follwoing:
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