Replacing the fan in ReadyNAS Duo - possible?

Ennio wrote:
Why are you all so hooked on Noctua fans? They're not the most silent fans out there, considering their air-flow.

No particular reason. It felt important to me that the fan had a good track record for this particular mod, which the Noctua NF-R8 had, but if you shop around for silent fans the market is huge. The Noctua is widely available and is good priced. Important except for the noise level is the amount of air it moves (which ofcourse should match or exceed that of the stock fan).

What did you set your minimum fan rpm speed at and how did you arrive at that value?

Noctua has a good marketing strategy, with some scientific bla bla. I have both Noctua and Nexus fans in use in my PC case and there is almost no difference for the noise and air flow. The Nexus fans appear to be slightly more silent than silent :D

More important is to keep them silent by removing the collected dust on a regular basis.

Hi guys,
I´m unhappy with the noise of my DUO too. I´ve seen the link to the french thread but I couldn´t got it managed to translate it properly.
Thanks for the ideas you posted here, but can it be true there´s no quiet 60mm fan to replace just the original? Did someone had success with the Papst fans? or other ideas?
thanks

cheers
YNK

Hey guys I to have a readynas Duo and i was getting tired of the high pitched 18,000hz type whine so just for the heck of it I searched for the 60x25 fans and came up to this : http://www.fanwholesale.com/evercool-60x25mm-p-62.html
simple and effective! Super quiet and I didn't have to have an albatross comming out the back of the nas and it has retained its normal temperature. So far so good!

plastiqmanb wrote:
Hey guys I to have a readynas Duo and i was getting tired of the high pitched 18,000hz type whine so just for the heck of it I searched for the 60x25 fans and came up to this : http://www.fanwholesale.com/evercool-60x25mm-p-62.html simple and effective! Super quiet and I didn't have to have an albatross comming out the back of the nas and it has retained its normal temperature. So far so good!

Placed in plain view the "albatross" (love the name!) sticking out the back is maybe intrusive, but for me this is not an issue as I have my NAS in a bedside table; when I open the door to this table I only see the front of the NAS.

The spec on the 60x25 mm fan you found shows an airflow (CFM value) that is lower than the stock fan, so you may want to watch the drive temperatures carefully - especially for more disk intense activities (such as streaming or heavy backup jobs). The fact that there seems to be few or no 60x25 mm fans available with an airflow matching or exceeding that of the stock Crown fan is the very reason why some of us went with the "albatross" solution. Better than risking overheating the NAS. Another benefit of a bigger fan is the option to reduce the rpm of the fan as a bigger fan needs lower rpm to move the same quantity of air as a smaller fan.

ahh yes razor, I did not check the crown spec before I ordered the other one (i honestly did not think much of a difference compared to voltage/amps)

So far all is well but my duo is not on 24/7. 86F is the average temp with a large copy job and a HD stream going. :)

Daryn wrote:

I have my duo in my family room and it was clearly audible 12' across the room when idle. It was very annoying when under any load because it was often louder than the tv. My wife kept telling me to get it out of the room. I just installed a Noctua NF-R8. All I can say is: WOW! Initially, I thought the fan was defective since it was virtually silent during startup and didn't feel like it was pushing much air. I recalibrated the fan and I thought the calibration wasn't working since again the fan was silent. I'm used to the hairdryer of the stock Crown fan. The fan is perfectly fine, and the drives run at 34C instead of 40C+. My duo is now the quietest thing in my home theater. It's quieter than the DVR and PS3. My wife thought I was wasting more money until she heard, or actually couldn't hear!, the duo. I bought a Noctua NF-R8, 60mm to 80mm adapter, and a fan grill for $20 + shipping from coolerguys.com. I had to use a utility blade to shave a little bit of plastic off the corners of the adapter so the side panel would slide back on. If you are reading this thread, get this fan, you definitely won't regret it. Sorry for the poor picture quality, but I'm too lazy to take it again.

Probably a dumb question I know but anyway, where did you store the excess cable from the Noctua fan please?

I'm asking because I guess if it's just coiled up in the area that the original fan took up, it might reduce the effectiveness of the cooling?

Just posting a quick translation of my french post, I hope it can help here.
Original: viewtopic.php?f=34&t=24941&p=218614#p218614

I've swaped the fan for an AcousticFan from here:
http://www.quietpc.com/fr-en-eur/produc ... afdp-6025b
with this http://www.quietpc.com/fr-en-eur/produc ... fangaskets
(actually I only used the squared silicon thing, not the screws, because the fan has already silicon tits shiped with)

Conditions:
- ReadyNAS Duo
- two WD10EARS WD Caviar GP - 1.0TB
- 30mn heavy disk load (ssh access to make local tar and copy)
- room at 19°C (66°F) ambiant

Results:
Normal mounting (the fan take inside hot air and push it outside): 37°C (99°F)
Reverse mouting (the fan take fresh air and push it inside): 35°C (95°F)
(in the reverse mounting experiment I have closed some small useless holes at the rear, so all fresh air pumped inside will have to go through the NAS)

BTW I've watch the air flow in both cases with some smoke ( smoke of incense, low ambiant light and a small bright lamp to see smoke). Interesting findings, not english translated yet...

Dust : normal mounting of fan let dust come inside the NAS through many holes. Reserve mounting has only one big hole on which I will adapt a home made dust filter, large enougth to let the NAS breathe.

My conclusion:
This AcoustiFan is silent, no more whining, and has enougth flow to cool those tow green disks.
I keep the reverse mouting for a lower temperature and the possibilty to filter dust.

(this is a quick night post, sorry for any bad english)

How did folks keep their 92mm adapter to remain flush with back of the Duo using those "quiet" silcon stand-off. Did anyone use screws?

I have the Noctua NF-R8 that come with those peach colored silicon things. They seem to flap around and just not secure.

Don’t use them and use normal screws. I have a Nexus 8 cm screwed on the back and it is really silent, no noticeable induced vibration/noise at all to the case of the DUO.