Replacing the fan in ReadyNAS Duo - possible?

Hi Javik,

Thanks for your tip about the fan adapters. It is a good one and these things doesn’t cost much indeed and makes it easy to mount a bigger fan reliable. Although I know of these adapters I made myself one in an hour or so from a piece of 12 mm MDF for a 70 mm fan.

But this shows not much hands-on experience with a real DUO:

Javik wrote:
3. Unknown if the Duo actually monitors SPEED or just MOVEMENT.

Yes, it measures speed and reports it in RAIDar and Frontview, you can even set a minimum speed if you wish. And if you read back this thread you’ll see that people that did put another fan on it report much better cooling than with the stock fan at much less noise.

FYI: My disks are running 12 deg C above ambient (ambient is 24 deg C at the moment) after replacing the fan against 18 deg C above ambient for the stock fan.

Yeah I just bought the Duo and I was trying to find noise info before I bought it. Of course NetGear would choose a lowest-bidder fan manufacturer, regardless of noise output, and nobody really discusses noise on review pages for NAS hardware.

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It seems like the Duo fan part number may have changed from the "H" ending?

This Duo I purchased has a fan that says on the label:
09056D
CROWN AGE 60x25
Model AGE6025B12U
DC 12v 0.21 A
Ball Bearing

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The Crown company website is really weird.

Their spec sheet for the 6025 series doesn't any model ending with "U"....
http://www.crownelectronics.com.tw/Serpro/AGE06025.pdf

But if you browse their main product list and look at the 6020 series, you can see that "U" is a higher speed fan than the "H":
http://www.crownelectronics.com.tw/Serpro/AGE06020.pdf

The 6025 list is more fun when you see that the max airflow for the H series is 25.62 CFM, but if you look at their list of all fan sizes, that page lists the max airflow for their 60mm fans as 34.84 CFM:
http://www.crownelectronics.com.tw/Page ... o.asp?id=1

So I would have to presume that the unlisted "U" series is the 34.84 CFM fan.

(Why are they making this so hard to figure out?)
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The french fan thread mentioned in the earlier pages of this one is interesting to pick over for URLs, though I don't speak french. It has a link to a quiet fan that looks like a close match...

Noctua NF-R8 80mm - 53 m³/h at max speed, or 31.19 CFM ... a bit low vs the Crown
http://www.noctua.at/main.php?show=prod ... d=9&lng=en


The 120mm NF-P12 of course has way more airflow, but also at much lower amperage.

Noctua NF-P12 120mm - 92.3 m³/h at max speed, or 54.32 CFM
Amps at full speed 0.09 A --- less than half the Crown at 60mm, but you get more leverage to move air with the big slow blades
19.2 dBA at full speed
http://www.noctua.at/main.php?show=prod ... g=en&set=1

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I'm probably going to buy both of these to see how they compare. More money to blow trying to make this quiet, but that's the way it goes. :?

(Also, you can use Google to do airflow conversions. Put this in the Google search box and it'll give you the answer...)
convert 92.3 cubic meters per hour to cubic feet per minute

I checked my fan and it has part number age06025B12h. The Readynas was bought in Swtzerland in November 2008. This fan is mentioned in the data sheets where it says it has a max air flow of 25.2 CFM and a dba of 33 at max rpm:

Part NO. B / S / F V V A RPM m3/min CFM mm-H2O In-H2O dBA g
AGE06025_12H B S 2 7.0~13.8 0.25 5,000 0.726 25.62 6.48 0.26 33 57

I'm tempted to replace it with a larger fan or quieter 60mm fan but i'm unsure about the variable speed part. With the stock fan there is a speed element to it - it spins at 5000 rpm when first turned on and then idles at about 1700rpm. I have never seen it run faster than 1700 after the initial start up. Does it automatically speed up if the temperature rises?

I have a 120mm quiet case fan with the same amp rating and better flow.. but i dont know if it is variable speed..

regards

swisstony

edited for spelling

swisstony1 wrote:
I have never seen it run faster than 1700 after the initial start up. Does it automatically speed up if the temperature rises?

Good point, I suppose so. Maybe the Jedis can enlighten this?

What size of fan you need will largely depend on the heat generated by your disks. I have 2 WD GP disks in my DUO and with the 70 mm Nexus fan, speed will be a steady 1550 – 1650 RPM and never goes higher. I have used the minimum speed utility to set minimum speed at 1800 RPM. At that speed the fan is still almost inaudible and the disks run 2 deg C cooler. Anyway the fan will run approximately at the speed as set by the speed utility in my case.

IMHO any low noise 80mm fan of app 2400 RPM max. and is capable for speed adjusting, will do the job perfectly. Although this also depends on your room temperature.

A point of caution: Not all fans will start up if speed is set too low. You have to check this. But with most modern quality case fans this is no big issue I think.

How do I access the minimum fan speed utility on OSX? Is it in Raidar or the web interface or....?

Thanks!

It is available from within FrontView. But you have to install the EnableFanMinRPMOverride add-on first from here: http://www.readynas.com/?page_id=617 (under Miscellaneous Patches).

sibe wrote:

Just replaced the stock fan in my duo a couple of days ago with a Fractal Design Silent Series 60mm fan and everything is working great! Actually it´s better than great! The duo with two 500gb barracudas installed are running much cooler now, 35-36C as opposed to 40-41C with the stock fan with no modification to the automatic fan speed controls. And the best part is; it is almost quiet! It is almost as if the disks are noisier than the fan :) I have been really annoyed about the noise of the stock fan, especially as they market the duo as quiet! "Our designers went so far as to sleep with the Duo at night to make sure it was quiet so you can be sure it can fit in discretely anywhere in your home." yea right! My advice to everyone out there, buy a new fan! But be careful, look for a fan that moves enough air to cool your drives! ________________________________________ http://komponenttoppen.blogspot.com

Hi Sibe, are your drives still running cool enough? I'm looking to replace the stock fan with one of these:

http://www.quietpc.com/gb-en-gbp/products/60mmfans/afdp-6025b - However, I'm concerned that the CFM value looks low (13.7).

However, it is similar to the one you have installed, which on this same site lists the CFM as only 16? See here: http://www.quietpc.com/gb-en-gbp/products/fractaldesignfans/fd-fan-60

Can anyone else who has successfully quietened their Duo relate the CFM rating of the fan they have used?

I used one of these:

http://www.noctua.at/main.php?show=productview&products_id=9&lng=en

They only quote in m^3/h so you'll have to convert.

I opened up the back of the case with a dremel tool so the whole 80mm is flowing without obstruction. It works great - no noise and cool temps!

Well, I've managed to find and order the Silent Series 60mm here:
http://www.aquatuning.co.uk/product_inf ... etail.html

So will make a note of current running temperatures before installing this new one...

i'm also unhappy about the noise my DUO is making ... not excessive, but noticeable when it's only 4 ft away.
i, too, read the bit about the guy sleeping with it - perhaps his partner snores, or it's a huge bedroom, but it would keep me awake.

so why should you spend so much for a premium 'quiet; product and then have to bother about swapping the fam it order for it to meet the advertised standard?

beginning to think i should have lashed out on the Thecus Mini instead. :(

John