Replacing the fan in ReadyNAS Duo - possible?

ernhamDjinn wrote:
It seems to me that a lot of the noise caused by the fan is the vibration of the back plate the fan is attached to.

That is true. With the original fan the finger protector of the fan of my DUO made an irritating high pitch resonating sound. Sticking a piece of car dampening tar on the centre of it solved it. Still the fan made excessive noise. Noise was gone after replacing it for a more silent one and my disks are running cooler as a bonus.

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.

I've seen some 60mm to 92mm fan adapters - the same thickness as the 60 to 80mm ones. I was wondering if anyone knows if a 92mm fan would fit on the Duo? If so, it certainly could be more airflow for lower RPMs and potentially quieter.

This is a superb thread. The noise on my ReadyNas+ is all-but unbearable for someone who makes quiet PCs.

I have just ordered a Noctua NF-R8 and 60mm->80mm adaptor. Will report here how things go.

during my quite lengthy discussions with Amel Moore of NetGear Customer Services for EMEA, I was told that "I can advise that I have not had any other customers contact me in relation to this issue. "

so we must all be suffering from the same delusion that the Duo is noisier than it should be :cry:

When I for the first time powered my DUO two weeks ago, I just couldn't believe the noise it was making. It wasn't anything like jet taking off but there was this weird high pitched noise, similar kind you get from old tv's (you know, the ones with a tube :) ). I'm really sensitive to that kind of noise so it was quite irritating. Also, there was some lower frequency ringing noise as well, but it disappeared after I had installed two disks (with one disk it would get even louder). Couldn't ever imagine sleeping with my DUO.

While searching for other users with noise problems, I found this thread and got excited. DUO was already delivering more than I could hope for, but getting rid of the noise was a must. So I decided to order Noctua NF-R8 and a 60mm to 80mm adapter. I installed them today.

First I removed the drives and opened the case which was quite easy even though the screws were really tight. Somebody had really used force on them :) Removing the stock fan was a breeze. It took a bit of twiddling to get the adapter in place without need to modify the adapter (the adapter gets in the way of the left cover). What I did is that I used long screws with bolts so that bolts were inside the chassis and screws were initially loose so that I could fit the left cover in place before screwing the adapter in place. Then I used bent paper clip through the grill in the back of the chassis to stop the bolts from rotating while driving the screws in.

When I turned the DUO on, I first thought that it was broken as no sound came out of it. But the fan was on, sucking some air out of the DUO. I went to the Frontview, and on the Health page it said FAN 1 had RPM 0 and then dialog saying "FAN 1 has failed" came up. I got alarmed but FAN health status also said that "out of range" etc so I clicked recalibrate and after that RPM was show and the fan was ok.

I'm really happy with the Noctua even though installing it was a bit of a difficulty. Fan is rotating at 1600 RPM and the drivers are cooler than ever (dropped from 29 celcius to 27 celcius - 22 being room temp). On some heavy duty backuping the driver heat to around 30 but it used to be 34. I'm thinking of tuning the RPM down a bit as drivers are cooler than before and the fan is still making some noise even though it's barely audible contrary to the stock fan. I recommend the fan replacement to anyone who finds the stock fan noisy. Just remember that it will void the warranty... and it can be done without any kludges if you have patience with it. Happy! 8)

Hi all,

Let me share my own experience on the subject as I also experienced this disturbant, unacceptable noise in my living room :evil: .
I read a lot of posts and changing the fan for a bigger one seems to be THE solution.

Still, it was not exactly acceptable for me, for a pure design POV.
The Duo is quite pretty and didn't want to change it :wink:

:idea: So I scratched up old post on overclocking & heat management on PC Case and this is the recipe:

* The first step is to remove the case fan finger guard to ease air flow and avoid whistle. I removed it easily with pliers

* The second step is to use rubber screws to fix the fan

The result is really surprising as my Duo is now silent and I don't ear it anymore.
No need to buy a new fan, just screws for about 1 or 2€.

Enjoy

DiWa

That is a good starting point DiWa but the original Crown fan on its own still makes unnecessary noise I noticed. If you can live with that it’s fine. Putting a bigger fan at low speed stays advantageous and there is no need to modify the back plate of the Duo. So in case of warranty you can put back the stock fan.

My Nexus fan runs at 1800 RPM and is inaudible at that speed and keeps the drives 4 deg C lower than with the stock fan. Lower drive temperature extends lifespan and this goes exponential.

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.

I just did this mod and of all the things I've done in my life this was one of the simplest, easiest and most straightforward. You need a Noctua NF-R8 fan, a 60-80mm adapter and a fan grill for about $20, a Phillips screwdriver, a pair of pliers and 10 minutes of your time. That's it. After that, your ReadyNAS Duo is barely noticable noise wise.

Steps:
* Turn off the device.
* Disconnect network and power cables.
* Remove drives.
* Remove the left side panel (two screws on rear, then pull backwards).
* Disconnect stock fan cable.
* Remove stock fan (four screws).
* Cut the stock fan finger protection with a pair of pliers and remove.
* Wire the Noctua NF-R8 through the rear casing (see picture above).
* Fit the 60-80mm adapter to the rear of the NAS using the rubber screws that came with the Noctua NF-R8.
* Fit the Noctua NF-R8 on the adapter using the four metal screws that came with the Noctua NF-R8.
* Fit the fan grill to the Noctua NF-R8.
* Connect the Noctua NF-R8 cable to the ReadyNAS (same socket as the stock fan).
* Fit the left side panel.
* Attach the drives.
* Connect the network and power cables.
* Power up.
* Recalibrate the fan in FrontView.

My drives ran at 2000rpm/38C with the stock fan and now run at 1600rpm/27C with the Noctua NF-R8. Hats off for Daryn!

exrazorfish wrote:
Daryn wrote: I just installed a Noctua NF-R8. You need a Noctua NF-R8 fan

Why are you all so hooked on Noctua fans? They're not the most silent fans out there, considering their air-flow.
I can highly recommend Nexus fans, like the one I used: viewtopic.php?f=24&t=22612&start=32

It's now 9 months after I mounted that fan and all is still exactly the same, fan- and temperature-wise. The Duo did not fail on me once with this fan;

ambient temperature around the Duo is 22 degrees Celsius at the time of this screenshot..