Silent NAS wanted

mdgm wrote:
Mostly 2-bay and 6-bay units from a series of ReadyNAS units (e.g. Ultra) will be quietest.

2-bay because of fewer noise sources and 6-bay because of larger cooling fan, right?

However with the NV+ v2 having an external PSU that will help reduce the cooling that is needed and help keep the noise down.

Thanks, didn't thought of that. So the NV+ series should be more silent than an Ultra4.

You can configure up to four Flex-RAID volumes and these can be RAID-0 volumes. On the Duo v2 and NV+ v2 you can select the JBOD option.

So on an Ultra6, I would still have to deal with RAID.

The OS is stored on the disks so I would think that the drives would still tend to spin down and up together even using Flex-RAID.

Huh?
How can you start a barebone NAS with brand new drives when the OS is on the disks? That should be in flash ROM...

You really can't put the NAS anywhere else? You can't find a place (e.g. the garage - of course you'd need a power point if there isn't one already) to put it and get a cabler in to run an ethernet cable or two to the living room (or wherever you want it run to)?

I am living in a small flat on 3rd floor of a large city house - there's no garage and I cannot run a cable to the cellar.

My first harddrive (Mac II, 1988) was a 5.25" full height monster that sounded like a jet engine - today I barely hear the WD 2TB external USB drive sitting right behind my MacBook on the table. I would expect to not hear it at all if it were in a decent case with some noise isolation and not just in a cheap plastic box.
Of course I would choose the drives for my NAS regarding their noise level, I don't care about speed as long as an HD movie plays seamlessly.