I have been trying to get my nv+ v2 a little bit quiter for a while now and haven't really succeeded. I changed the fan, and it helped, but I can't get the fan to work as slow as I'd like. The disks and the system is still operating just under 40 degrees celsius so I'm confident in trying to slow down the fan a bit more. The problem is I can't find any controls for it. I've concluded that there are no controls for it in the GUI and I've started poking around through SSH to get there. I found this guide which gave me some real hope https://community.netgear.com/t5/New-to-ReadyNAS/How-to-control-fanspeed-on-a-RN104/td-p/911970 but I can't even seem to find any of the controls that give me access to the readings of the fan speed and temperature, let alone control them. Can anyone help me, how do I read/access the fan control of my ReadyNAS?

I don't think the NV+ V2 had a fan speed control. It's a older NAS running a older OS. I don't think there was a fan option. I sold mine a while ago and so I can't look. I don't really find anything on Google about it. Does the fan slow down and go into low power, sleep mode? On mine,OS6 I have a Disc Spindown setting, I have set for 5 minutes of inactivity. So it takes a few extra seconds to wait for it to start back up when I go to access it. I also have a Power Timer setting where I have it power down late night until morning when no one is going to be using it at all. Once it shuts down, I can't access it at all. I have to physically hit the power button to power it back up. These are things you can do to save some energy. Still powering down the HDD doesn't happen for to long at times because I have a number of programs on it that are busy at times searching and downloading on it's own. It is a low end NAS, with not a lot of features. It did it's job. I just don't remember mine having a loud fan and I never touched it. On mine, it shows a picture of a fan. You can see the picture on mine. This is OS6.1.1 You can't tell by this picture, but you can see a picture of the fan spining behind that grill picture. So you have you're 3 settings of Cool, Balance (Which I'm using) and Quite. So Quite will run the Slowest while Cool will run the fastest. The RPM speed is always changing on it's own to the needs of the NAS. You can also see my CPU and System temp. I modified my NAS with a faster cpu and went from 4 to 16 gig's of ram. I think OS4 and OS5 just had a FAN Icon with a Green Dot to show that it was working OK. You could always just power it down when your not using it. You can also buy a newer ReadyNAS that is running OS6 and newer. I just remember that NAS being really pretty poky slow. I can Max out my Gigabit Network moving files to and frm my current NAS. Back when I had the NV+ V2, I only got about 1/5 the transfer speeds I have now. You may want to look at a new one. A ReadyNAS 214 for example. $394.99 currently on Amazon. It's a 4 Bay unit. Also listed as Amazon's Choice. (RN21400-100NES). It's a much better NAS. Faster, has 2 ethernet ports thatyou can link togeather if you have a Managed switch. Runs OS6+. Uisng the better, modern BTRFS file system. You might get $100 for your current NAS making the new cost cost you a $100 less.

JBDragon1 wrote: I don't know if a drawer is a good place unless it's open in the back at least. You need air flow... I agree. JBDragon1 wrote: A newer ReadyNAS that supports OS6 and newer has some fan control. So you can set it to quite mode and it'll run slower and the NAS warmer. Good luck! The quiet/balanced/cool settings are useful, though of course the fan will still run even in quiet mode. Also some OS6 NAS are quieter than their older counterparts - the RN526 for instance is noticably quieter than my pro-6. Noise isn't an issue for me - the ReadyNAS and switches are in my basement where the Verizon fiber connection enters the house. If it is a concern, then I suggest that you also research both power consumption and acoustic noise (dba) for the disks you purchase. WDC Red and Ironwolf both are acoustically quiet. Enterprise disks usually aren't. 5400 rpm drives run cooler than 7200 rpm models - so the fan is needed less often. Generally WDC disks run at lower temps than Seagate, though of course it depends on the specific models.

It's been a while, I don't remember if you could adjust the fan speed or not. This link may help you some https://community.netgear.com/t5/New-to-ReadyNAS/A-really-silent-fan/td-p/742626 Your HDD will last longer if they're cooler then warmer. Keep that in mind. Right now for me, it's a hot day, the house is warm, and my ReadyNAS 516 is in my Small Closet up top. It has 6 HDD in it. It's currently showing the fan running at about 1800RPM. It's has settings for this newer OS. Still there's only 3 settings of Quite, Balanced (I'm using), and Cool. My HDD temps currently are, 2 at 42, 1 at 43, 2 at 44, and 1 at 46 Celsius. Or 107 to 114 F. I have all my Network stuff in my small closet out of the way. So I don't hear it other then when I first power it up, then it's loud for a bit until it starts booting up. Remember though, it's not just the HDD, but the CPU and main system board that needs to keep cool. You have passive cooling on the CPU, as in no fan, just a heat sink, so if you don't have good air flow going past, it'll start heating up higher then normal. Maybe you just didn't get a good, high quality bearing type fan. There's a number of things that make a good fan. That can make all the differance in noise. Better to keep the air flow and either getting a better, quiter fan, or movw the NAS to someplace quiter. It sounds like it must be right next to you. You can place the thing anywhere with a Ethernet connection. Run a long cable someplace if you have to. If you put down on the floor and a few feet away, you shouldn't be hearing it. My Window Tower Desktop, that's under my Desk about about 2 feet frm me has 7 fans in it. I added fans to help with cooling as it used to be on 24/7 recoring all the time with Media center, and a Plex server and a number of other things, I've since offloaded. It makes a little noise in a quite room, but I hear more noise from the over head fan at medium speed then my 7 fan Desktop. Do you have Baby ears? You sound over sensative, or the fans you're using are overly just loud for whatever reason. There are things you could do, I don't recomend, but you could wire up a control knob to manually adjust the fan up and down. If you know how to do wiring. Again, I don't recomend it and you need air movment over everything. You can wire up the fan and use a Resistor to slow it down to the speed you want. That's not easily adjustable. Unless the fan is somehow louder then normal, I'd just relocate the NAS a bit so you can't hear it. Problem solved easily.

Thank you for the long reply. I appreciate the help. The fan I'm currently using is the Noctua A9x14: http://noctua.at/en/products/fan/nf-a9x14-pwm with the low speed transformer which supposedly lowers the noise value to around 13 db. The fan is good, and I'm not really complaining about that, what I don't understand is why the fan is running at a constant speed and throttle at all times. Most of the time the NAS is idle, if I'm using it then it's most likely because I'm working or watching a movie. The problem I'm having is the idle noise when no one is using it; it seems strange to me that the fan isn't controlling its speed based on the temperature or usage. Even after installing the low throttle adapter from noctua its still too loud for when its not actually doing anything. Unfortunately I've tried to relocate the NAS and currently that's not an option due to network access and apartment layout. And any closet I could put it in would be small and cramped and restrict air flow much worse than simply turning down the fan during idle time. Doesn't the NV+ V2 have fan control settings based on temperature or usage? And if it does, is there an easy way to test this?

There is a fan_setting_min file that you can find with SSH/shell access - you can try setting the value in there to a smaller value. I don't think there is a max counterpart though, or any other way to modify the built-in OS 5 fan management. Is it practical to add a noise baffle in the equipment closet? Perhaps a panel behind the NAS at the point of first reflection of the fan noise? There is a tip on that embedded in this old whitepaper: http://www.readynas.com/?p=301 wrote: ... a modest but effective noise baffle can be put between the Duo and the work position. See materials from RealTraps or Auralex (maxwall). Using a 61x61x3 cm RealTraps PVB baffle between the Duo and myself at 1 meter, I nearly eliminate my perception of noise from the unit ... Although it's a study of the readynas duo, the baffle idea should work with any ReadyNAS. RealTraps and Auralex are pricey, but you might get acceptable results with other acoustic treatment products. For instance http://www.acoustimac.com

Fan Control for ReadyNAS NV+ v2 (Make it more quiet please)

14 Replies

Replies have been turned off for this discussion

JBDragon1
Virtuoso
May 04, 2017
It's been a while, I don't remember if you could adjust the fan speed or not. This link may help you some

https://community.netgear.com/t5/New-to-ReadyNAS/A-really-silent-fan/td-p/742626

Your HDD will last longer if they're cooler then warmer. Keep that in mind. Right now for me, it's a hot day, the house is warm, and my ReadyNAS 516 is in my Small Closet up top. It has 6 HDD in it. It's currently showing the fan running at about 1800RPM. It's has settings for this newer OS. Still there's only 3 settings of Quite, Balanced (I'm using), and Cool. My HDD temps currently are, 2 at 42, 1 at 43, 2 at 44, and 1 at 46 Celsius. Or 107 to 114 F. I have all my Network stuff in my small closet out of the way. So I don't hear it other then when I first power it up, then it's loud for a bit until it starts booting up. Remember though, it's not just the HDD, but the CPU and main system board that needs to keep cool. You have passive cooling on the CPU, as in no fan, just a heat sink, so if you don't have good air flow going past, it'll start heating up higher then normal.

Maybe you just didn't get a good, high quality bearing type fan. There's a number of things that make a good fan. That can make all the differance in noise. Better to keep the air flow and either getting a better, quiter fan, or movw the NAS to someplace quiter. It sounds like it must be right next to you. You can place the thing anywhere with a Ethernet connection. Run a long cable someplace if you have to. If you put down on the floor and a few feet away, you shouldn't be hearing it. My Window Tower Desktop, that's under my Desk about about 2 feet frm me has 7 fans in it. I added fans to help with cooling as it used to be on 24/7 recoring all the time with Media center, and a Plex server and a number of other things, I've since offloaded. It makes a little noise in a quite room, but I hear more noise from the over head fan at medium speed then my 7 fan Desktop. Do you have Baby ears? You sound over sensative, or the fans you're using are overly just loud for whatever reason.

There are things you could do, I don't recomend, but you could wire up a control knob to manually adjust the fan up and down. If you know how to do wiring. Again, I don't recomend it and you need air movment over everything. You can wire up the fan and use a Resistor to slow it down to the speed you want. That's not easily adjustable. Unless the fan is somehow louder then normal, I'd just relocate the NAS a bit so you can't hear it. Problem solved easily.
- jarlelin
  Aspirant
  May 04, 2017
  Thank you for the long reply. I appreciate the help.
  
  The fan I'm currently using is the Noctua A9x14: http://noctua.at/en/products/fan/nf-a9x14-pwm with the low speed transformer which supposedly lowers the noise value to around 13 db. The fan is good, and I'm not really complaining about that, what I don't understand is why the fan is running at a constant speed and throttle at all times.
  
  Most of the time the NAS is idle, if I'm using it then it's most likely because I'm working or watching a movie. The problem I'm having is the idle noise when no one is using it; it seems strange to me that the fan isn't controlling its speed based on the temperature or usage. Even after installing the low throttle adapter from noctua its still too loud for when its not actually doing anything.
  
  Unfortunately I've tried to relocate the NAS and currently that's not an option due to network access and apartment layout. And any closet I could put it in would be small and cramped and restrict air flow much worse than simply turning down the fan during idle time.
  
  Doesn't the NV+ V2 have fan control settings based on temperature or usage? And if it does, is there an easy way to test this?
  - JBDragon1
    Virtuoso
    May 05, 2017
    I don't think the NV+ V2 had a fan speed control. It's a older NAS running a older OS. I don't think there was a fan option. I sold mine a while ago and so I can't look. I don't really find anything on Google about it. Does the fan slow down and go into low power, sleep mode? On mine,OS6 I have a Disc Spindown setting, I have set for 5 minutes of inactivity. So it takes a few extra seconds to wait for it to start back up when I go to access it. I also have a Power Timer setting where I have it power down late night until morning when no one is going to be using it at all. Once it shuts down, I can't access it at all. I have to physically hit the power button to power it back up. These are things you can do to save some energy. Still powering down the HDD doesn't happen for to long at times because I have a number of programs on it that are busy at times searching and downloading on it's own.
    
    It is a low end NAS, with not a lot of features. It did it's job. I just don't remember mine having a loud fan and I never touched it. On mine, it shows a picture of a fan. You can see the picture on mine. This is OS6.1.1 You can't tell by this picture, but you can see a picture of the fan spining behind that grill picture. So you have you're 3 settings of Cool, Balance (Which I'm using) and Quite. So Quite will run the Slowest while Cool will run the fastest. The RPM speed is always changing on it's own to the needs of the NAS. You can also see my CPU and System temp. I modified my NAS with a faster cpu and went from 4 to 16 gig's of ram. I think OS4 and OS5 just had a FAN Icon with a Green Dot to show that it was working OK. You could always just power it down when your not using it.
    
    You can also buy a newer ReadyNAS that is running OS6 and newer. I just remember that NAS being really pretty poky slow. I can Max out my Gigabit Network moving files to and frm my current NAS. Back when I had the NV+ V2, I only got about 1/5 the transfer speeds I have now. You may want to look at a new one. A ReadyNAS 214 for example. $394.99 currently on Amazon. It's a 4 Bay unit. Also listed as Amazon's Choice. (RN21400-100NES). It's a much better NAS. Faster, has 2 ethernet ports thatyou can link togeather if you have a Managed switch. Runs OS6+. Uisng the better, modern BTRFS file system. You might get $100 for your current NAS making the new cost cost you a $100 less.