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I have a Netgear NAS at home, for music, backups, videos etc. Unfortunately due to my current living situation it has to sit in the living room under the TV, and the noise - mainly the fans - is a bit much. Because of the wiring it's not possible to move it somewhere else.
Sooo, what are the options for a quieter NAS? The main noise is the fans, which is constant, so SSDs wouldn't really fix it. ...and that's as far as I've got.
I used a Raspberry Pi 4 with a USB-attached NVMe drive for a while. A bit Heath Robinson but silent and not very expensive.
I used a Raspberry Pi 4 with a USB-attached NVMe drive for a while. A bit Heath Robinson but silent and not very expensive
What are you using for cooling? All 3 pi4's in this house are louder than my desktop.
Passive cooling - the aluminium case is the heatsink.
Cheers, sorry for the thread hijack.
and the noise – mainly the fans – is a bit much
Has it go sufficient airflow around the box? I don't know about that device specifically but excessively loud fans on a PC could be because it's stuffed in a cupboard or wedged against a wall.
(Since when did a Pi need external cooling at all?)
Qnap do one:
https://www.qnap.com/en-au/product/hs-453dx
I have a QNAP Raid (not Nas) and I find the software hateful compared to my Synology, but that ^ unit would seem to fit the bill for you
Since when did a Pi need external cooling at all?
I've had one warp and another one leave a nice imprint of the back of the board on a tabletop after running some slightly complex software...
As to the noisy NAS, try getting some aftermarket fans of the same specification/size/connector but with a quieter blade form.
I've done that with my desktop, and that's now almost completely silent except for the GPU fan. (Which isn't particularly noisy anyway, just louder than the main case fans)
Has it go sufficient airflow around the box? I don’t know about that device specifically but excessively loud fans on a PC could be because it’s stuffed in a cupboard or wedged against a wall.
Good point; it does accumulate dust too, so I think first step is to take it apart and get the vac on it all.
batfink
Full Member
Qnap do one:
> https://www.qnap.com/en-au/product/hs-453dx
I'd seen this and it looks intriguing. Damn expensive of course (but man maths: what's the value of peace and quiet?!), but it's also interesting that QNAP are the only manufacturer to make an off the shelf fanless model - might suggest it's not proven tech.
Theoretically, a motherboard with an underworked (reasonably efficient) CPU in a decent sized case, maybe with the CPU heatsink linked to the metal outer case should do the trick - so I guess something like a Raspberry Pi could be grand.... if I had a clue what to do with one! 😀
I had the QNap Quiet Silent (not quite 🙂 )NAS - older version of that posted by Batfink. It was bloody great. I got greedy though and bought a 4 disk box (Qnap again), really wish I'd upgraded to the new version of the SilentNAS. My new one has a quiet-ish fans, but the disks are constantly gurgling. Very annoying. I mainly use QMusic and Plex, so don't have any issues with the software. The backup and syncing apps work well for me.
As suggested, it might be beneficial to swap out the fan(s) for some 'silent' versions.
You do lose a little bit of puff, but the difference can be quite stark.
Noctua seem to be the go-to, although they are at the more expensive end.
I put some Gelid Silent fans on my 3-D printer & the noise reduction was surprising.
My new NAS is home-built but has a Fractal Design case with a good 15cm fan. It typically spins at 300rpm and is so quiet I once had to stick a pencil in it to check it was spinning.
Also a development board I have had a incredibly loud CPU fan, simply swapping it for a Noctua one did make a huge difference. Well worth the £15 it cost.
Of course, the NAS also has three spinning rust disks in which are far noisier, but they're on five minute idle spindown timeouts so spent most of their time off. If you have spinning rust then figure out what is making the noise first and maybe swap to SSDs if you can.
Anyway, it's always possible to move things. Wifi lets you put things in anywhere, ethernet cables are easily installed around the house if you need a wired connect to somewhere else (I got cat5 installed through the wall by the master socket and around the house/upstairs to the study), and at a push powerline works. My NAS is sitting in a ventilated cupboard to keep it out of the way of dust and noise (IKEA Ivar with holes drilled in the sides, very professional).
I’ve had one warp and another one leave a nice imprint of the back of the board on a tabletop after running some slightly complex software…
Wow.
I think first step is to take it apart and get the vac on it all.
Get a can of compressed air.
Update: took it apart, piece by piece, and got the vac in there, and it's already better. Also got a Noctua fan on order.
That may fix it - unfortunately: I was quite liking the look of the QNAP Silent Nas!