Loud seeks on NAS

Offloading HDDs and other functions to remote NAS or servers is increasingly popular
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mhermann
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Mar 31, 2016 1:10 am

Loud seeks on NAS

Post by mhermann » Thu Mar 31, 2016 1:21 am

Hi,

Long time reader, first time poster.

I've recently bought a QNAP TS-251+ NAS and equipped it with 2 WD Red 2 TB drives (wd20efrx-68euzn0) based on the reviews on this page.

However, when drives are writing or possibly seeking, the device is quite noisy and definitely noisier than the recordings in the review.

I have no issue with the spinning noise or the fan as they are barely noticeable from 1 meter away. However, the writes or seeks are noticeable when watching TV from 4 meters away.

Have any of you any experience with this NAS or drives or could point me to a way of debugging this issue?

I'm having trouble determining if this is just the noise you'll have to live with when using 3.5" drives or if something is wrong.

quest_for_silence
Posts: 5275
Joined: Wed Jun 13, 2007 10:12 am
Location: ITALY

Re: Loud seeks on NAS

Post by quest_for_silence » Thu Mar 31, 2016 7:24 am

mhermann wrote:I'm having trouble determining if this is just the noise you'll have to live with when using 3.5" drives or if something is wrong.
Last fall I got a seemingly very similar issue with the latest Green (which should be almost identical), and Lawrence Lee too with a Blue SSHD (which should be mechanically identical, a Red/Green with some NAND cache, IIRC).

mhermann
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Mar 31, 2016 1:10 am

Re: Loud seeks on NAS

Post by mhermann » Thu Mar 31, 2016 12:53 pm

Thank you for your comment.

As a man of science I decided to try to narrow down the cause of the issue by isolating the source.

At first I tried to mount the harddrive without the bracket but with a rubber between the drive and the case - no noticeable effect

Then I tried taking the drives out of the unit and connecting one of them to my laptop using a USB-SATA converter with the drive lying on my living room table - the drive is still noticeable as I'm writing this, but I'm sitting 40 cm from it and it is less loud than 4 meters away when in the NAS.

Thirdly I tried to write to the disk while lifting the device with my hand. While I can hear a faint humming it is even less noticeable.

So kind of a success! At least not I know that I'll have to figure out a server build allowing for drive suspension on a very limited budget.

xan_user
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Re: Loud seeks on NAS

Post by xan_user » Sun Apr 03, 2016 5:50 am

mhermann wrote:I know that I'll have to figure out a server build allowing for drive suspension on a very limited budget.
free is always cheapest.
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check here fro more ideas,
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=19147

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