Found source of disk noise

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qnp800
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Found source of disk noise

Post by qnp800 »

I‘ve just gotten a TS231D and I am appalled at the noise it makes. I have a single 6TB WD Red plus drive in the box, allegedly one of the most silent drives available. I went on a journey to find out why it is so loud in the NAS.

I put the drive in an open external Icybox usb adapter and turned on the disk. It is barely audible but you could feel the initial head movements. The noise level would be very acceptable.

Then I carefully put the disk into the NAS but without the plastic tray holding it in place. Of course a completely unstable and dangerous construction but this way the disk had only physical contact with the box at the terminal plane in the back. I turned the box on and the rattling of the disk started. The initial head movements transferred to the enclosure over the socket and the whole box acted as a nice resonance chamber. Yuck.

So it is the plug at the disk and the construction of the box that makes it noisy. The choice of disks is only secondary and no velcro straps or any other measure suggested on the net would make much of a difference. Connecting the disk with a cable would probably work but then there is no room to do so.

Why are these boxes made like this? The same disk in a tower PC is very silent.
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dolbyman
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Re: Found source of disk noise

Post by dolbyman »

cost cutting measures maybe ? .. QNAP does not come here .. so don't expect an answer from them (unless you complain via ticket/email)
qnp800
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Re: Found source of disk noise

Post by qnp800 »

Cost is certainly an issue but when I check the net it is full of complaints about noise and ill advice as to how to reduce it. I'd like to know if there is any NAS available that doesn't add unnecessary noise. I have a raspi running with an external 2.5" disk and it is perfectly quiet.
dosborne
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Re: Found source of disk noise

Post by dosborne »

None of my units (qnap or otherwise) generate sound beyond expected values. I've had PC cases where I've had to add pleats to the thin sheet metal or a strip of foam tape to hold things tight, but even my cheap TS-231P is good. I also switched most of my devices (where possible) to locking trays (if trays are used - I prefer screw mounting) as the locks tend to hold better than plastic tabs on thin metal. When I assembled computers, I always added a drop of hot glue to "loose" component connections and wires to hold things snug and reduce or eliminate rattling.

Pretty much all my devices, even my raspberry pi's, have cooling fans that adjust the speed based on temperature to reduce noose as this, for me, is the noisiest part.
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qnp800
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Re: Found source of disk noise

Post by qnp800 »

Well, this is just not what I found. And my NAS is actually a TS-251D I always confuse these numbers, sorry.

As I said the disk is very quiet in a PC or an usb adapter but as soon as it is attached to the NAS terminals inside it rattles like crazy when the heads move. Fans are inaudible. No tray or anything only the SATA connector to conduct sound to the enclosure. Definitely nothing you could change, you need those electrical connections. It is like holding a tuning fork onto a table. I want it as quiet as in the PC or in the external adapter.
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dolbyman
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Re: Found source of disk noise

Post by dolbyman »

Tried to place the NAS on an isolator? (rubber mat)
qnp800
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Re: Found source of disk noise

Post by qnp800 »

Doesn’t matter. I am holding the thing in my hands and the disk in place for this test. What would work is a cable between NAS and disk. But that creates other problems :wink:
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moody_blue
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Re: Found source of disk noise

Post by moody_blue »

In my TS-253A when I replaced old HGST's (HDN724030ALE640 and HDN726040ALE614) by a pair of Ironwolf NAS 6TB the unit became much quieter, IMO not exactly because the disks were more silent, but because they vibrate less. I still use one of the HGST's for backup in a HDD enclosure and noise is Ok.
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aesculus
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Re: Found source of disk noise

Post by aesculus »

My TS453Be is a noisy beast too. Had to move it from a living space in the next room to a isolated room near no others. Leaving the plastic cover off helped a bit and also made it run much cooler. They need to do more environmental testing IMHO.
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qnp800
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Re: Found source of disk noise

Post by qnp800 »

aesculus wrote: Fri Jan 21, 2022 9:47 am My TS453Be is a noisy beast too. Had to move it from a living space in the next room to a isolated room near no others. Leaving the plastic cover off helped a bit and also made it run much cooler. They need to do more environmental testing IMHO.
Exactly my situation. I could even detect the box operating through a closed door from my bedroom.

The main takeaway is that the plug at the disk is where the noise gets sent to the box. Anything else is negligible.

I took my disk out of the qnap and put it in a cheap - about 1/10th of the box price - USB enclosure and connected it to my raspberry pi. Now the thing is quiet. The USB box has a similar construction with a circuit board directly plugging into the disk. I’m still not decided if I want to keep the qnap.
jmv
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Re: Found source of disk noise

Post by jmv »

In my case, my TS-253D NAS with 2 Toshiba NAS 14TB https://www.toshiba-storage.com/product ... ives-n300/ makes a lot of noise.

Surprisingly, my TR-002 Expansion Enclosure with 2 Red WD 4TB https://www.westerndigital.com/en-ca/pr ... d#WD40EFAX is total silence.

The 2 Red WD 4TB used to be in a TS-239 Pro II+ and was as noisy as my current TS-253D.
Now that they are in the TR-002 Expansion Enclosure with no noise at all, I must conclude the problem is with the construction of the NAS casing.

It appears to me that the NAS box itself is transmitting all the disk movement to the plastic casing which causes vibration and yields the noise. That does not occur for the TR-002 casing.

Thoughts ?

JM
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janpolet
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Re: Found source of disk noise

Post by janpolet »

My TS-453D was driving me crazy.
It has been for years but somehow it got worse.
It's sitting on two pieces of foam, but it doesn't really help.
I always needed to push down the unit into the foam pieces to male to noise a bit less, but it always returned pretty quickly.
Sometimes hitting the device worked for a while, but obviously that's not something you'd want to keep doing.

Yesterday I finally decided to power down the unit and put screws into three of the holes on the bottom of the trays that align with holes of all four drives.

I didn't expect it to have a huge effect, but it actually did!!

You can now clearly hear the heads of the IronWolf Pro drives move, but all other noise is totally gone!

The unit is so quiet now.
I even had to check if the fan was still moving.

I so wish I had done this earlier.

It just took 12 screws.
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rwf99
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Re: Found source of disk noise

Post by rwf99 »

Just tried this (adding drive-bottom mounting screws) on a brand-new TS-464, currently with only 3 Seagate Ironwolf 8TB drives.

It did make for an improvement, but not a dramatic one. My next step will be be some rubber grommets to isolate the mounting tray from the drive, the way most drive trays are built.

Maybe it has something to do with the grommets under the rail locks (the piece that locks into the drives' side mounting holes). Those grommets are far stiffer than what I've seen on other NASes.
can5ona
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Re: Found source of disk noise

Post by can5ona »

"My next step will be be some rubber grommets to isolate the mounting tray from the drive, the way most drive trays are built."

I tried and it didn't help.
Why i buy IronWolfs and Qnap ;(
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