TS-453be HDD temperatures

[santigh]

Hi all,

my brand new QNAP TS-453Be running 4.3.6.1050 has always been spinning the fan at quite loud levels. It is basically iddle with not many tasks running. Only a container station with Transmission installed on a Docker.

While researching the issue I noticed that changing the profile of the SmartFan from Normal to Quiet or Performance does not really make much of a difference. But I noticed that HDDs are running specially hot as shown below and that worries me.


Source: http://static.googleusercontent.com/med ... ilures.pdf

So, back to my system: these are the figures. All disks closer to 50ºC than 45.

CPU Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU J3455 @ 1.50GHz (4 cores)
CPU usage 4.0 %
Total memory 8 GB (8 GB usable)
Free memory 6 GB
Memory slot 1 (Channel A, DIMM 1) 8 GB (Transcend Information)
Memory slot 2 (Channel B, DIMM 2) --
CPU temperature 49°C / 120°F
System temperature 40°C / 104°F
Disk 1 temperature 48°C / 118°F
Disk 2 temperature 48°C / 118°F
Disk 3 temperature 48°C / 118°F
Disk 4 temperature 49°C / 120°F
PSU 1 Status Ready
System fan 1 speed 981 RPM

Room temperature 25ºC and in the same room I have my old QNAP TS212p with two disks that are below 40ºC with an inaudible fan.

Any idea what could I try to lower those temperatures in the HDDs?

Thanks in advance.

[P3R]

Only a container station with Transmission installed on a Docker.

If Transmission is active, it's probably constantly using the disks. Shut it down and let the disks be idle for an hour or two to see if that makes a difference.

[santigh]

Only a container station with Transmission installed on a Docker.

If Transmission is active, it's probably constantly using the disks. Shut it down and let the disks be idle for an hour or two to see if that makes a difference.

Thanks for replying!

That's exactly what I did minutes after I posted the message to the forum yesterday. No change. I left the system overnight and this morning all disks were 50-51ºC.

So I kept doing searches on the forum and found one message which is more about the fan and the smart fan function than HDD temperatures

viewtopic.php?f=25&t=135742&p=636979

and I tried to disable the smart fan and set fan speed manually. 25% - 50% - 75% now 90%. This has cooled the HDDs and after 4 hours they are in 42-43º range and that's with the Container Station running Transmission again.

CPU Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU J3455 @ 1.50GHz (4 cores)
CPU usage 2.0 %
Total memory 8 GB (8 GB usable)
Free memory 7 GB
Memory slot 1 (Channel A, DIMM 1) 8 GB (Transcend Information)
Memory slot 2 (Channel B, DIMM 2) --
CPU temperature 47°C / 116°F
System temperature 36°C / 96°F
Disk 1 temperature 43°C / 109°F
Disk 2 temperature 42°C / 107°F
Disk 3 temperature 42°C / 107°F
Disk 4 temperature 43°C / 109°F
PSU 1 Status Ready
System fan 1 speed 1556 RPM

There is a downside to this... fan is adding a bit of background noise. Not really disturbing but you notice the lack of it when shut down.

I am a bit deceived by the management of temperature in this model.

Santiago

[santigh]

I keep doing tests and I will update this thread with my findings just in case these are of any help to anyone in the future.

Trying to reduce the fan noise, I took the NAS to a fresher space in my flat. Instead of 27ºC where it sat, I moved it to a spare room facing North where we have around 22ºC all year round. HDD temperatures went down, but not really that much.

THen I tried removing the plastic front cover, thinking that maybe this would increase the airflow and help refrigerating. Left the system overnight and HDD temperatures went down to 39-41 ºC with fan manually set at 20% (around 700 RPM).

Then, this morning I installed the front cover again and I have just checked remotely and the HDDs are back to 51ºC.

So far, the biggest improvement has been to detach the plastic front cover. I suppose more dust will collect inside and now we face the choice : cool, silent, clean, chosse 2.

Next step will be moving again the NAS to its original setting and let the front cover detached to see what happens. I rather have the NAS where it was originally.

[santigh]

As promised, I have been monitoring the HDDs temperatures over the last week. In the original placing (25-27ºC), with front plastic cover detached and Fan at 45% (which corresponds to roughly 1100 rpm) the range has been between 41 and 43ºC.
Sound is almost acceptable, or maybe we have adapted to it. I would rather have the disks below 40ºC and the fan at 700-800 rpm but this would mean moving it back to the other room.

Next thing I will do is try to find the fan speed that would let the disks at 39ºC or less and see whether this is acceptable in terms of noise. Will report.

Is there a possibility to change the fan for one that is more silent?
Change the HDD caddies so that instead of plastic they help dissipating heat?

[panto]

I have a TVS-882 and whilst (barring firmware issues) it's a nice device I think the density is too high. 2 SSD slots right above bays 1-2 causes those disks to currently run 3C above the disk in slot 6 and all of them running 47C+ at an ambient of 26C. There simply isn't enough airflow through this design. I had a similar heat issue with my desktop until I put a 120mm Noctua fan in front of the drives that dropped temps 15C. Even my old TS-439 PRO has lower temps due to better airflow through the front. I've even replaced the crappy fans QNAP provide with 2 Noctuas that pull more air but the design is the issue. I think these devices can only keep temps low if the drives are parked and yet they're advertised as security camera compatible/NVRs with Plex and other apps all of which keep the drives constantly spinning.
Open the case on some of these things and you'll see the hot swap cage is also a hot box. I think looks are overtaking practicality in the design space.