Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[llelah]

Per the request of D-Link Product Specialist:

How are you Sir? I brought up this request to our Engineers and they told me that it possible to include the feature in the next firmware that the DNS-321's fan will go OFF when the device or hard drives are not accessed/used for a period of time. They also told me that it will be better if you will post a request on our forums: http://forums.dlink.com/ so that they can personally hear from you.

Would anyone else like this feature?

BTW- There are other NAS providers that offer this feature, but, I went with D-link because of their reputation and their strong desire to hear client feedback and take action!

[gunrunnerjohn]

Well, I'd like to see a fan control similar to the DNS-323 myself.

Options are:

Auto (off/low/high)
Auto (low/high)
Manual (always high)

Perhaps they could add another one:

Manual (always low)

[JoeSchmuck]

Yes, I'd like to see that feature as well, on a Rev A2 box.  I have to be specific these days.

-Joe

[grogs]

I think the 'drive hot' 'fan on' is fine. This seems to be what we have now.

I can just imagine if you could turn off the fan how many would do so then yell when their drive died due to excessive heat! 

[gunrunnerjohn]

Well, don't think you should have a setting that always turns the fan off, and the DNS-323 doesn't do that.  When my drives are not spinning, they're considerably cooler than the NAS reports, so the fear of drives failing seems to be overblown.

[ECF]

Well the fans do turn off if there is no drive activity and the device has reached a cool enough operating temperature however if the device is still to hot and not at a safe operating temperature you would still want the fans to turn off and get even hotter just because the drive is not being accessed??

[gunrunnerjohn]

I agree, like I said, I don't think a setting to always turn off the fans is a good idea.

I am trying to figure out why both of my drives report they're at 31C, and the DNS-321 reports 45C.  That seems to be a pretty large temperature differential.

I'm wondering if part of this issue is that the reported temperature is really higher than the actual temperature.

[Ryder]

Different sensors from different manufacturers can read "differently" for the same temp. Since the sensor for the box is probably not the same as the sensors built into the drives, I'd suspect that you could be very right about that.

I know that when my box reads 45C at idle it should feel warm to the touch, body temp being at 37C. But it always feels cool/cold to the touch. So I'd suggest that the sensor in the box is close to a circuit or something that constantly generates heat, but not enough to warm the whole box. The drives are much closer to actual temp, they read 35C at idle and are cool to the touch. But when they are active they read more like 42C-43C and they are warm to the touch.

Odd also that when the drives jump up 7C-8C the box itself only goes up 1C-2C and is still well above the temp of the drives. You would think the box would jump up accordingly?

Just my opinion, YMMV.

Ryder

[gunrunnerjohn]

My take is basically the same, I think the box temperature sensor was mounted in a less than ideal location.  My DNS-323 actually feels warmer to the touch than the DNS-321, yet it reports 36C vs. 44C.  The DNS-323 doesn't have SMART reporting, so I don't know what the drives are reporting, but the DNS-321 drives are currently reporting 32C, which I suspect is closer to the real temperature of the box.

I think the real issue here is probably a design flaw in the placement of the DNS-321 temperature sensor, which also results in all the complaints about the fan running when it appears that it shouldn't.  I'm guessing the temperature sensor is right next to some component that runs pretty warm.

My suggestion would be to add a programmable feature to set the temperature (within limits) for fan operation.

[JoeSchmuck]

I plan to tear into my DNS-321 box for two purposes:

1) Locate the temperature sensor.
2) Add a heatsink to the CPU if possible.

I suspect the CPU if cooled off better would allow the fan to run less frequently or maybe for a shorter time period.  Plus I'm a big fan (no pun of course) of heatsinks and fanless designs.


-Joe

[gunrunnerjohn]

You might consider adding some input cooling vents as I did, made a big difference in the internal temperatures.

Let me know what you find out with the temperature sensor.

[JoeSchmuck]

I plan on several modifications but I wanted to wait until I was done and then post photos so others could do it if they wish without asking 100 questions.

My main mod is the heatsink because if it work better than I expect, I may be able to do without the fan except to cool the drives when they need it.  In my situation that would be ideal.

-Joe

[gunrunnerjohn]

Hopefully, moving the temperature sensor to a more realistic location may solve that problem with additional air intakes and not worrying about a processor HS.  Since my drives are sleeping at 32C, I see no reason for the fan to be running, or the unit to be reporting 46C as the internal temperature.

Also, even though the processor has an added HS, that heat is still in the box, so it has to be exhausted anyway, right?

[JoeSchmuck]

Hopefully, moving the temperature sensor to a more realistic location may solve that problem with additional air intakes and not worrying about a processor HS.  Since my drives are sleeping at 32C, I see no reason for the fan to be running, or the unit to be reporting 46C as the internal temperature.

Also, even though the processor has an added HS, that heat is still in the box, so it has to be exhausted anyway, right?

Yes the heat still must be removed from the box but a larger area will allow the fan to run less.  Also, even with my drives in hibernate I have noticed the fan comes on in low speed every few minutes for about a minute or so.  I suspect the CPU is doing something behind closed doors.  I saw a post about the CPU churning away even when nothing was going on.  It was some background task.  If I can move the heat to the metal case, I could disipate the heat better.

And my drives are cool in general so I don't believe the SMART information is contributing to the fan as all.  That's only a guess, not a fact.

-Joe

[gunrunnerjohn]

My drives are running at 32C while the box claims 45-46C, so something is clearly going on!