New to NAS and need some guidance

[foo2]

Question on noise. People planning a NAS have a choice; very expensive but silent SSDs vs. cheap but 'some noise' traditional hard disk drives. Let's say for sake of argument a 4-bay NAS with 2 to 4 disks in a RAID 1 configuration for mirroring, if that matters.

Given that NAS are often used for storage intensive functions (e.g.: backup more than one device in the home, large photo library server, etc...), and most people are budget conscious, I imagine the HDD path is more popular?

Which means some noise, but how much, how often, and how problematic is that?

Probably impossible to definitively answer; people vary in noise tolerance, how much background noise their workspace has for it to blend into vs. silent to make it stand out, etc... Which is frustrating, because this is important.

In the old days, I could tell when a desktop PC was on because of the steady fan noise that was just a part of computing. With Apple Silicone Macs, and especially the MacBook Airs (no fan!), users have gotten accustomed to mostly silence.

To further complicate things, for the best performance some on this thread recommend a direct ethernet cable connection from NAS to main Mac. Most homes aren't wired with ethernet cable through the walls. The contrary recommendation I've seen elsewhere for dealing with noise was to put it in a closet.

I suppose one could run an ethernet cable under the closet door and along the bottom edge of the wall around the room to the computer desk. A key advantage of ethernet is the option for fairly cheap, very long cables (try that with Thunderbolt!).

Any of you care to comment on your perception of the noise issue with HDD-equipped NAS units? Particularly in fairly quiet environments?

Put it in a closet with long Ethernet cabling and that solves for the issue fully.

 

[wyliej]

My Synology will shut off the disks when not in use. In addition it's scheduled to shut off at night.

That seems like a terrible idea with regard to the longevity of the disks and the unit. Mechanical spinning disks don't normally like to be started and stopped repeatedly.

 

[Howard2k]

That seems like a terrible idea with regard to the longevity of the disks and the unit. Mechanical spinning disks don't normally like to be started and stopped repeatedly.

I monitor the SMART stats to try to predict any issue before it arises. So far no problems whatsoever, and 5.9 years on these current drives, so arguably already on borrowed time.

 

[mk313]

Question on noise. People planning a NAS have a choice; very expensive but silent SSDs vs. cheap but 'some noise' traditional hard disk drives. Let's say for sake of argument a 4-bay NAS with 2 to 4 disks in a RAID 1 configuration for mirroring, if that matters.

Given that NAS are often used for storage intensive functions (e.g.: backup more than one device in the home, large photo library server, etc...), and most people are budget conscious, I imagine the HDD path is more popular?

Which means some noise, but how much, how often, and how problematic is that?

Probably impossible to definitively answer; people vary in noise tolerance, how much background noise their workspace has for it to blend into vs. silent to make it stand out, etc... Which is frustrating, because this is important.

In the old days, I could tell when a desktop PC was on because of the steady fan noise that was just a part of computing. With Apple Silicone Macs, and especially the MacBook Airs (no fan!), users have gotten accustomed to mostly silence.

To further complicate things, for the best performance some on this thread recommend a direct ethernet cable connection from NAS to main Mac. Most homes aren't wired with ethernet cable through the walls. The contrary recommendation I've seen elsewhere for dealing with noise was to put it in a closet.

I suppose one could run an ethernet cable under the closet door and along the bottom edge of the wall around the room to the computer desk. A key advantage of ethernet is the option for fairly cheap, very long cables (try that with Thunderbolt!).

Any of you care to comment on your perception of the noise issue with HDD-equipped NAS units? Particularly in fairly quiet environments?

I only use my Synology for Time Machine & Photo backups, but FWIW, I bought an extra eero & put it in the basement, and attached the Synology via ethernet to that. It's cool in the basement & no one really spends much time down there, so the extra noise isn't an issue. When I had to do the original Time Machine backups, I hooked may Macs up to the other ethernet port own the eero, but aside from that, I use it exclusively over wifi (Macs are upstairs, NAS in the basement on the eero network.

the NAS is defiantly noisy (to me) but having it somewhere that no one really uses makes it totally a non-issue (for me)

 

[Beefbowl]

Question on noise. People planning a NAS have a choice; very expensive but silent SSDs vs. cheap but 'some noise' traditional hard disk drives. Let's say for sake of argument a 4-bay NAS with 2 to 4 disks in a RAID 1 configuration for mirroring, if that matters.

Given that NAS are often used for storage intensive functions (e.g.: backup more than one device in the home, large photo library server, etc...), and most people are budget conscious, I imagine the HDD path is more popular?

Which means some noise, but how much, how often, and how problematic is that?

Probably impossible to definitively answer; people vary in noise tolerance, how much background noise their workspace has for it to blend into vs. silent to make it stand out, etc... Which is frustrating, because this is important.

In the old days, I could tell when a desktop PC was on because of the steady fan noise that was just a part of computing. With Apple Silicone Macs, and especially the MacBook Airs (no fan!), users have gotten accustomed to mostly silence.

To further complicate things, for the best performance some on this thread recommend a direct ethernet cable connection from NAS to main Mac. Most homes aren't wired with ethernet cable through the walls. The contrary recommendation I've seen elsewhere for dealing with noise was to put it in a closet.

I suppose one could run an ethernet cable under the closet door and along the bottom edge of the wall around the room to the computer desk. A key advantage of ethernet is the option for fairly cheap, very long cables (try that with Thunderbolt!).

Any of you care to comment on your perception of the noise issue with HDD-equipped NAS units? Particularly in fairly quiet environments?

HDDs are noisy and they stand out even more when so much of the tech in the room is silent. I'm pretty sensitive these days - when I still did time machine backups to a directly-attached disk, I had to replace the (objectively not THAT noisy) external drive with an SSD.

I have both my Synology NAS and my home-brew Unraid box in a closet and yes there are ethernet and power cables running under the closet door. It doesn't look particularly good but it cuts the noise to tolerable levels. Temperatures seem OK as well, I will occasionally get a warning that my disks have exceeded 45 degrees C but never the 50C warning.

If I leave the closet door open I will get an hourly reminder that it's open when Time Machine makes the drives in the NAS spin up.