Noise reduction tips for NAS

[Bathr]

Dear LTT community,

A month ago, I built a NAS running FreeNAS. I use it as a media server and to backup files across my devices. It has been running for a month now and it is working great.

I am living in a one room flat in a quiet town, so noise was a big concern when I chose the parts, as the NAS had to be located in the same room as I sleep in. The NAS itself is extremely quiet with the exception of the 3 hard drives, that are really starting to bother me a night given the fact that they are the only noise source I hear.

One of the problems is that FreeNAS accesses my hard drives every 10 seconds to write to the .system dataset / to write logs, so I hear the write heads moving every 10 seconds (no one is accessing the NAS when I am sleeping so that has to be the only thing). My idea for this was to move the .system dataset and logs to a separate pool consisting of one or two low capacity SSD's, to remove the write noise. I am aware that the lifespan of the SSD will be reduced due to the fact that it is written to every 10 seconds but it is a small amount of non vital data and with SSD prices these days I am willing to do that.

The main problem is the noise the HDDs do just by spinning. I have 3 western digital red 4TB drives running at 5400rpm. The drives produce a low frequency noise that is very audible to me as it is the only noise source in the room. I am thinking of two possible solutions to solve this problems, but each one with negative consequences, so I am asking you for advice.

1. I can make the drives spin down when they have not been accessed for 10 minutes. This way the NAS will be completely silent but, as I understood, spinning up a drive puts a lot of stress to it and the drive will have a lower lifespan than letting it spin 24/7.

2. I can put the NAS in a small closet with sound insulating panels, and hope that the low frequency noise will not be audible from outside the closet. This will completely destroy airflow and will increase temperatures, but I selected only low powered parts so I think it should be ok. But I can't say for sure before I tried. Another concern with this solution is that I don't know if there is a chance that it catches fire. I don't think that this should be an issue given that the NAS is in a metal case and I bought a PSU that should be good. But still, I don't really feel comfortable putting electronic equipment that runs 24/7 inside a wooden closet that has flammable sound insulating panels in it.

The CPU temperatures at idle are 28°C and 45°C under load. The drives idle at 28°C-30°C and reach 34°C under load. This is with the NAS outside of any closet

Here are the specs of my NAS, for anyone interested :

- Case : Fractal Node 304

- Motherboard : ASUS P10S-I

- CPU : Intel Core i3-6100T

- Ram : Samsung M391A2K43BB1-CRC

- Boot SSD : Toshiba RC100

- Data HDD : 3x WD Red 4 TB

- PSU : be quiet! Pure Power 11 (400W)

- CPU Coller : Arctic Freezer 11 LP

- Intake case fans : 2x Arctic F9 PWM PST

- Exaust case fan : Noctua NF-S12A PWM

What do you think of these two solutions ? Witch one would you pick ? Do you think that the whole thing catching fire should be a concern or are modern electronics safe enough ? Has anyone faced the same issues and what solution did you come up with ?

Any input is appreciated !

[WereCatf]

4 minutes ago, Bathr said:

Has anyone faced the same issues and what solution did you come up with ?

I use an SSD for the OS, which means all the log-files and such are written there and won't cause any of the spinning rust to wake up. I have set up the spinning rust to go to sleep after being idle for 2 hours, because I don't want them to be constantly spinning up and down -- if they're sitting idle for two hours, it's likely that they'll continue to be sitting idle for several more hours, ergo it's fine for them to spin down. I also have SMART-monitoring enabled for them, but it will only initiate any SMART-checks if the disks are already running, ie. it will not go and spin them up just to run SMART-tests.

 

Those are just on the disk-side, but in addition I have: set CPU-governor to conservative, so the CPU-speeds ramp up slowly instead of instantly going to 100% whenever there's a couple of seconds of something more demanding happening -- this helps keep the CPU-cooler's fan from going haywire randomly. On a similar note, I have set all the case fan-curves to ramp up slowly and they are completely off most of the time.

 

Most of the time, the only noise I hear is the PSU.

[WereCatf]

16 minutes ago, Bathr said:

Do you think that the whole thing catching fire should be a concern or are modern electronics safe enough ?

There is no guarantee that it won't just suddenly go up in flames, no matter where you place it in your house. Case in point, I have had a server just suddenly start literally spewing flames seemingly for no good reason! I tore the side-panel open, pulled what drives I could from it and threw the thing down from 3rd floor down onto snow outside.

 

My advice: install smoke-detectors, no matter where you put it.

[D.U.F.F.]

Build a soundproof box for PC. After all, you can find a suitable building guide somewhere in the wonderful world of the Internet.

[flashiling]

https://www.ixsystems.com/community/

this is the freenas forum.

Try posting there if the tips from here aren't sufficient 

[Bathr]

45 minutes ago, WereCatf said:

use an SSD for the OS, which means all the log-files and such are written there and won't cause any of the spinning rust to wake up.

I thought too, but I also have the OS on a SSD but FreeNAS still keeps writing the system dataset and the log files to the first pool that is not the boot pool - in my case my data pool with the spinning rust

50 minutes ago, WereCatf said:

also have SMART-monitoring enabled for them, but it will only initiate any SMART-checks if the disks are already running, ie. it will not go and spin them up just to run SMART-tests.

That is a good point, I didn't think about system services regularly accessing the drives. I will look into this, thanks for the advice.

47 minutes ago, WereCatf said:

Case in point, I have had a server just suddenly start literally spewing flames seemingly for no good reason! I tore the side-panel open, pulled what drives I could from it and threw the thing down from 3rd floor down onto snow outside.

That is unlucky At least you saved some drives and you were home to see it.

48 minutes ago, WereCatf said:

My advice: install smoke-detectors, no matter where you put it.

I was planning on doing so, so that just in case it happens during the night I can get out. But I will try to find a solution so that even if it catches fire during the day, the hole flat doesn't burn down.

 

Thank you for your messages  

[Bathr]

43 minutes ago, D.U.F.F. said:

Build a soundproof box for PC. After all, you can find a suitable building guide somewhere in the wonderful world of the Internet.

Yes the internet is a wonderful place ^^ I just saw that the hardware canucks made a video on soundproofing a pc

[Bathr]

43 minutes ago, flashiling said:

Try posting there if the tips from here aren't sufficient 

I'll look into it. Thank you