HiFi Cooling

[feeling_zen]

SOHO NASes may do that. I’ve been a storage appliance engineer for 12 years and worked on the design of a couple commercial NAS appliances but I’ve never actually used a non enterprise NAS having access to more exotic things. One of the NASes I use for my media is actually a prototype release I never bothered replacing with the commercial version.

If it can be software controlled, I’d not recommend setting a spin down timeout. The MTBF on drives that spin uninterrupted for years is far greater than ones that spin up and down. Back when HDDs still existed for personal computers the “Idle disks after X minutes” was always disabled for people and systems in critical roles. How much longer they last beyond the reasonable life span when uninterrupted is actually quite impressive. Like diesel engines, if their temp is kept stable and they are constantly spinning they will roll over the proverbial odometer twice.

[Fatcat]

If the hard drive is used purely for streaming music files, any damage caused by head parking isn’t an issue.

Presumably, the number of head parks a day will be the number of times the nas is used for streaming. Assuming all other functions of the nas is switched off.

[feeling_zen]

I can’t imagine a NAS for just streaming. Mine handles movies music, photographs, backups from people’s phones, PCs etc. If I designated one just for streaming, I’d probably use SSD. Even with a gigantic collection, there’d be no need for the size drives that necessitate HDD.

[Fatcat]

I used this TS112 just for streaming music, plus my PC backup every three months or so.

Haven’t used it for nearly 2 years for streaming, but used it yesterday to back up my PC. I’ll be attempting to upgrade W10 to W11 pretty soon.

[Martinzero]

Location? again and again, construction of property and description, otherwise your post is worthless.
Martin

[Fatcat]

According to AI, it’s rated at 600,000 load/unload cycles.

That’s 164 times a day for 10 years.

[Innocent_Bystander]

A loft is not a good place for electronic gear, especially if ceiling beneath is insulated and roof above not: extremes of heat, plus dampness. If this describes the loft in question I’d move the NAS somewhere else. Sorry that might not be too helpful!

[MrUnderhill]

Insulated top and bottom.

I agree not ideal, but I feel things have got worse over the past 20 yrs.

In the 1990s I had a full server stack plus two VMS hdd arrays. No issues.

I have a couple of NAS now.

Over the past five years I have had increasing temp issues over a wider range of months.

I have turned the NASes off.

I am going to set up an alternative data store for a subset of my films, for use over the Summer months. This will live elsewhere in the house.

Thx for the thoughts.

[MrUnderhill]

Dear All,

Thanks for the thoughts and suggestions.

I have set up a schedule for the hot weather, only turning on the AV NAS at 2015, in time for a film.

It then stays on to allow for the backups.

Once I have a new office storage solution I will re-think this.

I have a light gauze in front of the disk arrays to stop crap being sucked onto the back-plane, but I will check and clean.

WRT Audio
My server is back with Audiostore. Martin is doing an major upgrade for me that includes boosting my SSD storage.

ALL my audiofiles will then be streamed from there, with the NAS simply acting as a backup.

M

[MrUnderhill]

Schedule working fine, and I have added a time based plug, to control the thermostatic one!

I am looking at the NAS to use in the office.

This doesn’t need to be resilient, it is a copy of what is on the Synology.

I do want it to run cooler.

I need 24TB ish - I currently have 16TB of video.

I am looking at:
LincStation N1;
Terramaster F8 & F8 Plus; and
Asustor Flashstor & Flashstor Gen 2.

[MrUnderhill]

Just in case anyone is interested and thinking of SSD storage, I bought the LincStation N1.

It was the cheapest at £320 & gave me the facilities I thought were needed:

Linkstation - £320
Intel Celeron N5105 CPU
16GB RAM
2.5G Ethernet Port
4 x NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 SSDs,
2 x 2.5" SATA SSDs,
Maximum capacity of 48TB

Some mention the lack of a 10G ethernet, but I don’t require that level of pipe on my home LAN.

The OS is Unraid, which I hadn’t used before.

Storage
The downside is the cost of the storage. However, the price has dropped significantly over the last couple of years.

Two years ago I was experimenting with my digital setup and tried hosting my audio files on large USB sticks, 512GB. At the time these cost me over £200 each.

For this setup I have just bought two 4TB SDD HDD, for £180 a piece.

I also hooked up the 4 x 512GB USB drives, running off one of the two USB 3.0 ports.

Unraid
They don’t make explicit that a licence is required.

It appears to come with a basic licence.

My reading indicated that this gave you a maximum of four connected devices, but I am currently running with six.

The way in which disks are managed is a small variation on the themes I have used previously.

Next Steps
I am intending to buy four 8TB NVMe SSDs over the next few months. But, I may try chaining a few external SSD HDDs.

My current 9TB of storage will be enough to see me through the summer months.

M

[Fatcat]

Perhaps you should consider buying a CRAC unit.

[feeling_zen]

My server room just has regular domestic AC unit. It’s tends to be sufficient. Even in commercial datacentres I worked, they tended to use general domestic or at most catering AC units but in pairs with redundancy wired to an auto fail over circuit.

In a small space, they don’t cost that much to run.

[MrUnderhill]

I have an ac unit in the loft, but have managed for 30 years with a fan during the hottest weather.

In data centres I have used the ac has been a big factor.

At home I don’t want to use more power to cool the loft.

The ssd solution gives me a small form factor silent solution - with the nas now acting as a resilient backup; when it is hot.

[GadgetMan]

Solar panels might serve a good purpose here, running the AC free during the hottest times

[feeling_zen]

I’ve just scrolled back to the start. If I’m not mistaken, how hot this loft gets have never been stated other than it was 18.8C at the moment.

Bearing in mind “hot” is not a number, what range are we talking about here? Hot and uncomfortable to a person means nothing. Because that’s relative. For example, my machine room AC is on for 6 months of the year holding it at 23C, which is only 1C warmer than most decent data centres (though in my youth I worked at one that was 38C ambient constantly - it was awful). I use two digital thermometers in there. One on the wall and one in the 21U rack which record current and min and max temps since last reset. So I can see that on scorching days, with my AC set on extreme low power mode it will creep up to 26C… which is perfectly fine for all the equipment.

[MrUnderhill]

True.

The Synology turns itself off when its internal temp get to about 74C, from memory.

Hi @GadgetMan …

Yes, there is a whole larger context. I won’t be going Solar for a few reasons. But, I would like to in theory.

I am quite happy with what I have done. Money efficient.

I’ll probably buy a second SSD NAS in due course and retire the Synology. It has done sterling work, but is loooong in the tooth.

The LN1 is tiny and silent, so I can home it anywhere in the house. Just not near my HiFi.

I have a QNAP NAS in the loft that I bought for a project that was killed by COVID.

I can strip it of NVMe and SSDs. I am only holding off as it has a range of VMs on it that might prove useful at short notice.

[GadgetMan]

I guess when you do retire it, it might serve as an occasional backup of the important stuff on your new one. I.e., power on, backup, power off

[Martinzero]

Still don’t know where you are. So pointless waste of energy.
Martin

[Paul52135]

I’m hot in my cabin. Says 33C on my cheap thermo so it must be north of 25C. Fans are on in the 135s but you can only hear them if you put your ear to them. Been listening for nearly 3hrs tonight. Don’t feel the need for cooling though. Much better things to spend cash on