N5200 Drive Temperatures

[gwoodhouse]

Hello all,

New to the forum after just acquring two N5200 units and 10 Hitachi 1Tb drives to populate them with... I am impressed with them so far and does what I want it to do (which is always good!).

I currently have one N5200 setup and I have been busy transferring data from my previous Buffalo TeraStation Pro's to the new box, so far its been several days of shifting data around which has been quite intensive on the disks.

I pulled out one of the drives this morning before I left for work (had just turned the unit off for the day after transferring all night) and it was warm, and I mean v.warm... much warmer than I would have liked.

I had installed the INFO module with the hope of being able to see the drives temperature, but this doesnt seem to display anything... does anyone have any tools or suggestions I can install to monitor this?

In the meantime I am going to replace the 92mm fan on the back with an uprated high flow fan and maybe bolt one to the front somehow... the box isnt going to be on display, so not too worried how it looks.

Thanks
Guy

[yhashkes]

I recently purchased an N5200B PRO with 5 x 7K1000 1TB disks, came with 2.00.00 firmware, but later upgraded to 2.00.02.2 beta firmware.

The system is extremely loud, mostly a loud turbine-like sound coming from the PSU fan. I installed the INFO module, and it works fine for me. Don't know why yours doesn't work. Do you see any data whatsoever? Fan Speed? Did you click on the left link (I believe this is on the word INFO, but I can't access my system right now)? You have to wait for ~30 seconds or so until it comes back with results.

Mine shows:

Fan 1 Speed: 1084
Fan 2 Speed: 3206
HD1 Temp: 47 (Raid5 1/4) - top disk, cooler than other 3
HD2 Temp: 53 (Raid5 2/4)
HD3 Temp: 54 (Raid5 3/4)
HD4 Temp: 51 (Raid5 4/4)
HD5 Temp: 37 (JBOD) - in spin-down mode, cool

I believe the system fan (Fan 1) is running too slow, while the PSU fan (Fan 2) is compensating and sounding like a loud turbine. The main fan is larger (and quieter) and should bear the brunt of cooling. The disk temperature is quite high, and could possibly contribute to early disk death. They are spec'ed for 60 Celcius, but IMHO they should be running no hotter than 50 for sustained periods.

I then placed a small room fan in front of the unit for 10 minutes, and measured fan speed/temperature:

Fan 1 Speed: 1087 (was 1084)
Fan 2 Speed: 3143 (was 3206)
HD1 Temp: 40 (was 47)
HD2 Temp: 45 (was 53)
HD3 Temp: 46 (was 54)
HD4 Temp: 45 (was 51)
HD5 Temp: 39 (was 37, spun up)

Much better temperature now, but the fan speed is effectively unchanged.

The fan models are:

System fan: ADDA AD0912DX-A76GL (D = Ultra Low Speed, 92mm, 1600 RPM, 28.0 CFM)
PSU fan: Sunon KDE1204PKVX (40mm, 7400 RPM, 9.1 CFM)

Are these the same on your systems?

I've seen on various forums that the N5200 (non-PRO) uses a slightly different system fan, the ADDA AD0912LX-A76GL (L = Low Speed, 2000 RPM, 32.4 CFM).

I wonder if it is possible the system is not taking into account that this is an Ultra Low Speed fan, and is calibrated for the Low Speed model?

Thanks,
Jonathan

[gwoodhouse]

I copied out all the information given on the INFO page, which was -


Device Information (INFO)

This module gives as much information for the N5200 as possible.

Fan2 speed: 3222
FirmwareVersion: 1.00.10
Product: n5200
Producer: THECUS
Uptime: 0 days 1:44
LoadAvg: 1.02 0.66 0.46
Link Status (eth0): RUNNING
Speed (eth0): 1000Mb/s
Duplex (eth0): Full
Addr (eth0): 192.168.1.66
BroadCast (eth0): 192.168.1.255
NetMask (eth0): 255.255.255.0
TxBytes (eth0): 450913760
RxBytes (eth0): 3834583787
Link Status (eth1): DOWN
Speed (eth1): Unknown!
Duplex (eth1): Unknown!
Addr (eth1): 192.168.2.254
BroadCast (eth1): 192.168.2.255
NetMask (eth1): 255.255.255.0
TxBytes (eth1): 0
RxBytes (eth1): 0

I have tried it again a couple of times and it didnt display anything else... i even looked into the code in the INFO module and looked at what it was trying to do and couldnt see any sections that extracted the HDD temps...

Also interestingly, it doesnt show any value for the FAN1 and the 92mm fan in my N5200 (non-Pro) is the ADDA AD0912DX-A76GL.

I have just ordered another 92mm fan which has approx 61CFM (nearly double the current fan) which should hopefully cool things better.

[gwoodhouse]

If anyone is interested, I fitted a new 92mm fan using a Sythe Kaze fan (max of 62.1CFM at 34.13dBA) which also has a fan speed controller which just happens to fit in one of the cutouts on the backplate on the N5200, meaning I can control the fan speed quite easily.

The fan is quite noisey at full whack, but turning it down slightly still gives a higher airflow whilst running quieter. I havent had chance to see how its affecting the drive temperatures under load, but I am hopeful it will reduce the temps I had been seeing (49deg on the last loads).

[omega]

The HDD temperatures are fetched by reading the SMART values of the hard disks.
You can check the SMART values yourself by issuing the command

smartcl -d marvell --all /dev/sda

for the first hard disk and /dev/sdb, /dev/sdc, etc. for the others.

Andreas

[gwoodhouse]

Thanks Omega, I had a play around with the smartctl function yesterday evening and I am able to read off the values I need.

When I have some free time (!!) I intend to put some scripts together that I can easily run and get all the info that I need as the INFO module doesnt appear to return any details for my drives.

On another point, I currently have it set so that my HDD's spin down after 30mins of inactivity... but how can I check to see if they have actually span down? As when I reconnect to a mapped drive the data is there pretty much straight away with no apparant lag while the drive spins back up.

I would have thought that it would be something like -

smartctl -d marvell -i --nocheck=never /dev/sda2

...but it appears that the smartctl on the N5200's dont support the -n/--nocheck option...

[jablott]

I have also been troubled by the noise, and heat, and decided that the power supply fan was just too hard to fiddle with.
I got out my Dremel tool and enlarged the fan aperture, to accommodate a Vantec Stealth 12cm fan running at 1500rpm, and the system was much quieter, and cooler.
In mounting a 12cm fan it has to be hard up against the upper PCB supports, so that there is clearance below it for the fan connector. Currently using a Nexus 12 cm fan at 1000 rpm, gives my Samsung 500GB drives temperatures between 30 and 35 degrees C with ambient room temp of 20 degrees C.

[gwoodhouse]

Hi Jablott... got any pictures of your handywork? I am tempted to hack my box to help the cooling, I dont mind the noise part hence my first mod of adding a 61CFM fan.... but if I could put a high flow 120mm fan on the back and wire up something on the front (which I am working on) then that would certainly help things...

[jablott]

Hi gwooghouse,
I am not able to post pictures in this thread. Please let me know how to do this and I'll gladly send some pics.

[Marvellus]

Hi, I've just signed on as a new member and have read references to the INFO module that some have mentioned. I have a N5200B Pro and was wondering where I can find this module to install?

[peterfu]

Most modules are available on the thecus wiki: http://onbeat.dk/thecus/index.php/Main_Page
The official thecus modules are available via support link on thecus.eu or thecus.com.

br
Peter

[Marvellus]

Thanks Peter.

[Marvellus]

Hi all,
I've installed the INFO module and was wondering if someone can shed any light what the actual fan figures mean?
Fan 1 speed: 1170
Fan 2 speed: 3929
Thanks.