Don't use Noctua fans for your Synology - use these instead! [Lower noise, better temperatures]

[@Xealous]

> makes video to compare fan noise > plays music over the top :)

[@Ottetal]

@@Xealous fair point. I’ll make a followup video

[@TheN4UM4N]

Make more videos!!! Your voice is soothing and the content is very pleasing to watch! Greetings from USA! :D

[@Ottetal]

Cheers friend, thank you very much! This is a great motivation, I have at least a few other videos in the pipeline

[@Ottetal]

I made a new one just for you my friend :)

[@ph0t0experience]

Would have loved an "appels to appels" comparasion of either the fans by themselves, or all 3 configurations side by side!

[@Ottetal]

Yeah, good idea - I debated against doing it. I don't really have audio gear that can capture the fans well enough I think and for the volumes I want them to run at they're almost silent anyways. I would much rather have a static pressure to RPM within my accepted noise profile measurement, but I have not thought of a nice way to do that either. For now, the best method is to run them as loud as I can while still being under my threshold and compare drive temperature.

[@megadeth8592]

Arctic had been the goat for a long time now

[@Gastell0]

Fully approve of this! Though testing of the fan, especially high pressure outside of chassis is kinda bad, it's not clamped to static body so it will vibrate a bit making additional noise, and it doesn't have any backpressure they are designed to have while working

[@Ottetal]

These are all great and very valid points for a followup followup video. Thank you for your comment friend :)

[@pappyman179]

You seem to think that amps = power of fan. The current just means that it consumes that much power, it says nothing of the torque that measures the rotation force of a motor.

[@kaischwab1239]

Works like a charm! 👊

[@Ottetal]

@@kaischwab1239 wonderful fans for the application at hand! 💪🌬️

[@HORNOMINATOR]

great detailed wolkthrough all the parts of your assembly

[@Ottetal]

Cheers, thanks buddy :)

[@Maxw3llTheGreat]

I didn't know arctic made these! I put some of their standard depth static pressure fans in my 2u server and the drives do run a bit warmer than I would like even with the fans at full speed. I'll have to get a set of these instead

[@Ottetal]

Oh wow, I never thought I'd actually convince anyone to do the same :) Just punch "S8038-7K" into your search engine of choice, and you should be good to go. Fair warning: You will most likely have to create a custom fan profile like me, since the fans go from 500-7000 RPM

[@ecotts]

Oh shit its a follow up... Yay.. 👍

[@Ottetal]

Even better temperatures at the same noise output this time!

[@garfield12344]

Mount those round black stickers delivered in box at video start for front fan hub ( are for protection of bearing, and airflow )

[@Ottetal]

Interesting. I see that the fan hub has it's own blades for cooling - how's the fanhub affected by this change? Thanks

[@Tuhar]

Key takeaway. Server standards exist for a reason! 38mm depth slots for 38mm depth fans, it's almost like it was planned! Running cool and quiet is always the goal, I think ducting and air management is the route to temp reduction at a given fan speed.

[@Ottetal]

Except if you watched the video, you'd see that 38mm deep slots was used with 32mm deep fans with rubber spacers. It's almost as if Synology planned for a larger production chain, where they could easily utilize similar parts in multiple systems :)

[@Tuhar]

@@Ottetal I did see the original fans were 32mm - but wasn't aware that's what synology ships with. I haven't tried any off-the-shelf storage solutions - I only have self built homelab parts - but to that end, when I see a 38mm slot, I put a 38mm fan in there. It seems like that's how it was designed! +1 for letting me know to stay away from synology!

[@fl4k664]

Great Video !!

[@Ottetal]

Thank you so much friend! :)

[@SilentDecode]

This has given me some ideas about my 'way too noisy, but unable to use Noctua's' RS2416+.

[@Ottetal]

Uhhhh, nice, the rs24xx models I've been wanting to try out for some time. Couple of tips for you: * Make sure you open the fanlatch and make sure your model also uses stock 32mm fans in 38mm fan caddies. It would suck if they swapped out the caddy, because then the new fans won't fit. * If you're using PCIe addin cards, the unit will be forced to go into either HIGH fan profile or MAX fan profile. I cannot remember which. * Toy a bit around with the scemd.xml file to find a good balance between noise an cooling power. What kind of disk layout are you running in your machine?

Noctua nf-A8 PWM it is not even designed for such specific server needs. The results are expected, or Noctua has been beaten to the punch regarding data storage temperatures. What were the revolutions of the Noctua fans, what speed maybe around 1500 rpm-s?

[@Ottetal]

I agree, the Noctuas were not designed for the application I put them in. That does not mean, it could not have worked. If I put the rack in a colder room, it would have been fine. If I ran less stressful software on the disks, it would probably also have been fine, and lastly I could also have just accepted the temperatures which at the end of the day was also fine :)

@@Ottetal It's always better to have lower temperatures.Or in short, Arctic fans are not even expensive in terms of performance + air flow + silence.

[@ExtraCrispy]

@Ottetal I have a Chenbro 4U chassis with the same fans, model number RM41416. I'm curious, you had to turn down rpm for Arctic fans. Did you try doing that with the original fans? How do they both compare - is the noise level/airflow similar? In that case isn't it enough to just use the original fans at lower rpm?

[@Ottetal]

Hiya friend. I did not test with the old fans to be honest. The newer ones are 6mm deeper, so even at the same RPM they'll push more air. I'll check, if I get a new rackstation in the future :)

[@ExtraCrispy]

@@Ottetal thank you. do you have a website/another way to contact besides youtube comments? yours has been the only helpful video I found on this type of cooling/fan. did the foam covering make any difference?

[@ADominacja]

well, I guess Noctua isn't magic after all. Really cool video!

[@Ottetal]

Noctua makes great fans, but the are not suitable for all applications. This is one of those instances :)

[@oli1505]

See no problem with the temps. I've a ssd in a passive mini pc which runs at 72°C that is to hot xD

[@Ottetal]

I agree, me being on a wild hunt for lower temperatures is completely not needed :p

[@David-jk5wv]

Does arctic generally offer buying directly from them and does anyone know if this gives some sort of volume discount?

[@Ottetal]

@@David-jk5wv yeah, you Can buy directly from them no problem. In the quantities I have bought from them, there have been no volume discounts, buy if you talk directly to their sales, you’ll see that they are very nice indeed (spoiler!)

[@lemagreengreen]

Have Noctua actually tried to make a specific server fan? it seems like these ones you were using were in no way suitable with their low current. I know there's limited opportunity to make server fans quieter simply because they're designed for high performance but it does seem like a segment that hasn't really had a whole lot of attention by some of the more innovative brands. These Arctic's seem to work well though, that is an absurdly quiet NAS!

[@Ottetal]

Nah, Noctua have not made serverfans. They do have their industrial lineup of 120mm and 140mm fans that go to 3000 RPM (which is a lot at those sizes!) buy they are not any deeper, and there are several other companies that offer substantially more performance oriented models. Delta is probably top of mind here. And thanks, I am very satisfied with the results too!

[@Drakey_Fenix]

Nice Half-Life sound effects.

[@Ottetal]

Somone noticed!

[@seamon9732]

Arctic fans strike again!

[@Ottetal]

More of that!

[@Anquarza]

You want a _server_ to be _quiet_ and _good at cooling_ ? Those doesn't sound like they mix to me

[@Ottetal]

Yes, that's exactly what I want, and as the video shows I have achieved just that

[@jonasjohansson1511]

Wouldn't the original fans have been fine at low RPM? Done similar things to many servers.

[@Ottetal]

Great comment! Yes, the original fans could have been better, given the same treatment of editing the fan profile. They just don't spin slow enough for my liking and at all speeds they have a whine I don't like.

[@Peter.H.A.Petersen]

"The northern winter descents upon me by mid september" ??? Hopefully NOT!

[@Ottetal]

It's not too far off, however in the recent years we've had latesummer until mid october, real winter in late october and then autumn from november to march. Agree, fellow countryman? :)

[@Peter.H.A.Petersen]

@@Ottetal No, I don't agree ... For me winter is when the daily high is under 5 degrees celsius. That normally don't happen until december and hardly ever before november. And autumn/fall from november to march is totally wrong, as if you are confusing winter with autumn!?

[@damnitcharles-]

Noctua fans. Yeah, those brown, beige, and ugly-looking ones that everyone and their dog swears by. I know they're touted as the "best" in the market, but honestly, I think they’re overrated and overpriced. Sure, they’re quiet and reliable, but do they really justify that premium price? I mean, come on, you’re paying extra just to have your PC decked out in the worst color scheme ever. Plus, the performance isn’t even that extraordinary. There are fans out there that offer better airflow, similar noise levels, and-get this-don’t cost an arm and a leg. Take for instance brands like Arctic or be quiet! They’ve got some seriously impressive models that put Noctua to shame. It’s like Noctua’s riding on their reputation at this point, knowing they can charge a premium because of the hype. But when you really look at it, you’re just paying for the name and the hideous colors. There’s better stuff out there, and it’s time people started waking up to it. Anyway, just thought I’d share my two cents. If you’re in the market for new fans, seriously, skip the Noctua bandwagon. You can get better for less, and your rig will thank you for it.

[@MikeyAntonakakis]

Or the Lian-Li P28 if you want incredible performance (cooling and noise), good clean subtle aesthetics, and great cable management - and you can add RGB side panels to them if you're into that. They run at very low speeds if desired (~300rpm is the lowest they'll go before they shut off). They are dead silent in my water cooling loop up to about 700rpm (like, head next to the PC case in a room with very low noise floor). On my three 360mm radiators cooling a 7950x3d and 4090 (in O11D Evo with all mesh panels mounted and all rads/fans as exhaust) they keep water temp around 35C under light-to-medium gaming load. They've got tight blade-to-housing clearance and extra thickness so they have great static pressure. Max speed is externally configurable, I've got my set to the lowest setting where they reach 1300rpm, and pushing 600W through the GPU water temp settles at about 44C (stress testing with FurMark or similar, actual usage runs much cooler usually). They are still very quiet at that speed, and importantly no annoying high-pitched tones. Honestly the case design is the biggest limiting factor, if I remove a panel or two temps get quite a bit better - but my overall goal for the system was "get max performance from the components (i.e. don't get to thermal throttling) with a system that is dead silent most of the time and very quiet at max load" and those fans let me do that.

[@phizaal]

For a fan, being quiet and reliable is something people don’t mind paying for. I get where you’re coming from tho, they could rake even more money if they lowered the price and released more standardized colours

[@clevermusicbox3630]

Noc-Tua, spit on that thang!