I’m trying to replace my 10 years old QNAP TS-451+
First I tried Ubiquity UNAS-4. Unfortunately have discovered that it is unusable with WD 7200 rpm disks. With those disks the box resonates so loudly that it is impossible to be with it in the same room. My QNAP is silent, the only noise I hear from it, is chatter of disks. I am expecting the same noise level from any NAS system that I’ll use to replace my current QNAP.
I’m looking now at UGreen but after my experience with UNAS I’m wary any new system.
Could someone share their experience of noise level produced by UGreen NASync DH4300, DXP4800 plus or DXP4800 pro?
I have a pair of Toshiba MG10 20 TB helium drives in my DXP4800 Plus and during setup, they were quite noisy, but now I barely hear them, unless I do some big data transfers to them, but they sound like normal hard drives then. I was a bit worried at first, since they were making a lot of noise for the first couple of days.
The Ugreen drive trays are very well made and provides decent noise insulation.
The bigger issue is the CPU fan, as quite a few people, myself including, have gotten a ticking noise from it. It’s not super loud, but a bit annoying. The system fan is not really producing much noise, unless you really push the system to the max, such as when you set up your image library for the first time. The CPU fan also gets quite loud at times like that. But in general use, I don’t really notice the NAS and it sits less than two meters away from me.
Although this is a Ugreen focused forum, TerraMaster might be worth a look as well, their new 25-series is quite nice, both in terms of features and hardware, but their latest OS is fairly buggy at this stage.
Regardless, you will be missing software features from QNAP, even though you have an old unit, as UGOS and TOS doesn’t get close to QTS in terms of what’s supported, but both use reasonably modern kernels and are getting better with every update. Most things that are missing can be solved via Docker.
Thank you very much for your reply. I take that DH4300 can’t be classified as desktop unit. To give you some reference point I’m looking for noise level of something like Mac Studio or Mac mini. My old QNAP has that noise level. I am sitting now next to it and I don’t hear anything. If I open my home folder I can hear disks’ heads moving, that’s all. As for difference between UGOS and QTS, I only look for a file server/Time Machine server and from what I have read UGOS fulfils both requirements.
Personally, I wouldn’t bother with their Arm based hardware, as they picked hardware that isn’t that well supported by mainstream Linux, which could mean poor software support in the future. I don’t think it’ll be much quieter, although it lacks the small CPU fan, but the 120 mm fan is placed in an odd location that is likely to see it run at higher speeds, due to it being slotted in between the PCB and the drives. See pics here:
One good thing is that Ugreen uses standard fan headers, so it’s easy to swap out the 120 mm fans for a better one.
The DH models also have drive trays that require you screw the drives in place.
I doubt you’ll find anything as quiet as the one you have, but keep in mind that noise also depends a lot on the hard drives you use, as 7200 rpm drives produce more heat and noise than 5400 rpm drives.
Most CPUs in a modern NAS will run hotter than that old Celeron J1900 you’ve got, despite what the TDP claims are. Just compare the tiny heatsink QNAP used to the heatsinks in any modern NAS.
That said, you have to option to change the fan settings via the OS.
Thank you very much for reply. My main concern with the resonance produce by the box. The UNAS-4 that I have is so loud that at least from my point of view is unusable with 7200 rpm disks. You don’t even hear fan. My only requirement is file server for docker I have separate hardware.
Oh, there’s no resonance, the drive caddies have dampening, so that’s fine.
If you don’t need faster than 2.5 Gbps Ethernet, then the HD4300 Plus should be fine, as long as you’re aware of the software limitations between Arm and x86, as in a lot of software isn’t available for Arm based hardware. But if it’s only for storage, you should be fine.
