I’m planning on building a backup server in the future and I’m planning on using 4 20TB NAS drives in a RAID10 setup and my OS of choice is going to be TrueNAS Scale and I’m planning on having Nextcloud for photo backups.
So from looking at this page below:
I noticed that WD NAS drives have an idle noise level of 20dB, which makes me think I should go with that over Seagate drives which have a higher decibel reading. However, what if I have 4 20TB WD UltraStar HC560 hard drives? If I put them in my 4U rack chassis along with hot-swappable bays that I plan on building on.
Of course, I plan on asking for recommendations regarding choosing server components, although my use-case is for backing up all of my data and I already have a Zidoo Z9X Pro Media Player for streaming movies direct to my home theater. And yes, the fan in the Rosewell hot-swap can be a factor when it comes to noise, but I am focusing on the hard drives. Plus, power consumption is the secondary factor and speed is the last. Idling is the most important part when a server is not in use.
Oh, and the reason for buying the 20TB drive is for long-term storage of videos. I’ve uploaded videos to my channel on Odysee and I would really want a place to store my videos in. Especially if I’m going to be doing commentary/let’s plays of video games. https://odysee.com/@GraysonPeddie:6
My question is, if I load up 4 hard drives in RAID10 each idling at 20dB, how can I find out how loud it’s going to be without buying 4 of of the NAS drives first?
For what it’s worth sitting on my desk, is my is my gaming machine with two WD Gold drives in it (24 TB and a 22 TB). Not that they are horribly loud, but I can clearly hear them.
On the opposite side of my desk sits my NAS with 16 WD Red Plus drives. I’m sure if I really listened I would hear them, but they are definitely quieter than the Gold drives, I do not notice them running.
My HTPCs, I’m using HGST drives, and they are more along the lines of the Gold, drives. You can definitely hear them.
I don’t touch Seagate stuff, so none of those to compare too.
I guess my question would be how silent do you need it to need it to be? Usually a NAS is tucked away in a location where it doesn’t matter so much.
I do not have a dedicated room for a home server/NAS, but I can tell you that my existing home server is about 8.5 to 9 feet from my chair and my home server.
I found it depends how active the drives are. If this is just a backup system it should be quiet.
If this device must be silent and must sit next to you, then you could build out a desktop PC instead. That is the route I took. It takes less power and is quiet. My box has two Western Digital Blue drives that act as my internal-NAS backup (the box does allow for four), one nvme and SSD drives that all my computing run on.
I guess it depends on which “WD” drives you’re talking about.
I’ve been happy with 10 HGST NAS drives sitting under my desk in a 4U chassis, and similar (though mine are 5bay) hot-swap enclosures. Low-level background white noise at idle, and head chatter is quieter than my keyboard when typing.
Western Digital acquired Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (HGST) in 2012.
I would probably go for either the Western Digital UltraStar or Gold drives due to the low idle noise. Honestly, I do not understand why hard drive companies acquire other hard drive companies but I guess I’ll do some research.