Question regarding the FAN used by WD My Cloud EX2

Thank you!

I have the same problem with the FAN activation. Here is even worse as I live in Rio de Janeiro and the temperature is normally high.

I could access the system using SSH and using the commands posted in this forum I can manual start and stop the FAN, but is not a good solution, we need a way to change the start and stop parameters.

I opened a case in the WD site and I’m waiting a response.

Follow the answer I received from the WD support when I asked to include the option to chouse the temprature to the FAN start/stop:

 

Dear Fernando,

Thank you for contacting Western Digital Customer Service and Support. My name is [Deleted].

We apologize for the inconvenience. We are glad to assist you.

Thank you for your suggestion and recommendation. We are gathering customers’ feedback to see how we can improve our product, unfortunately we do not have information on what will be changed or a release date for an upgraded firmware. 

If you have any further questions, please reply to this email and we will be happy to assist you further.

Sincerely,
[Deleted]
Western Digital Service and Support
http://support.wdc.com

Pretty much the bone stock response until they decide to do something about it.

USB powered fans might be the way to go for your unit - just a suggestion.-Rex

Hi

My unit is always hot and i cannot hold my hand on the disks, it shows the temperature about 53 and the fan is always 0rpm. Is this normal in EX2 or my unit has a problem?

i use the ssh commands and the temp decrease to 49c , but i think the fan is weak and might be damaged for long time usage

you can see inside of EX2 at this  Link

Hi to all,

 I completely agree with you that it’s an issue, last summer I had similar matters even watching some streamed HD movies. :confounded:

Numerous times people have asked, on this board as well as calls to customer support, for WD to give us the ability to “adjust” the fan start temperature in the UI like so many other NAS vendors (Qnap, Synology, etc.) provide with thieir products.

From my conversations with WD tier-2 technical support, the feedback I’ve received is that WD (EX2) engineering believe it is unnecessary to give us this feature because in their opinioin, the EX2 is operating within design parameters.  I disagree with WD’s position, but I am only one voice.

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I have the same issue, the fan always reads 0 RPM’s my drives got up to 48 degrees and no fan kicked on. Drives where very hot so I had to get a fan to cool then down, it seem that when they get hot the performace drops. I call WD and did some troublshooting with them on the phone which didn’t help, they told me to return it to amazon. I requested a replacement from amazom and it has the same issue right now Im at 46 to 47 degrees and no fan. 0 RPMS

WD technical support also told me to replace my unit.  So I went through the arduious process of copying all my data to an external device, returning my original EX2, configuring a new EX2, then copying all the data to my new EX2 only to see the excact same issue.

Based on the posts in this thread and elsewhere, I am confident now there is no actual hardware problem.  The issue seems to be the fan start-up temperature threshold (a firmware setting) and the perception, real or imaginary, that EX2s are “overheating”.  Because WD technical support is instructing customers to return/replace these units at WDs cost, it is a shame WD continues to absorbe the cost of so many EX2s being returned/replaced as well as calls to customer support and the cost associated with a negative customer experience.

Maybe EX2 product management should consider the cost of so many returns versus simply providing a UI setting allowing users to set a lower fan startup temperature.  Even with a UI featuer allowing users to set a lower fan startup temperature, people may continue to believe their EX2s are overheating, but at least WD customer service would have the option to suggest the user set the fan startup speed to a lower temperature versus the current policy of telling the customer to return/exchange their EX2.

I had the same conversation. I do recommend anyone who has it upgrade to the newest firmware, since I found a few issues (that I’m not willing to currently disclose atm) that it does resolve.

I also am of the same opinion - just because it’s running below the adjusted fail envelope doesn’t make it great.

I think they undersized the fan in the unit, and are pushing the drive to a higher average temp (which they feel the Red can maintain) to save the life of the fan.

Again, an always-on USB powered fan may be an adequate solution for most folks who are concerned about this issue…

MowerPartsGroup,

You may be correct in that WD engineering are trying to find a delicate balance between FAN life, drive life, and performance.

With the extreme range of responses I’ve received from WD, everything from “your EX2 is defective, return it for a new unit” to “the system is performing within design specifications”, only WD knows the real story and they appear to be keeping that information to themselves.

Hi,

This may not be the correct way, but if you access the ssh shell, there is a utility called fan_control. You can use it to manually set the RPM and then the fan will start

jojan wrote:

Hi,

 

This may not be the correct way, but if you access the ssh shell, there is a utility called fan_control. You can use it to manually set the RPM and then the fan will start

Already been discussed. Have you read this thread’s page 4? →   http://community.wd.com/t5/WD-My-Cloud-EX2/Question-regarding-the-FAN-used-by-WD-My-Cloud-EX2/m-p/802561#M1442

Sorry I just finished reading the complete thread.

I believe, we can write a python script, which will use the fan_control utility to read the temparature periodically and use the same utility to set fan speed, based on our required temparature limits. This should not be difficult.

I read this whole post shortly after getting my MyCloud EX2 because the fan never came on and it was getting very hot. The drives were at 52 degrees centigrade. I decided to log a ticket with WD just in case something had changed. Nothing had, they had me reset the EX2 as if this were a brand new problem with them. They wanted to pursue the issue but I said they should read this thread and they would see it is an ongoing (most likely design/software) issue. BTW I ran the self test and you could feel the fan come on so it is not like it is broken. I came up with a solution that works for me. Look on amazon for “AC Infinity AI-MPF80A Quiet 80mm USB Fan”. This fan has cushion mounted feet and fits perfectly on top of the unit. You can power it from USB or AC and short of getting right on top of it you cannot hear it. I ran another full back up, beating the drives up for a couple hours and never saw the drives go above 34 degrees centigrade.

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I just bought a WD My Cloud EX2 8TB and am having the same temperature issue.

I also logged into SSH and was able to manually turn on and off my fan with the commands provided by others.

I currently have a 7 inch fan blowing on the drive to keep the heat down and just ordered a “AC Infinity AI-MPF80A Quiet 80mm USB Fan” per the previous post.

I really like this drive and the features, but customer service is falling way short on this temperature issue.  

.

Hi all,

Would just be possible that the WD EX2 designers deem a distance (from the max 60C) of about 10C a safe limit?

Could somebody explain why the vent activation above 50C is dangerous if the Red disks are designed to operate up to 70C?

Thanks…

You may be correct that a 10 degree cushion for the drives is acceptable

However the spec sheet in the user’s manual for the box states the operating temperature for the device should be between 5C and 35C.  Maybe that range is referring to the board temperature inside the unit and not the drives themselves.     Maybe the documentation should specify which temperature it is referring to.   Or maybe it is obvious to some that this is the system temperature .vs. drive temperature since several different drives can be inserted into this box each having differenct operating temperature ranges.    Well then there should be a notation  to refer to the specific drive documentation.

However, even if the documented 5C to 35C range was referring to the board temperature, I have just turned off my external fan and within 15 minutes (with little drive activity) the board temperature rose from 28C to 47C.  This is over 35C and the fan didn’t turn on.  Also my Hard drives went from 28C to 37C.   So even an average of all 3 numbers is past the 35C max.

There are many "maybe"s above and throughout this discussion.   The only post I saw from WD said basically the drive is opererating as it should.    I would have hoped for for a better explaination with the seemingly high temperature readings and documentation stating something different.

Maybe some users are fine with “don’t worry about it, it’s fine”,  but others like myself would like a slightly more detailed explaination.     There are 6 speeds to the fan.  It just seems odd that as the temperature increases,   the fan never turns on, not even at the lowest speed.

Again I can manually turn it on using fan_control, so I know it isn’t broke.

JerPa wrote:

 

However the spec sheet in the user’s manual for the box states the operating temperature for the device should be between 5C and 35C.  Maybe that range is referring to the board temperature inside the unit and not the drives themselves.     Maybe the documentation should specify which temperature it is referring to.   Or maybe it is obvious to some that this is the system temperature .vs. drive temperature since several different drives can be inserted into this box each having differenct operating temperature ranges.    Well then there should be a notation  to refer to the specific drive documentation.

The operating temperature (5C-35C) as specified in EX2’s spec sheet to me means the obvious - the ambient temperature range in which the device can be safely operated (i.e. the temp of the room in which the EX2 is kept). And that interpretation matches with Bill’s, who’s the chief moderator of this forum ( http://community.wd.com/t5/WD-My-Cloud-EX2/Question-regarding-the-FAN-used-by-WD-My-Cloud-EX2/m-p/799387#M1347 ).

What really matters about understanding the temperature range in which the fan kicks in is by looking at the file (via SSH) where that criteria is stored…which is in /etc/fan_temperature.txt. The contents of that file shows:

TEMPERATURE_STOP = “39”
TEMPERATURE_LOW = “45”
TEMPERATURE_HIGH = “49”

From that I would guess that the fan stops when temp drops to 39C (and stays below 39C)…and that temp to me implies the temp inside the system, as measured by the board’s sensors. Obviously the system temp will be higher than the room’s ambient temp because of the heat generated by the drive and other electronics. I am just not sure how you could tell that the board temp rose to 47C on your EX2 once you turned off your external fan…I see no way to tell the board temp…or even the system temp. I only see it says ‘Normal’ for me in the dashboard’s Diagnostics window. I do have a firmware that’s slightly stale at this point, so it is possible that maybe in the newer firmwares they actually show an actual temp value for the system.

BTW, I am not sure if the fan’s threshold’s can be manipulated by modifying that file…as I don’t have the time to tinker with it…but even if it can be, be aware that on reboot those values will be reset back to the defaults.

Oh, and just to be clear, I do not think there is any issue with the fan control. Yes, that’s my personal opinion but to me it seems the fan operates well within range. The one nice-to-have feature which I talked about almost 11 months ago ( http://community.wd.com/t5/WD-My-Cloud-EX2/Question-regarding-the-FAN-used-by-WD-My-Cloud-EX2/m-p/796021#M1311 ) would have been to give the users control over the fan via EX2’s dashboard…but I think WD doesn’t want to take any chance by ceding that control to some user who may inadvertently damage the unit by choosing sub-optimal range. That’s my guess. I know QNAP lets users have control of their NAS’ fan, but by default it manages the fan - and I personally prefer my fan to be system-managed, rather than me try to second guess WD engineer’s choices. At least on this aspect (there are other aspects where I HAVE decided to override WD design :slight_smile: ).

I agree with Cybernut1’s reasoning as to why users should not have access to the fan.

I am running the latest version of the firmware (1.05.36) and it still only shows “Normal” for the system Temperature.

But go into SSH and run “fan_control -g 0”. It shows 3 temperatures; Current, HD0 and HD1.   If you are not convinced “Current” means “board” temperature there is another command called “temperature_monitor”.  Per the help, -b will get the board temperature and -c 0 or 1 will will get the HD temperatures.  There are no other options.

That is how I knew the exact temperatures when I turned off my external fan.

Cybernut1, does your fan at least turn on when the board temperature reaches 45  or some other higher temp?

From all these posts, I believe everyone is saying that the fan never turns on unless done manually, even when one person pushed the temperatures well into the danger zone.

I think it is a coding bug.   If the fan at least turned on to try to remove some heat, I would agree that WD’s logic may be fine, but why doesn’t the fan ever turn on?