Will turning off my NAS every day damage my WD Red Pro drives

Hi

I have a Synology DS1019+ populated with 5x 4tb WD Red Pro drives configured as RAID6. The NAS is used solely for PC backup.

The Synology unit has a cheap construction with very cheap fans which makes significantly more noise that both of my office computers, plus of course the drive noise. Backups are run between 18:00 & 20:00 every day & due to the noise of the unit, I use the NAS power management to turn on the NAS at 18:00, then turn off at 22:00 every day.

Would the daily spin up & spin down of the WD Red Pro drives damage them more than leaving them on 24/7 in some way?

First - NAS needs produce a noise, because you need cooling the disk drives and also PCB (there is passive cooling). You can setup your airflow management in DSM. Try to find different place for the NAS, when it’s possible to achieve lees noise. With Cat6+ wire you can use 1Gbps up to 100m :slight_smile:
NAS isn’t a smartphone.

Second - you can use Power management setup to daily spin up & spin down your NAS. No worries about drives damage. I have 10+ y experiences with my NAS-farm based on Syno, include the Night “silence” for part of them.

Regarding the cheap construction and cheap fans:

  • people expect, that NAS must be cheap (firs problem of such civilization)
  • everyone can purchase high end models with better setup for highest price
  • I must tell you that I have just “plus” NAS series in my racks across EU countries. They are working perfect. More of them 7/24. All of them use similar construction setup as your NAS. No damage, no issues.
  • you can change the fans for Noctua fans, but you have to count with noise from the HDDs.

When you are looking for the Syno NAS silence moods recommendations (silence tapes, vents, …), you can visit independent SynoForum.com

Thanks for your reply.

I am mostly concerned with possible damage for the WD Red pro drives from daily on/off cycles.

no way. when, HDD is switched off properly