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[mazy]

Hi,

I have recently set up a new DNS-321 with two 1TB Hitachi 7K1000.C Hard Drives in Raid 1. The hardware revision is A2 and the firmware is 1.03. The unit shares an open-ended under-the-desk shelf with a wrt-54, a cable modem, and a voip modem. Its primary function is to back-up a number of home pc/laptops on a weekly basis using SyncBack. Occasionally we may open a word or excel file directly from it as well.

The unit has been working normally, with idle temps around ~112 for DNS-321 and ~95 degrees for the hard disks. Under the load, the temperatures start to rise very slowly and after a while tops at around 117-118 for the NAS and around 100 for the HDDs, which seem to be in line with temps reported here. The highest temp I've ever seen was 121/104 degrees.  

Now yesterday, my wife was working with a small excel file opened directly from the DNS-321 and all the sudden, I received an email alert that the temp has exceeded 140 degrees and the unit has shut down (that's how I configured the email alert). I went to check it out immediately, and after turning it back on, the temperatures were again 113/95.

This was a single incident and I haven't been able to reproduce the problem no matter what, but this thing has made me a bit paranoid. All the diagnostic tests (SMART/scandisk) are normal. Should I be worried about this single incident? Has anyone else experienced such a thing? Could it possbly be related to a bug in the firmware or temperature sensors?  

Thanks in advance!

    

[gunrunnerjohn]

Could be almost anything.  FWIW, I modified my DNS-321 to have better airflow, since the factory configuration has no provision for intake air.  Mine runs about 5C cooler with the airflow mods.

I also think there is some issue with the placement of the temperature sensor in these boxes.  The drive on my DNS-321 is currently at 26C, but the box 45C.  Hard to imagine that much temperature differential in the box if they're not measuring the temperature of a hot component close to the temperature sensor.

[mazy]

Yep, I may give that modification a try (or perhaps just move the face a bit up). I do think there is something strange going on with the heat sensor. No matter what is the ambient temp, or whether the unit has been idle for a minute or a day, whenever I log in, it shows the system temperature as 113F/45C, which happens to be exactly what your unit reports. I've done it hundred times and it's always 113F/45C, not a degree higher or lower, but at the same time, the HDD temps fluctuate a bit, which make them more believable. Makes me wonder if the reported system temperature has anything to do with the real temp... May be that just a number that is reported all the time "by default"? That is for sure one strange thing...  

[gunrunnerjohn]

I don't have much faith in the temperature reported.  I've been tempted to open it up and extend the temperature sensor chip out on "legs" to put it farther from the PCB, but I'm simply too lazy.

[mazy]

Let me know how it went if you ever tried it, hehe!
Btw, do you know how to read the S.M.A.R.T report generated by DNS-321?

Here is how mine looks like for temperature:

Id (194); Item (Temperature_Celsius); Now (171); Worst (46); Thresh (0); Updated (35)

"Id" and "Item" are self-explanatory. I can see that "worst" is the worst temp ever detected, and "updated" is the current temperature. What is "now" and how come "thresh" is zero?

Thanks again!

[gunrunnerjohn]

I've never took the time to understand all of the details of the SMART reports.