I have the mybook box in my living-room, and it is really anoying for me when the internal fan works, because it is very noisy.
I have implemented a solution to avoid the internal fan to spin, so MyBook remains silent all the time. This approach do not require to modify the standard temp monitoring scripts or the internal fan, so in case it fails, the standard function would still work and cool down the box (and you do not void the warranty, at least with this hack).
I post a biref description about it, but if people are interested, I can improve the explanation, and include some photos and scripts. As usual, this solution has worked for me, but I give no warranty and you have to be aware that playing with connectors may damage the device.
For this, you need:
- A USB connector or an old cable that you can break for this (6€ maximum if you by the cheapest USB cable and break it)
- A quiet 8cm fan (I am using a 12V Akasa fan which claims to be quite, less than 20 db(A), and I think even less when connected to a 5V power line. as the USB (less than 10€)
I have done the following:
- Connect the FAN to the USB cable/connector. Two alternatives:
If you use an old USB cable, cut it and connect red and black internal wires to the fan red/black wires. If the colours are not red/black, you will need to test with a polimeter or battery.
If you have a connector, connect the fan cables to the usb connector: red to +, black to - (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#Types_of_USB_connectors for identifying them).
Be careful with this step, and I recommend to test it with a battery or a polimeter before connecting to the coputer USB.
- Connect the USB to the myBook (or any other computer USB port) and check the fan works (notice that this may be dangerous if the connections are wrong!!!). Be very careful.
- The fan has to be attached to the external side of MyBook. Look for a position in which the fan is efficient for cooling down the box. Note that this is not obvious, because you have to achieve a proper air flow. A wrong position may not do anything at all, or even make it hotter. The best position I have found is (but post it if anyone finds a better place):
Mybook lays horizontally (with connectors at the top), fan on the "vertical" top side, and air flow from outside to inside the box. Fresh air enters the fan and gets out at the other end. If the internal fan spins, it also respects the air flow (it extracts air).
- Find a way to attach the fan to the box firmly, without no vibrations which may produce noise (I have tied it with a plastic band, openning the box, but there are other possibilities).
And that is all. In my system, with a room temperature of 22ºC, the disks are kept at 43ºC. The internal fan starts at 55ºC, so there is a lot of margin (I have not tested it in summer yet, with a warmer room temperature).
The only thing you have to be aware is that MyBook does not shutdown the USB when it is stopped, so you have to unplug the USB fan when stopped (or follow the approach I explain below to stop it in K99sync).
A further improvement is to stop the fan when not needed, to save power.
I recommend this to be done with the "smart_spindown" script (if you have it installed, which unfortunatelly is a bit tricky). You can also wirte a script only for this.
With the smart_spindown, I have added a line when the disks are spun down to shutdown USB with "/sbin/rmmod ehci_oxnas". When the disks are detected spun up, I put a line "/sbin/modprobe ehci-oxnas" and USB works again. The result is that when disks are active, the fan works, and in standby, the fan stops. In addition, I have added the rmmod line to the end of the /etc/init.d/K99sync script to make the fan stop when MyBook stops.
Alternatively, you can use a script like the one for the temperature monitoring, to start/stop the fan according to the temperature, but I do not know how safe it is to load/unload USB driver many times (with may smart_spin approach, with 2 hours inactivity, it normally start/stop only a couple of times per day).
Note that if you put this scripts, there may be a problem when attaching a USB storage instead of the fan (it could be stopped!!), so stop the scripts if the USB is going to be used for a USB storage.
If anyone needs more information, ask me and I post more details. Also, if someone finds an improvement for this, let me know…