Some weeks ago I bought a NAS from QNAP, the 2-bay TS-212 version.
Along with this device I purchased a 3TB Seagate HDD, model ST3000DM001.
On the QNAP website, I read that this particular HDD needed a firmware update to work properly.
My Seagate drive was packed with firmware CC4B, which for some reason was not eligible for updating to CC4H.
I decided to stick the HDD into the QNAP NAS and see what happens.
Initially I installed firmware version 3.8.0 on the QNAP NAS, last week I did the update to version 3.8.1 which went far from flawless.
The update failed the first (live-update) and second (manual update) time, but for some reason after the third time trying to install the update manually, it succeeded.
Now, with version 3.8.1 installed, I noticed a big annoyance.
It’s the terrible sound that the Seagate ST3000DM001 is making. Almost every time the NAS is trying to access the HDD, it makes a very loud “chirp” sound. It drove me crazy, and went to search for solutions, because it didn’t sound very healthy.
Browsing through the Seagate and QNAP forums, I found a working solution.
The trick is to disable the Advanced Power Management (aka APM) feature of the Seagate HDD which will also reduce the Load_Cycle_Count.
Before continuing please read the disclaimer below.
Making modifications to the QNAP NAS and/or HDD can cause hardware failures/defects if not handled properly. I am not responsible for any damages that occur due to these modifications.
To be short, these steps are written in the hope that they will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
If you are OK with the above disclaimer, then let’s get started.. :)
1. Login to the web administration panel of the QNAP NAS.
2. Click on ‘Applications’ -> ‘QPKG Center’ in the sidebar.
3. Install and activate ‘Optware’.
4. Download and install PuTTY on your desktop to login with a SSH connection to the QNAP NAS. PuTTY for Windows can be downloaded here: PuTTY for Windows Installer
5. Login with your administrator account to the QNAP NAS using PuTTY/SSH.
6. Install the latest version of hdparm by executing:
ipkg install hdparm |
7. The latest version of hdparm will be downloaded and installed.
8. Now you’ll need to find out how your Seagate disks are mounted, you can do this by executing: mount
9. To disable APM of a drive, execute:
/share/HDA_DATA/.qpkg/Optware/sbin/hdparm-hdparm -B 255 /dev/sda3 |
(the parts HDA_DATA and /dev/sda3 can differ in your case, in my case Optware is installed on HDA_DATA and the Seagate drive to disable APM is mounted as /dev/sda3)
10. To apply this command at boot time of the NAS, an autorun.sh file has to be created. For more information about this process, please visit: http://wiki.qnap.com/wiki/Running_Your_Own_Application_at_Startup
(FYI: I did a combination of Method 1 and Method 3.)
11. The contents of the autorun.sh file should look something like this:
#!/bin/sh /share/HDA_DATA/.qpkg/Optware/sbin/hdparm-hdparm -B 255 /dev/sda3 |
12. After completing these steps successfully, the annoying “chirp” sound should be gone.
13. Good luck!
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