Diskstation 409 fan replacement

Since 2009 I'm using a Synology DiskStation 409 as primary network storage. It cost 375€.

2021-02 the power supply unit died, and I had to buy a replacement for 27€ on Amazon since they were the only one had some ("KFD A90-12V/7A" by "Shenzen Huikeyuan Electronic Technology Co").

Fan replacement

A year ago, a fan had a problem but could be started again with a pen. But in 2021-10 one fan completely died, and the second made lound noises :( Time to replace them.

I found two websites that talked about fan replacement for the DS409:

The IT-Notes page suggested the ME80201V1-G99 which I bought from TME Germany. It turned out that the fans had blank three wires without a plug, and so I spent an hour removing the plug from the old fan and attaching it to the wires of the new one. After plugging it in and powering on the NAS, it did not work. The replacement fans are "F Type" (Frequency Generator), but the DiskStation wants an R-Type (Rotation Detector)for controlling the fan speed. The ME80201V3-000U-F99 (note the V3 compared to V1) is an r-type fan, but I did not want another two fans without a plug and so I did not buy the V3.

On Aliexpress I found someone who sold the Y.S.Tech FD128020HL for 9,33€ per piece, and 15 days later they arrived here. They work fine without any problems.

Software updates

The latest official software release for the Synology Diskstation 409 is DSM 4.2-3255, which was released in 2015-03. Synology does not provide newer ones.

This means that I am running a network-reachable computer that is 6 years behind in software security updates, which in turn means that it is definitely vulnerable.

That state is not acceptable, but I'm still looking for a NAS vendor that gurantees more than 10 years in software updates. I contacted the support of some vendors and asked for guranteed update times:

QNap

Guranteed software updates: For the warranty time (1-2 years).

The "Regional Sales Manager" for Germany told me that they still give updates for 10-year old NAS systems like the TS-212 (Support status info page). They will not gurantee any definite number of years, though.

QNap officially supports installing Debian on their NASes, which would lengthen the time considerably - but I'd probably lose the official management software that way.

Synology

Guranteed software updates: 7 years

Terramaster

Software updates "as long as the company exists"

Before I got to that statement, they asked back "sorry what you you mean by software security?"...

With that in mind I won't buy a Terramaster system.

Written by Christian Weiske.

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