# Thunderbay 8 vs 2x Thunderbay 4 for noise control



## hylaster (Nov 29, 2021)

The time has finally come to migrate from my maxed out 2012 Mac Pro tower to a Mac Mini (I'm going with the Intel version for now.) So I need to house a bunch of internal drives. With the OWC Thunderbay 8 I'll have room for the mixture of SSDs and spinning drives in my tower plus a couple of drives currently in single enclosures. Tidy! But what I've read about fan noise on the Thunderbay 8 gives me pause. 

For slightly more money I can combine a Thunderbay 4 for the spinners and a Thunderbay 4 mini for the SSDs. I can power down the Thunderbay 4 when I don't need it since it will mostly house backup drives, and it seems like it's possible to turn off the fan on the mini.

If anyone who has gone either route wants to weigh in, I'd appreciate it!
Thanks


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## jamie8 (Nov 30, 2021)

i own both and this is exactly what i do , 16 terabyte thunder bay raid is almost always off , and really isn't bad as far as noise goes , im in one room and do vocals here without any issues ... and i have a 4 terabyte thunder bay mini with 4 crucial 1 tbyte raid so 4tbyte in total , sits on my desktop with a 2020 iMac and is always on and i would have to pay attention to it to hear it lol...with all my sample libs, noise is minimal.. doesn't bother me at all. and the bonus is i have the 16tbyte as a back up for all my crap too including samples.


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## khollister (Dec 1, 2021)

If the purpose of the Thunderbay & spinning rust is just backup, consider a bare drive dock with naked HDD's that can be swapped in and out as needed. I periodically run clones with Carbon Copy Cloner and store the drives in plastic HDD boxes. Much cheaper and you only have to deal with the noise of the HDD when actually running a clone job. I have 3 rotating sets of drives for backups. I don't use Time Machine so don't need or want something running constantly in the background.


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## hylaster (Dec 1, 2021)

khollister said:


> If the purpose of the Thunderbay & spinning rust is just backup, consider a bare drive dock with naked HDD's that can be swapped in and out as needed. I periodically run clones with Carbon Copy Cloner and store the drives in plastic HDD boxes. Much cheaper and you only have to deal with the noise of the HDD when actually running a clone job. I have 3 rotating sets of drives for backups. I don't use Time Machine so don't need or want something running constantly in the background.


What kind of dock do you use?


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## khollister (Dec 1, 2021)

hylaster said:


> What kind of dock do you use








OWC Drive Dock - Dual Drive Bay Solution


The ultimate access tool for workflows requiring constant access to multiple bare 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch SATA drives. Now USB-C compatible.




eshop.macsales.com





Amazon also sells the same thing. There are cheaper ones but not as nice. The OWC one also does not use a wall-wart, it has an internal power supply with a regular cord.

I have a bunch of HDD's but I have been moving to 8 TB Seagate Barracudas for convenience. The price fluctuates between $139 and $169 depending on Amazon's mood


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## ekbeale (Mar 7, 2022)

I'm interested if you've been able to turn off the fan on the ThunderBay Mini 4? Mine just runs constantly, even under no load. About 60db in the back within 10cm of the fan, over 50db on the front side. Annoying. I have a tech support ticket started with OWC. The enclosure is great otherwise, just noisy. Running 4x2TB SSDs in a Raid-5 configuration for 6TB useable storage with one drive redundant.


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## thomasjdev (Mar 7, 2022)

ekbeale said:


> I'm interested if you've been able to turn off the fan on the ThunderBay Mini 4? Mine just runs constantly, even under no load. About 60db in the back within 10cm of the fan, over 50db on the front side. Annoying. I have a tech support ticket started with OWC. The enclosure is great otherwise, just noisy. Running 4x2TB SSDs in a Raid-5 configuration for 6TB useable storage with one drive redundant.


I have two thunderbay mini 4's mounted under my desk and have disconnected the fans on both of them. I opened a support case with OWC about this and they had told me it was not recommended to unplug as the controller board can get warm. But the noise, especially with two got on my nerves so I finally pulled the plug. Using iStat Menus I watched the temps of the 8 SSD drives before and after I turned off the fans. The temps stayed pretty much the same and I've been happy ever since.


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## ekbeale (Mar 7, 2022)

thomasjdev said:


> I have two thunderbay mini 4's mounted under my desk and have disconnected the fans on both of them. I opened a support case with OWC about this and they had told me it was not recommended to unplug as the controller board can get warm. But the noise, especially with two got on my nerves so I finally pulled the plug. Using iStat Menus I watched the temps of the 8 SSD drives before and after I turned off the fans. The temps stayed pretty much the same and I've been happy ever since.


Appreciate the reply, hope you're having a good day. Several other online comments about the latest enclosures confirm the fan noise. Previous Thunderbolt 2 version has several reviews that laud the quiet fan. Maybe some of us have a different definition of quiet!


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## khollister (Mar 7, 2022)

I have the Akitio version of this (before OWC bought Akitio and discontinued the Akitio branded version). It was pretty quiet, I replaced the fan with a Noctua version and it was marginally quieter. Mine sits on the floor (carpeted) underneath the rear of my workstation desk. I can't really hear it unless I get under the desk.

I would try replacing the fan


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## khollister (Mar 7, 2022)

Assuming they haven't changed the fan (60mm) in the newer models, this is what I ordered from Amazon -


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## ekbeale (Mar 7, 2022)

khollister said:


> I have the Akitio version of this (before OWC bought Akitio and discontinued the Akitio branded version). It was pretty quiet, I replaced the fan with a Noctua version and it was marginally quieter. Mine sits on the floor (carpeted) underneath the rear of my workstation desk. I can't really hear it unless I get under the desk.
> 
> I would try replacing the fan


Excellent. Definitely something I'd be up for. I adjusted my setup and the noise isn't masked by other things now. Also considering some minor construction to route all the "noisy" items into a server closet. But the mini also goes on location and something more permanent makes better sense.


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## jbuhler (Mar 19, 2022)

I have the TB2 version of the mini and never hear it at 6 feet away from me. The full sized TB3 version had a very loud fan until I replaced it with the fan @khollister linked to above. It’s now roughly the same loudness as the mini. Basically silent at 6 feet. I did invest in a longer high quality Thunderbolt 3 cord to move the drives away from the desk.


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## tcollins (Mar 20, 2022)

Slightly off topic, but after reading part of this thread I went to Facebook, and immediately was shown an ad for OWC Thunderbay enclosures/drives. How do they do that?


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