Replacing OWC Thunderbay 4 fan with Noctua: how does connector situation work out?

[Ladd]

I recently purchased an OWC Thunderbay 4 (Thunderbolt 3) enclosure and am considering replacing the OEM Sunon fan with a Noctua NF-A9 FLX.

Is it true that the three-pin connector on the Noctua will not fit the three-pin receiving connector inside the Thunderbay?

If so, how have folks worked around this?

Do any of the included speed reducing cables solve the possible three-pin to three-pin issue?

Photos of OEM Sunon fan three-pin connector below:

 

[hwojtek]

The Noctua-supplied choice of cabling should be sufficient. The long cable on the right, IIRC.

 

[arw]

edit: if your photo is from the actual Sunon fan, the complications you are referring to may apply to the Thunderbay 4 Mini with a different, smaller fan connector:
https://forums.tomshardware.com/thr...tors-and-pinouts-owc-thunderbay-mini.3762519/

Generally speaking:
3 pin fans: voltage controlled (voltage black and red, yellow is the tacho signal back to the PC/controller board)
4 pin fans: PWM controlled (different story, irrelevant in your case)
They are not interchangeable, so it's important to order a 3 pin fan, not PWM (the Noctua NF-A9 FLX is fine).

I am not familiar with the specifics of the OWC Thunderbay 4 fan controller so there can be one "issue":
- If it controls the fan by adjusting the voltage to reach a defined speed (rpm), the low noise adapters are not of much use because the Thunderbay will simply increase the outgoing voltage accordingly to compensate the additional resistor.
Still, you can simply use the Noctua fan without any additional adapters.
The original fan is rated 1700 rpm at 12 V whereas the Noctua is rated 1600 rpm meaning even at the same voltage/speed, you benefit of Noctuas quieter fan.
- If the bay simply adjusts the voltage without caring about the speed, you can add an adapter to further reduce the voltage and therefore the speed and noise.

 

[Ladd]

The photos are of the connector on the fan that came in my new-to-me Thunderbay 4 (full size) enclosure.

As far as I can tell with my brief experience, the fan speed appears to be constant, not variable. The fan runs even when the enclosure has only two SSDs inside, not spinning hard drives. Of course, this may be just the fan at its lowest speed and it could ramp up if need be, but I haven't seen that yet. Having said that, I don't recall reading anything in the literature that the Thunderbay has a variable speed fan setup.

 

[Ladd]

I've now had the four-bay OWC Thunderbay 4 (Thunderbolt 3) enclosure for more than a week and loaded with four spinning drives it has reliably gone to sleep and woken back up numerous times.

On a related note, I have replaced the fan in the back of the enclosure with a Noctua NF-A9 FLX 92mm fan. The kit comes with two speed reducing cables and I am using the one that slows the fan down to 1050 RPM and the fan noise is now much less than the hard drive noise. The supplied three-pin connector for the fan fits the one inside the OWC case so installation was a snap.

 

[Rr697]

I've now had the four-bay OWC Thunderbay 4 (Thunderbolt 3) enclosure for more than a week and loaded with four spinning drives it has reliably gone to sleep and woken back up numerous times.

On a related note, I have replaced the fan in the back of the enclosure with a Noctua NF-A9 FLX 92mm fan. The kit comes with two speed reducing cables and I am using the one that slows the fan down to 1050 RPM and the fan noise is now much less than the hard drive noise. The supplied three-pin connector for the fan fits the one inside the OWC case so installation was a snap.

I just installed the same on my Thunderbay 8 with spinning drives. Are you worried about the temp increase in the enclosure running the fan at a large decrease in cfm? Or are your drives not getting warm.

 

[Ladd]

I just installed the same on my Thunderbay 8 with spinning drives. Are you worried about the temp increase in the enclosure running the fan at a large decrease in cfm? Or are your drives not getting warm.

I did replace the low speed adapter with the middle speed adapter and was surprised that there was zero change in drive temperature (as reported by Macs Fan Control). On drive reports as 36°C and the other as 34°.

 

[Rr697]

I did replace the low speed adapter with the middle speed adapter and was surprised that there was zero change in drive temperature (as reported by Macs Fan Control). On drive reports as 36°C and the other as 34°.

Ok so you landed on the middle adapter to get the right drive temp? Thanks for the advice.

I’m doing the SoftRaid certification process right now it’s taking 48 hours per pass and I chose 8 passes instead of 3 thinking the whole thing would take 72 hours as OWC said but with 18TB drives looks like it’s 2 days per pass, kinda crazy.

 

[Ladd]

Ok so you landed on the middle adapter to get the right drive temp? Thanks for the advice.

It's not so much that I landed on the right temp, but I knew the full speed original Sunon fan and the replacement Noctua running at full speed were noisier than I wished, so I slowed the Noctua down via the lower speed adapters. Given that there was NO difference in temperature between the slow speed and middle speed and the middle speed noise was more than acceptable, I stuck with the middle speed adapter.

It is certainly possible that the middle speed adapter used with the OEM Sunon fan would also have been acceptable.

 

[weezin]

Bumping an old thread...

I got a Thunderbay 4 and am shocked at how loud it is all of the time. It's a replacement for my Drobo 5D which was much quieter.

Is this fan replacement relatively easy to do? I'm a little worried about voiding my warranty and a little concerned about the drives getting too hot. Any feedback on how this has been for you OP?

 

[Ladd]

It's quite easy and works well, but yes, it will probably void your warranty if you purchased the Thunderbay 4 new ...

 

[Rusted Eyes]

I've now had the four-bay OWC Thunderbay 4 (Thunderbolt 3) enclosure for more than a week and loaded with four spinning drives it has reliably gone to sleep and woken back up numerous times.

Ladd:

I'm curious if you have experienced any sleep // wake issues in the year since posting the original post. What OS are you running? I'm still having intermittent wake issues with a similar 4-bay enclosure. Thanks.