WD My Cloud EX2 - Fan Problem - Manual Control

Context:

WD My Cloud EX2 8TB

Problem:

Fan speed is always at 0 RPM even when the temperature gets around 56 degrees Celsius.  I thought it was just a defective unit, so I called Western Digital to get a replacement.  Unfortunately, the replacement had the same problem.

Side note:  you have to pay for shipping to return the old unit to them.  I thought that they would send me a prepaid label, but that wasn't the case.  I paid around $20 for UPS shipping.

Solution:

The problem is a software one.  To manually control the fan, you will have to ssh in and run the fan.

First to enable SSH, go to Settings -> Network, under Network Services, you will find SSH.  Turn that on.  You will get a warning about voiding the warranty.  This warning stopped me first time for not going in.

Anyway, if you decide to proceed and configure your SSH.

I'm using a Mac, so from my terminal, I run

ssh sshd@[name of your unit here]

Once you're in, there's a command call "fan_control"

fan_control -h

Will give you a list of options

*** Fan Cobtrol Help Message ***

fan_control b c: for NAS booting

fan_control 0 d : [auto] open debug msg

fan_control 0 c : [auto] close debug msg

fan_control -L [value] : set Lower (THYST)

fan_control -H [value] : set Upper(TOS)

fan_control -g 0 : get current temperature

fan_control -g 1 : get Lower temperature

fan_control -g 2 : get Upper temperature

fan_control -g 3 : get fan state

fan_control -g 4 : get fan rpm

fan_control -f 0 : set fan stop

fan_control -f 1 : set fan rpm4000

fan_control -f 2 : set fan rpm5000

fan_control -f 3 : set fan rpm6000

fan_control -f 4 : set fan rpm7000

fan_control -f 5 : set fan rpm8000

fan_control -f 6 : set fan rpm9000

Now as you can see, to get the current temperature, you run

fan_control -g 0

To set the fan speed at rpm4000, you can run

fan_control -f 1

To stop, run

fan_control -f 0

And friends, that's how you can manually control it.

If you want to monitor the temperature, say every minute, included is another utility called "watch" that you can use.

watch -n 60 fan_control -g 0

Here, I'm saying that gives me the temperature every minute.  60 there is 60 seconds.  To quit, you can simply do Control + C

Hope that they will fix the issue in the next firmware update.