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.
