Many people now assemble their own NAS, such as Black Synology and Black QNAP. One big problem is that these types of NAS generally cannot change the brightness of the hard drive LED indicator through the system. As the demand for multi-drive NAS increases, the light pollution from these LEDs becomes more apparent, especially at night. Even if you cover them with a light-blocking strip, the brightness is still quite bothersome.
My NAS is also like this, with a Fractal Design case and 8 mechanical hard drives from Black QNAP. There are too many weak electrical devices in the living room, so I really want to remove the lights. After some research, I found a simple solution to this problem.
First, let's talk about the principle. The hard drive LED of the NAS is actually on the backplane, and the light source is introduced through a light guide strip (said to be based on the principle of refraction), causing the two lights on the front panel of the hard drive tray (power light and activity light) to emit light (as shown in the figure below, picture 1 is borrowed).
Specifically, the hard drive tray in my case looks like this:
Knowing the principle, it's easy to solve the problem. Other types of cases are similar. The key is to find the two transparent plastic light guide strips. To completely turn off the lights, just cover the top of the light source. I used black electrical tape. If you just want to dim the lights, you can use other methods, such as using a permanent marker.
After covering it, it looks like this:
Okay, let's plug in the hard drives and see the effect. The lights should no longer be able to turn on.