I hate fan noise. Can any 2 bay Synology owners chime in about the noise level?
Thinking of getting a 2 bay Synology, as I would like a RAID 1 NAS for backup and archiving data. I don’t need any other features, I have other devices for that . My Mac Mini is too old to provide decent speed for USB connected drives, plus I want disk redundancy. But I don’t want anything with noisy fans.
I hate fan noise. I think I may have mentioned that… 
Never noticed much in the way of fan noise but mine sits in the basement at my network hub. Since it’s on the network put it somewhere any noise won’t be noticed.
I have two Synology devices (212 & 216j) and they are kept in the basement. That is the beauty of these things is that you can put them somewhere out of the way. They are not quiet, but they don’t seem that noisy either.
My Synology sits in the same room I work in. I have never noticed any fan noise, but when the machine is indexing or doing Raid scrubbing, the device sort of “mumbles” as the drive heads do their thing. (Not an SSD device.)
I’m sensitive to sounds, and easily distracted and annoyed by them. I have a Synology 918+ which is a four bay, and rarely hear anything out of it.
The DS220J looks quiet:
That is me: “Tight Budget” 
Having used the j series in the past, I won’t recommend them. Unless perhaps it’s literally just for a place to store files (in which case, a two bad MyCloud is possibly cheaper). The lower RAM and CPU’s are dog slow if you wanted to use any of the other Synology packages.
Also bear in mind the drives you’re putting in. I saved some money by shucking a drive, and apparently the drive I have runs a bit hotter and louder than some others.
You can also change the fan settings to have full power, cool or quiet mode.
I have the DS220+ and can hear it - it’s the loudest thing in my office as the Mac Mini is now silent. I did place it on a mouse mat as well to reduce transmitted noise, as when it was dong it’s initial photo index, the vibrations transmitted through the shelving unit and could be heard in our hallway downstairs!
It is probably down to the drives you install …
I wasn’t picky about the drives. I just put four “spare” drives (left overs from a decommissioned Drobo) in Synology DS420j and it is very quiet. To ease the initial setup, I plugged it into the network located in my office on a bookshelf. So quiet I never moved it. I run in what Synology calls Quiet Mode.
I’ve seen articles on the web which rate drives by how quiet they are. Maybe take a look. May or may not be true, but …
It’s like your refrigerator – you don’t hear it unitl it stops running…
This x 100. And therefore don’t get the Seagate IronWolf drives. I was initially attracted by the native support to get drive stats read by Synology since they partnered, but they are unbearably loud.
I have good experience with WD Reds so far.
I’ve found that the drives themselves are the source of most noise from my Synology. I bought super quiet fans, thinking I would replace the stock fans for a better noise profile, but I haven’t bothered because I haven’t noticed them.
Thanks everyone for all your input! Good to know that the fans do not add much (if anything) to the noise of the spinning drives. Western Digital Red Plus drives are the drives I was planning on using, as well.