On Wed, Jan 06, 2016 at 10:17:46PM -0800, Rick Moen wrote:
Quoting Craig Sanders (cas@taz.net.au):
FYI, i saw this while reading the FAQ on http://quietpc.com.au/ - sound dampening server racks. probably horribly/scarily expensive. http://www.acoustiproducts.com/en/quiet_rack_cabinets.asp
Novel concept.
yeah, that's what i thought...hadn't seen quiet racks before. as the web site says, if the rack is quiet enough, it can be much cheaper than setting up a proper server room.
When I learned that, I immediately replaced the three 80mm case fans on my VA Linux Systems model 2230 2U rackmount unit at home with much better ones from Antec -- and it immediately became very significantly quieter and almost certainly ran cooler and lasted longer.
yep, i've done the same thing with numerous servers...cuts the noise down from screaming jet engine to about the same as a normal desktop machine - and the fans tend to be better too, both more reliable and better at cooling. big name brand servers (intel, dell, hp, etc) often make it difficult by using proprietary parts and, worse, proprietary connectors and cables. and non-standard sizes. all sorts of crappy little tricks to make it difficult to swap in third-party parts. 2nd tier brands like supermicro, you can pretty much use standard third-party fans (noctua make some excellent quiet fans, e.g. 120mm fans blowing 60, 70 CFM or more at under 18db or so). i suppose they have to, their stuff would be too expensive if they couldn't source commodity parts, while the big names obviously think the lock-in is worth charging their customers more for (partly because their customers don't care too much about price, they're covering their arses by buying big-name brands that their bosses recognise).
But I still say, if you really want a quiet server, the only really effective way to do so is choose motherboard, SoC, chassis, and mass storage that has a low enough heat load that either passive cooling only or minimal fan ventilation suffices. And, for fan cooling, don't forget that larger fans tend to be much quieter than small ones (as they move more air at lower RPMs).
yep. the reason i was looking into quiet fans again was that my partner and i had to rebuild her desktop machine yesterday (CPU died a few weeks back just before i went into hospital, and i've recovered enough now from surgery to do stuff like this again. we ended up replacing CPU, m/b, and RAM - was overdue for an upgrade anyway). the drive is a 2.5" SSD which had just been hanging loose in the case (no need to worry about vibration or over-heating with SSDs). installed a 2.5" 4-drive hot-swap bay i had lying around (a cheap vantec ezswap). being cheap, the vantec unit naturally comes with a noisy 40mm fan. which MUST be replaced. found a decent one for $10 or so, can't remember the brand/model now (scythe mini or something like that). Could probably get away with just disabling the fan because it's only a single SSD in the system (will add another later for raid-1), but $10 for a quiet fan is reasonable. also wanted to replace the OK-ish case fan that came with the case with a very quiet noctua NF-S12A.
Another antique I keep is a VA Research StartX MP (VA Research Corporation being VA Linux Systems's name until 2000). It has a PII-based (Intel N440BX 'Nightshade') motherboard and a 200mm case fan,
my main desktop machine has an Antec 1200 case (as does my myth server - mostly so they have an abundance of drive bays for ZFS - using Lian Li hot swap bays), which has a giant 240mm fan at the top of it, as well as a pair of 120mm fans on the back.
which I long ago upgraded with a quality replacement. With the aftermarket fan, it's ultra-cool and almost completely silent, and some day I hope to make it a 'stealth' modern workstation with a 2010s
why 2010 when 2015/2016 stuff is so much better, cooler, less power, and faster? like that AMD APU we were talking about last year sometime. but not cheaper when you can get 2010 gear for free or nearly free.
I'll probably put an Antec or Cooler Master replacement PSU there.
yep, two quite decent brands for PSUs. Thermaltake's OK too. craig -- craig sanders <cas@taz.net.au>