Ultimate Silent PC Challenge: SuperMicro SC933

Silencing hard drives, optical drives and other storage devices

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pyite42
Posts: 3
Joined: Tue Dec 08, 2015 9:18 am

Ultimate Silent PC Challenge: SuperMicro SC933

Post by pyite42 » Tue Dec 08, 2015 9:41 am

If you aren't familiar with this beast, here is a review: http://www.servethehome.com/supermicro- ... is-review/

I put this monster in my garage a few years ago because it sounds like a jet engine. I'm finally ready to do what it takes to move it inside. These days it is full of 5900 rpm 4TB Seagate disks.

Are there any examples of a silent 3.5" 15 disk array out there? I am mainly concerned about the heat, but 15 spindles will probably generate some noise too if I'm not careful.

Thanks,
Mark

Abula
Posts: 3662
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 12:22 pm
Location: Guatemala

Re: Ultimate Silent PC Challenge: SuperMicro SC933

Post by Abula » Sun Dec 27, 2015 5:39 pm

15 mechanical and silent doesn't exist, hdds still produce noise, and even at 5400/5900 rpms they will produce some sound. Im running a 16 disk array atm, and to me its tolerable, but not quiet by any means.

If you want to go the extra mile you could try suspending the drives, SPCR did a article some time ago, Testing the System with Nine Suspended HDDs and some have tried this, like clash on page 15 on HDD Elastic Suspension... Show your pics!, but either are 9 drives, to able to fit 15 drives you will need a bigger case or some modding.

Either way for me its not practical, i do a lot of swaping and changing on the server. For me your initial solution was the best, just get a good server case like Norco 4220/4224 and place it as far as you need to be inaudible.

nagi
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Location: Outside the box

Re: Ultimate Silent PC Challenge: SuperMicro SC933

Post by nagi » Mon Dec 28, 2015 5:27 pm

pyite42 wrote:If you aren't familiar with this beast, here is a review: http://www.servethehome.com/supermicro- ... is-review/

I put this monster in my garage a few years ago because it sounds like a jet engine. I'm finally ready to do what it takes to move it inside. These days it is full of 5900 rpm 4TB Seagate disks.

Are there any examples of a silent 3.5" 15 disk array out there? I am mainly concerned about the heat, but 15 spindles will probably generate some noise too if I'm not careful.

Thanks,
Mark
16 In one case? No. Perhaps the best would be multiple towers, with all the HDDs elastically mounted, (as Abula commented) etc, but that would take up a huge space, not to mention a real pita to clean or move. Multi-case rigs are not without precedent though, just exceedingly rare.

With that being said, elastic mounting only eliminates one source of noise (Resonation), which is while half a battle won, is not a complete solution. What is not really audible with 1 or 2 drives can become annoying with 16 (even slow fans and quiet HDD motors.)

xan_user
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Location: Northern California.

Re: Ultimate Silent PC Challenge: SuperMicro SC933

Post by xan_user » Mon Dec 28, 2015 7:00 pm

Welcome to spcr!
pyite42 wrote:I'm finally ready to do what it takes to move it inside.
the 64k question, is why? -normally inhabited space, is exactly where server equipment is NOT supposed to be.

leonroy
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Jun 09, 2016 12:56 am

Re: Ultimate Silent PC Challenge: SuperMicro SC933

Post by leonroy » Thu Jun 09, 2016 1:14 am

I'm actually trying to make one of Supermicro's SC836 16 disk storage arrays as silent as possible. Chassis is this one:
http://www.supermicro.com/products/chas ... A-R920.cfm

It's proving trickier than I thought. Basically due to the backplane density and the tiny airflow channels in the backplane PCB you really can't pull enough air through the chassis with low RPM fans. The static pressure is just too low, especially on a warm day - the disks reach a toasty 50C+.

That said I've been able to make the server a touch louder than a Synology unit (which are very quiet indeed) by swapping the midplane fans with lower RPM units (FAN-0074L4) and running all of them off a fan controller which keeps the speeds around 2000 rpm. I don't have a temperature based PWM controller but I'd imagine you could setup a profile to run them around 1500rpm and ramp up which would put it on par with Synology.

Again, not silent but quiet enough that you won't notice the noise from 6 feet away.

I'm using an Intel low voltage Xeon CPU to keep power consumption and temps down, as well as SATA drives. I have another unit with an identical spec and SAS drives and that seems to run a fair bit hotter. Also installed SuperQuiet (SQ) power supplies which made a very big difference.

If you ever crack open a Synology RackStation you'll see that the backplane is basically three PCB 'strips' which are the width of the drives. As a result there are big gaps to allow airflow above and below each PCB strip. On top of that the Synology units have fairly intelligent temperature/fan parameters which ramp the fans up gradually in response to temperature variations.

pyite42
Posts: 3
Joined: Tue Dec 08, 2015 9:18 am

Re: Ultimate Silent PC Challenge: SuperMicro SC933

Post by pyite42 » Fri May 26, 2017 7:31 am

HAHA it is funny to go back and see this post. I ended up putting the SC933 in the garage. It is really only suitable for a deaf person. :?

My current desktop is a Zalman TNN500AF, with a SuperMicro X10SRi-F, Xeon E5-2609 v3, and a GTX 970. I may need to switch to a GTX1060 just to reduce power a bit. I was thinking it would be fun to use the chipset block/pipe with an old end-of-lifed Fusion-IO card but I think the poor little 400 watt power supply would melt.

These cases are the best invention ever! My biggest complaint is that the SuperMicro POST takes about 20 seconds before activating the video. I can't tell if the machine is on or off while it is powering up since the power LED is burned out.

I only have one problem -- it was missing a couple of the Zalman TNN heat pipes. Any idea where to find them? I think they have a 7mm diameter.

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