ronrem wrote:Get some fairly thick carpet,put all the machines on it. You could put foam or even bubblewrap underneath. Get the machines lined up and do a carpeted plywood panel to put on the wall behind them all.
Excellent.
ronrem wrote:
It is SERIOUSLY time to consolidate. You could assemble a setup with a multi-terrabite raid,or dual raids on a Venice or Opteron. The ECS KV2 or KN-1 mobos support a 4 disc SATA raid,A 2 disc SATA raid,and some IDE with,on the NF4 board the ability to do a mixed SATA-IDE Raid. Get it set up to where you can start transferring all that data,files etc to the new machine. The OLD dual pentium rig wont last forever,there is a lifespan,and much of it's is used up. Odds are you have quite a few OLD HD's that are 5400 rpm and small by modern standards. I have seen a major improvement in HDD reliability and lifespan from 4-5 yrs ago.
Sure, I could. I don't really understand why I would want to do that, though. The machines are already as consolidated as is practically possible.
1) Workstation -- This one's obvious; It's my 24/7 desktop and development platform
2) Gaming system and only Microsoft Windows box; I hate dual booting
3) Router; Could be consolidated onto something like a Linksys WRT54G, but I prefer the flexability of a full Debian GNU/Linux install for my router; It has a four port NIC for added network flexability (Internet / WLAN / LAN / Testin)
4) Dedicated file server sharing out files via NFS and CIFS for Windows laptops and desktop; Handles all email; accessible remotely via IMAPS/SquirrelMail; Internal DNS; p2p; ect
5) Dedicated backup server; Backups up all the above; handles secondary DNS; Potential failover for 4); Physically separate box with dedicated storage for backup (running Dirvish, actually)
I can't think of any better way to consolidate the configuration above. I hate dual booting, so migrating my workstation to the Windows gaming box is out.
I also don't believe in performing backups to a disk array in the same system that you're primarily backing up. I could setup an external USB2 based RAID array, but that's expensive and the fileserver would need a USB2 card.
I like the flexability of my dedicated Debian GNU/Linux router and don't want to give it up, as it handles traffic shaping, firewalling, and miscellaneous network play toys. Best consolidation for it would probably be a solid state disk as I can log to a network logger or RAM disk and I don't need any storage capacity at all. (It runs a 4GB SCSI.)
ronrem wrote:
You have,I think,convinced yourself that this sprawling collection of old gear is somewat nessecery. It is not. You CERTAINLY can reload everything into 2 machines,maybe one. You DO NOT NEED 10+ chattering HDDs and a half dozen funky 5000 rpm fans and a bunch of old 250 w PSUs and gawd knows how many generic case fans scrambling up the peace and serenetity of your world. Now BASIC CHEAP ENTRY-LEVEL stuff vastly outperforms those oldies anddoes so at less power comsumption,less noise...by far.
It's certainly possible, but I don't believe that's an approach I want to take. See above.
Actually, the stuff isn't old, either.
The newest box is the gaming box, which is an inexpensive Socket 754 based Sempron 64-bit CPU based running on a Biostar board. It has an -- unfortunately -- fanned 6600GT from eVGA. This system need not always be on, though.
My workstation is still a solid running XP 1800+ box with 1GB of PC2700. It does have a 9GB SCSI system disk I am considering consolidating into a RAID 1 2 x 40GB Linux software RAID configuration, but this is more for redudancy and performance than noise. (Running a SCSI controller on the same legacy PCI bus as the ATA controller is a bit silly.)
While somewhat older, the other three systems are well suited to their dedicated tasks. (Anyone that thinks a firewall can be consolidated onto a single machine is nuts.) I don't need a brand new, entry level Socket 754 box to serve as a firewall. That's just nuts.
What's more, short of a PCIe solution, any modern system still running legacy PCI (but not PCI 64/66 or PCI-X) will get easily toasted by my ServerWorks IIILE based fileserver for I/O peformance. I have a dedicated 64/33 slot running the 3Ware 7500-4 PATA controller backed by four WD 120GB disks in a RAID 5 configuration.
The backup server, while an outdated P3 slot 1 design, need only pull files from each machine, nightly, and back them up to my dedicated backup array. The machine is seperate so an electrical failure in any one machine won't compromise it. If the backup system is compromised, I still have DVD-R backups and the running systems themselves. Obviously, a catastrophic failure might still destroy all data, but none of it's so important as to keep off-site backups...
In any event, I appreciate the suggestions, but I have already ruled out reducing the quantity of machines in my existing setup. I am happy with the setup as it is. As I stated in the OP maximum noise reduction is not the objective, but rather a reasonable reduction in noise to the previous levels in my carpeted house, albeit quite loud at even that level.
Thanks to everyone who's offered a solution or suggest thus far!