Making SuperMicro CSE-846 4U quieter and cool

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

Hello,
I recently (6 days ago) changed home, I live in a condo. In the previous home I had a fairly isolated room where the server could unleash all its noise, but in the new home the noise has been a bit more problematic.

Specs:
- CPU: Intel Xeon E5-2650 v2 @ 2.60 GHz
- Memory: Micron 64GB 6x16GB 2Rx4 PC3L-12800R DDR3-1600 MHz 240pin 1.35v ECC Registered Memory
- Motherboard: SuperMicro X9DRi-F
- Chassis: SuperMicro CSE-846
- PSU: 2x PSU LSI9750-8i
- Fans: the ones that comes with the chassis, including the plastic thing that covers the CPUs

Budget: 1000$ CAD (I can wait and have a bigger budget if needed)

The NAS is located in a wardrobe at the home entrance with the door closed. Size of the wardrobe are:
240 (height), 140 length 62 width cm. The door of the wardrobe starts at 45cm from the left side and goes all the way to the "end" (roughly 95cm wide)

Attached is a floorplan of my home. As you can see the server is in the bottom right corner of the map. (ignore the position of desks/pc, we have some construction going on and that's the place where we put stuff temporarily).

The server makes two type of noises: a constant higher-pitched noise from some fans and a much "lower-pitched" fan noise (humming). The annoying one is the high pitched noise and I speculate this is caused by the PSU, not by the fans of the chassis. I'd like confirmation before I consider doing something for the PSU (based on my research on the forums, this appears to be the case).

The HDD temperatures are between 37 and 39, so "on the edge", I imagine the wardrobe is not a nice environment.

Question 1:
How can I reduce the noise?

Question 2 (optional):
How can I improve the cooling without increasing the noise? I suspect getting fresh air from outside the wardrobe would be very helpful (as well as blowing hot air back in the home). I'm fine with 37 to 39 but I noticed when scrubbing, it gets to 42 degrees.

My take so far:
- PSUs should be replaced with the quieter ones. Any ideas which are the model parts I'm looking for?
- HDDs are running a little bit hot
- I can install some "sound dampening panels" on the inner part of the door of the wardrobe. I'm terrible at DIY, but it might be needed, however my wife was pointing out that if I don't seal the edge of the door, noise will get out. If I seal the edges, the airflow will be terrible though, how to solve this?
- The noise is greater in the "kids bedroom" (they actually sleep with us, but we often have guests in that bedroom with the single twin bed)
- I read that there are air-blowers that could help sucking air in-and-out of the wardrobe while keeping the door close. Is that really a thing? Can somebody provide a link? How noisy are these?
- Should I lay the server flat and stack stuff on top of it? (how much weight can it hold?) This would "free up" the lateral air intakes

Facts:
- The doors of the rooms unfortunately must be left open during summer, which is the major cause for noise traveling
- Right now I have 8 drives installed, but to run backups I literally plug 4 additional drives to backup my pools using a replication task from the UI. Haven't found a better alternative so far, so an alternative 9+-bay case is an option, but I would need to run backups one-by-one (this is an acceptable tradeoff). I would be somewhat sad to drop the 16-bays (addressing my space needs for my entire life), but noise is indeed important
- I have the option of moving the server in the living room. This translates into way better airflow, but it would need to be extremely quiet (like a desktop PC), I considered this a good alternative if I changed the fans and maybe bought one of those mini "super quiet mini rack wardrobes", but I have no experience with these

Notice that I'm located in Canada (ebay for server parts is a bit more annoying).

Attached the photos of:
- The side of the couch, where the server would be if I moved it into the livign room. Ignore the big black plastic bags, I just moved in, those will be gone. It's 47cm wide and length could be whatever I want it to be
- Photos of the wardrobe where it's currently located. Forgive the mess, again I just moved in, many things shouldn't be in here and cables are definitely not going to stay as is.

Note: I don't have a decibel reading right now, I purchased and SPL meter and will provide some data as soon as available

 

[blanchet]

I think that it is quite impossible to reduce the noise with such an hardware.

I have such 4U Supermicro servers in the datacenter and even with with the air cooling they are noisy.
If you want to keep the hardware at an acceptable temperature (<32 deg Celsius) you have to run the fans at full speed all the time.
At 40 degree Celsius your hard drives will quickly age and then fail.
To reduce the noise, you have to switch to a very different hardware like the TrueNAS Mini XL or HPE Microserver Gen10plus.

 

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

I think that it is quite impossible to reduce the noise with such an hardware.

I have such 4U Supermicro servers in the datacenter and even with with the air cooling they are noisy.
If you want to keep the hardware at an acceptable temperature (<32 deg Celsius) you have to run the fans at full speed all the time.
At 40 degree Celsius your hard drives will quickly age and then fail.
To reduce the noise, you have to switch to a very different hardware like the TrueNAS Mini XL or HPE Microserver Gen10plus.

Thank you for the response. I'm not sure if this is clear from my post, I'm open to replace parts as needed (e. g. Fans, heatsink).

From my understanding, an acceptable operating temperature is between 30 and 40 degrees. This is the hottest time of the year, so running closer to 40, I don't expect that to be the case the rest of the time. (2 months/year is hot)

 

[nabsltd]

I'm open to replace parts as needed

The fans in the hot swap "trays" in that chassis can be replaced with any 80mm fan. You would likely have to do some surgery on the fan cable to reduce its length, as the included fans have a very short cable. But, they use standard 4-pin PWM plugs.

You can also completely remove the stock fan wall and replace it with a 3D printed version that holds 120mm fans.

 

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

The fans in the hot swap "trays" in that chassis can be replaced with any 80mm fan. You would likely have to do some surgery on the fan cable to reduce its length, as the included fans have a very short cable. But, they use standard 4-pin PWM plugs.

You can also completely remove the stock fan wall and replace it with a 3D printed version that holds 120mm fans.

Thank you.

What about the PSU? It seems like that can be replaced with a different model for a great reduction of noise, but i can't find the alternative parts

 

[nabsltd]

What about the PSU? It seems like that can be replaced with a different model for a great reduction of noise, but i can't find the alternative parts

The PWS-1K23A-SQ or PWS-1K28P-SQ might work. Both are "super quiet" power supplies, and the pin out and size seem to be the same as the ones that come with the 846 chassis. You can find them for less than $50, so you might want to try one and see if it works.

 

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

The PWS-1K23A-SQ or PWS-1K28P-SQ might work. Both are "super quiet" power supplies, and the pin out and size seem to be the same as the ones that come with the 846 chassis. You can find them for less than $50, so you might want to try one and see if it works.

Ok, that might do it. What about those blackbox racks? I know those are expensive, I wonder if there is one that can fit a single 4U server. That might be a valid option. Unfortunately I can only find expensive that fits too many servers

 

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

The PWS-1K23A-SQ or PWS-1K28P-SQ might work. Both are "super quiet" power supplies, and the pin out and size seem to be the same as the ones that come with the 846 chassis. You can find them for less than $50, so you might want to try one and see if it works.

As a heads up, the PSU model for my server, PDB-PT846-8824 is not PWD-1K28P-SQ (incompatible), but PWS-920P-SQ

 

[Scharbag]

I fought that battle with that case - I am afraid it will end poorly for you. That case needs airflow. The only way do get that is with differential pressure. With smaller fans, this needs RPM. I tried a number of options and in the end, I sold the case and went back to Norco with 120mm fans.

Derp - I had the 847 case, not the 846.

I wish you good luck though!!

 

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

I fought that battle with that case - I am afraid it will end poorly for you. That case needs airflow. The only way do get that is with differential pressure. With smaller fans, this needs RPM. I tried a number of options and in the end, I sold the case and went back to Norco with 120mm fans.

I wish you good luck though!!

What did you try, did you go all the way into replacing the fan wall and putting the "front shroud" like this blog post? https://jro.io/nas/

I'm trying to figure out what's the cheapest way to get to my goal (quiet and cool), which doesn't disregard the idea of changing case. So before I jump in and try to replace all the fans and heatsink, I'd like to hear others' experience!

 

[Scharbag]

I think that it is quite impossible to reduce the noise with such an hardware.

I have such 4U Supermicro servers in the datacenter and even with with the air cooling they are noisy.
If you want to keep the hardware at an acceptable temperature (<32 deg Celsius) you have to run the fans at full speed all the time.
At 40 degree Celsius your hard drives will quickly age and then fail.
To reduce the noise, you have to switch to a very different hardware like the TrueNAS Mini XL or HPE Microserver Gen10plus.

I have 8 year old drives and every summer they get to 50C-51C for some short periods. Most of the year they run under 40C. I have not had any accelerated failures running at these temperatures.

Cheers,

 

[Scharbag]

What did you try, did you go all the way into replacing the fan wall and putting the "front shroud" like this blog post? https://jro.io/nas/

I'm trying to figure out what's the cheapest way to get to my goal (quiet and cool), which doesn't disregard the idea of changing case. So before I jump in and try to replace all the fans and heatsink, I'd like to hear others' experience!

I did not go that far. And I am mistaken, I had the 847 case, not the 846. So perhaps with the 120mm conversions shown, you can make the case more like my Norco cases for noise.

My 826 case is bearable but it is in the garage. It would never be allowed into the house, my wife would find it way too loud. My Norco cases are pretty quiet but they are just for JBODs.

Cheers,

 

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

I did not go that far. And I am mistaken, I had the 847 case, not the 846. So perhaps with the 120mm conversions shown, you can make the case more like my Norco cases for noise.

My 826 case is bearable but it is in the garage. It would never be allowed into the house, my wife would find it way too loud. My Norco cases are pretty quiet but they are just for JBODs.

Cheers,

I swapped the PSU and the difference is enormous. Not even comparable. Before it was like having a garbage truck always active in the home, while now I cannot hear the server even at full speed when in the living room, let alone the bedroom (I was able to hear it LOUDLY in the bedroom before)

 

[Scharbag]

I swapped the PSU and the difference is enormous. Not even comparable. Before it was like having a garbage truck always active in the home, while now I cannot hear the server even at full speed when in the living room, let alone the bedroom (I was able to hear it LOUDLY in the bedroom before)

Nice. I found my 847 case was loud due to the small, high speed fans in the case. IIRC there were 7 of them? Something like that anyway.

My 826 case seems loud due to my active cpu fans. They are not terrible though. And given it is in the garage, it is not a big deal.

 

[jgreco]

What did you try, did you go all the way into replacing the fan wall and putting the "front shroud" like this blog post? https://jro.io/nas/

I'm trying to figure out what's the cheapest way to get to my goal (quiet and cool), which doesn't disregard the idea of changing case. So before I jump in and try to replace all the fans and heatsink, I'd like to hear others' experience!

Before you do any of the stupid things suggested in this thread, please go read posts I've made that talk about "static pressure" differential (use search). When you sabotage the designer's cooling design, things go wrong. A 2U CSE826 or 4U CSE846 is a 4-drive-wide unit, and the only way for a fully loaded unit to be cooled is to pull air through the sub-millimeter gaps around the drives. Due to the fluidic friction effect that the drives and chassis have on the air, this requires a lot of energy and a large static pressure differential. Sabotaging the carefully designed cooling system in these chassis may turn your NAS into an Easy-Bake Oven for hard drives, which is a super-costly mistake that can shorten drive lifespan or even ruin drives. Overheated drives do not qualify for RMA service in most cases.

If you can guarantee that you are running in a sufficiently cool environment, and you're using low speed 5900RPM drives, you might be able to get away with some of the janky things people suggest to quiet these cases down, but many of them are not particularly robust strategies for the health of your system.

You can create a quieter CSE-846 by installing only 12 of the 24 drives in an alternating pattern, so that every other drive bay is empty, making every installed drive surrounded by empty bays. If you do this, it is generally quite safe to replace your industrial grade Supermicro fans with quieter fans, although the quieter fans will probably not live as long as your NAS -- most are designed for just a few years of service life. You will also need to replace the power supplies, the PWS-920P-SQ is probably the go-to PSU module for quieter systems. You may also need to replace the CPU cooler fans and make appropriate tweaks to your IPMI to drive the fans at a lower speed.

I discuss all of these things elsewhere on these forums at length, feel free to search.

 

[Scharbag]

Before you do any of the stupid things suggested in this thread, please go read posts I've made that talk about "static pressure" differential (use search). When you sabotage the designer's cooling design, things go wrong. A 2U CSE826 or 4U CSE846 is a 4-drive-wide unit, and the only way for a fully loaded unit to be cooled is to pull air through the sub-millimeter gaps around the drives. Due to the fluidic friction effect that the drives and chassis have on the air, this requires a lot of energy and a large static pressure differential. Sabotaging the carefully designed cooling system in these chassis may turn your NAS into an Easy-Bake Oven for hard drives, which is a super-costly mistake that can shorten drive lifespan or even ruin drives. Overheated drives do not qualify for RMA service in most cases.

If you can guarantee that you are running in a sufficiently cool environment, and you're using low speed 5900RPM drives, you might be able to get away with some of the janky things people suggest to quiet these cases down, but many of them are not particularly robust strategies for the health of your system.

You can create a quieter CSE-846 by installing only 12 of the 24 drives in an alternating pattern, so that every other drive bay is empty, making every installed drive surrounded by empty bays. If you do this, it is generally quite safe to replace your industrial grade Supermicro fans with quieter fans, although the quieter fans will probably not live as long as your NAS -- most are designed for just a few years of service life. You will also need to replace the power supplies, the PWS-920P-SQ is probably the go-to PSU module for quieter systems. You may also need to replace the CPU cooler fans and make appropriate tweaks to your IPMI to drive the fans at a lower speed.

I discuss all of these things elsewhere on these forums at length, feel free to search.

Preach brother. Physics is a bitch. Some fans are well designed and generate a good pressure differential without as much noise, but in the end, to get air to flow, you need a dP! There is no way to generate big dP without some noise.

120mm fans are not good at generating dP as that is not their use case. They generate small dP as it is expected they run in locations with low pressure losses. When the case is restrictive, they do not work well. I have my Norco 4224 set to MAX fan speed with a 120mm fan wall, plus 2 80mm fans, used as a JBOD, and it barely keeps my drives cool. Super micro cases from my experience are much more restrictive than Norco due to much better SAS expanders/backplanes.

My current super micro case has fans running at 4500 RPM right now and it is not really working hard. It is what it is.

Anyway, good advice here to not compromise your cooling by trying to be too quiet.