Silverstone DS380 + Replacement Noctua Fans

[D-Tijori]

Hope everyones having a good weekend.

Recently built myself a NAS server with the hardware mentioned in my signature. Was working well until the ambient temperature (due to start of Summer), starting going up. And so did my HDD temps. (Min: 35C; Max: 43C-45C under load). So, per my research for the WD Reds and HDD's in general, thought of changing the cabinet (side) fans with Noctua & the rear exhaust fan with Noctua NF-P12 PWM(*2 & rear exhaust fan with Noctua S12A PWM. All well and good until I started the system.

Issue(s): Went through the whole spin-up & spin-down issue and went ahead and applied the solution by learning to adjust the thresholds for all three fans (took about 10 hours to find the sweet spot). All good now with a very quite system. A big thanks for all the effort by multiple people by the by.

However, now the issue is due to the location of the drive cage with respect to the fan headers on this particular MB, and the lower RPM's of the side fans due to them being PWM (CPU temperature controlled), the drives temperatures have shot up from previous high of 45C to close to 50'C. This is a complete no-no for longer life of any HDD I understand.

Hence, looking for some insights into what can be done at this point.
1. Should I just go back to the fans which came with the case? (all three non-PWM with 1100-1200 RPM constant speeds)
2. Should try getting non-PWM Ncctua fans?
3. Should try different Noctua fans?

Any help is appreciated.

 

[boynep]

On a mobile cannot see your signature. What motherboard is this for ? If it is supermicro there are scripts available in this forum to control fans based on HDD and cpu temp which is what I use and works perfectly.

Sent from my SM-N910G using Tapatalk

 

[D-Tijori]

Motherboard & Platform: Supermicro Mini-ATX - X10SDV-TLN4F (with Intel XeonCPU D-1541 @ 2.10GHz)

Have already done the fan RPM threshold scripts. So anything besides will be willing to try.

 

[Stux]

Fairly certain the X10SDV supports two fanzones. You should use my hybrid cpu/fan controller script. But I think the second fanzone is FAN4, rather than FANA.

https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/script-hybrid-cpu-hd-fan-zone-controller.46159/

This will allow you to run the CPU fan based on the CPU temperature, and the HD fans based on the HD temperature.

 

[D-Tijori]

Correct. There isnt a FANA per se (http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/xeon/d/x10sdv-tln4f.cfm).

FAN3 & FAN4 headers are beside each other on the back of the MB while looking at the MB from I/O panel side backwards to the right side and FAN1 is to the left side. FAN2 header is what powers CPU fan.

Saw your effort on the provided link. Kudos.

However, before I dive into it...is it meant for an ITX cabinet? Since your undertaking looks dedicated for a rack mounted chassis where you can actually mount the fans directly to the back of the HDD bays. One of the main challenges for my build is the cabinet and how the drive bay is located vis-a-vis MB. Even under heavy load, FAN3 & FAN4 are not being prodded to ramp up the RPM's enough to constantly cool the HDD's (perhaps due to them being connected to the CPU temperature per various other posts here). The reason for this, as I see it, is due to the distance between the MB sensor for FAN3 & FAN4 and the HDD drive cage. It just does not seem to be close enough to report the increase in temperature.

Only true way around this which came to my mind, and correct me if I am wrong but what you have achieved with your script I think, is to somehow relate FAN3 and FAN4 RPM as a function of HDD temperature (i.e. increase the RPM's when the HDD temperature go up and vice versa).

 

[Stux]

Correct. There isnt a FANA per se (http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/xeon/d/x10sdv-tln4f.cfm).

FAN3 & FAN4 headers are beside each other on the back of the MB while looking at the MB from I/O panel side backwards to the right side and FAN1 is to the left side. FAN2 header is what powers CPU fan.

The key is that these supermicro boards provide two fanzones, and the individual fanzones can be controlled separately by software. I believe (and I could be wrong) that FAN4 is a different fanzone to FAN1,2 and 3.

Saw your effort on the provided link. Kudos.

However, before I dive into it...is it meant for an ITX cabinet? Since your undertaking looks dedicated for a rack mounted chassis where you can actually mount the fans directly to the back of the HDD bays. One of the main challenges for my build is the cabinet and how the drive bay is located vis-a-vis MB. Even under heavy load, FAN3 & FAN4 are not being prodded to ramp up the RPM's enough to constantly cool the HDD's (perhaps due to them being connected to the CPU temperature per various other posts here). The reason for this, as I see it, is due to the distance between the MB sensor for FAN3 & FAN4 and the HDD drive cage. It just does not seem to be close enough to report the increase in temperature.

By default, the fans on a supermicro board are controlled by the CPU temperature. You want them to be controlled by both the cpu temperature, and the hd temperature. This is what my script does.

Yes, the script was designed for a rackmount case, but at the end of the day there's really only two configurations

1) the HDs are cooled by HD fans which also have an effect on the CPU cooling, which is cooled by CPU fans

2) the HDs are cooled by HD fans which do not have an effect on the CPU cooling.

The script supports both options.

Then the trick is to connect your HD fans to the HD fan cooling zone header, and the CPU fans to the CPU fan zone cooling header(s), and configure the script.

ALSO, the DS380 does not have optimal air-flow layout, you should investigate this link:
https://blog.brianmoses.net/2017/04/creating-a-cooling-duct-for-the-silverstone-ds380.html

Brian designed a duct to resolve that issue, and its provided for sale for $12. Worth acquiring.

Only true way around this which came to my mind, and correct me if I am wrong but what you have achieved with your script I think, is to somehow relate FAN3 and FAN4 RPM as a function of HDD temperature (i.e. increase the RPM's when the HDD temperature go up and vice versa).

Exactly. And yes, that's essentially what the script does. It controls one fanzone based on the CPU temperature, and it controls the other fanzone based on the HD temperatures. And then it has interactions between the two, and a bunch of safety features.

On many SM boards, the first fanzone is FAN1,2,3,4 and FANA is the auxilary fan zone, or the second one. You can only control the RPMs (actually the PWM duty cycle) on a per fanzone basis.

On the XeonD boards, FANA does not exist, and instead, FAN4 is the secondary fan zone (iirc). Someone posted in that thread about it.

The script can be configured for this scenario.

 

[D-Tijori]

Was also thinking a bit of aero mod to direct escaping air after further 2 hour observation following incense air path. Will give it a go first.

 

[nojohnny101]

This case is notoriously bad with cooling until you do the mod referenced here:
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/photo-files-corrupted-randomly.36519/page-2#post-224091
Here is another post on the same procedure:
https://forums.lime-technology.com/topic/42109-sff-silverstone-ds380-build/

After doing this I saw my temps drop by around 10C.

 

[ShimadaRiku]

Hope everyones having a good weekend.



However, now the issue is due to the location of the drive cage with respect to the fan headers on this particular MB, and the lower RPM's of the side fans due to them being PWM (CPU temperature controlled), the drives temperatures have shot up from previous high of 45C to close to 50'C. This is a complete no-no for longer life of any HDD I understand.

Hence, looking for some insights into what can be done at this point.
1. Should I just go back to the fans which came with the case? (all three non-PWM with 1100-1200 RPM constant speeds)
2. Should try getting non-PWM Ncctua fans?
3. Should try different Noctua fans?

Any help is appreciated.

http://www.noisemagic.com/index.php?cPath=4

I use these nifty hardware fan controller along with my Noctua F12 fans. My ASRock E3C224D4I-14S motherboard control fan speeds based on CPU temp and didn't have a way to do it based on HDD. NoiseMagic NMT-3 is small, can be tucked anywhere, fan curve is linear from 28C to 42C which is ideal range for HDD. I use a thermal probe to measure the HDD temp.

 

[coolnodje]

Jumping late on this thread that bears the perfect title for my question: I want to replace DS380 original fans with Noctua fans, purely to get a more silent machine.

My 6 HDD all run bet. 34 to 38C. at rest, at the moment.

Any reason why one would use the non-case fans F12 or P12?
My understanding is that the 3 fans included in the DS380 can all be considered "case" fans and should be logically replaced by either NF-S12A or NF-S12B, and possibly by the new good-for-all NF-A12. See https://noctua.at/en/which_fan_is_right_for_me

Assuming the "case" fans are the most fitted for the DS380, since there are 2 fans flowing air IN and one only OUT, my real question is :
shouldn't the flowing air OUT rear fan be twice as powerful as the flowing air IN ones?

Then it would make sense to use lower 2 noise generation fans NF-S12B redux-700 or NF-S12A ULN and a regular one for the output, or am I mistaken in my reasoning?

Taking twice the NF-S12B redux-700 airflow of ~56m3/h and the NF-S12A FLX for an output of ~107m3/h, we would get IN and OUT flow pretty much even?

Or would I get this behaviour "out of the box" with 3 PWN fans ? Regulation would be such that the flowing IN fans would run at the lowest and OUT fan just twice as fast (assuming 3 identical fans)? I guess not, unless these are regulated by a script that would take this into account.

 

[ShimadaRiku]

For intake fan you want strong static pressure to push air through the drive cage. Hence, I replaced my NF-F12 for NF-A12x25, quieter and cooler.

Intake fans will be restricted by filter & drive cage. So the two fans will equal out the one exhaust fan. BTW, the stock intake filter is very restrictive. Remove, replace or snip off the hexagon grill leaving only the mesh.

 

[coolnodje]

I realize I have an ASRock C2550D4I in my DS380, and the intake fans are plugged on the drive cages 3pins plug, which can't do fan speed control.
Do I have a way to control the speed of the 2 intake fans from the ASRock? I supposed these fans are exposed so that they can be controlled from the OS.
Any well known option for ASRock ?
I found this on Github: https://github.com/desbma/hddfancontrol Python based, so should work.