Looking for a **very quiet** rackmount/rackmountable JBOD enclosure

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jtreble

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Apr 16, 2013
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I need help finding a **very quiet** rackmount/rackmountable JBOD enclosure. Something as quiet as a workstation (I work with a 14U rack right beside me).

It needs to support the following:
- JBOD (I will use this for ZFS-based storage)
- SAS host in/out (i.e., SFF-8088) expander
- 24 @ 6 Gb/s SATA 3.5/2.5 HDDs/SSDs
- dual power supply not required

My head node will be a rackmounted Lenovo D20 Workstation provisioned with an LSI 16-port SAS HBA (9206-16e).

Any recommendations?

John Treble
Ottawa, Canada
 
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Chuckleb

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Mar 5, 2013
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I just purchased this for one of my users and will be purchasing another. He uses it to hot-swap drives that we get from vendors and consolidate/process them so wanted a big drive reader. It has 3-4 fans inside but they are all replaceable with quiet fans. That'll be my project upcoming, to swap them out for some quiet fans and it should be relatively silent.

http://www.pc-pitstop.com/sas_cables_enclosures/scsas156gt.asp

It may not be exactly what you are looking for but it can be interesting and can fit on a shelf. I use this one at home and it's pretty quiet.
 

jtreble

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Apr 16, 2013
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Ottawa, Canada
" I use this one at home and it's pretty quiet."

Chuckleb,

In your opinion would it be quiet enough to work beside (i.e., four feet away in an open rack)?

John Treble
Ottawa, Canada
 

Mike

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May 29, 2012
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Most will probably agree that a Supermicro or Norco-like chassis can be made pretty darn quiet as long as you replace the PSU or run 12v right from the host.
 

nitrobass24

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Dec 26, 2010
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Anything rackmount, out of the box, will not meet your requirements.

If you want to go with something that is not rackmount, there are some options. If you have to have rackmount, a modded norco is probably your best bet.
 

mrkrad

Well-Known Member
Oct 13, 2012
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you would be surprised how quiet this little dl360e with 4x300gb sas drives is! idles at around 80 watts. Now if you expect it to run fine at 80F ambient, yeah it will get loud. Most people run the 60's breaking 70 maybe for rackmount.
 

jtreble

Member
Apr 16, 2013
93
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Ottawa, Canada
Anything rackmount, out of the box, will not meet your requirements.

If you want to go with something that is not rackmount, there are some options. If you have to have rackmount, a modded norco is probably your best bet.

The more I look into this the more I think you're right - I'm going to have to get something custom built.


John Treble
Ottawa, Canada
 

MiniKnight

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Mar 30, 2012
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The more I look into this the more I think you're right - I'm going to have to get something custom built.


John Treble
Ottawa, Canada
Agree with nitrobass24. 120mm fan replacement on a Norco is the best option right now.
 

Lost-Benji

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Jan 21, 2013
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Any rack case can be made quiet if you take the time to replace fans with quieter and more efficient designs.
Most cases are made for enterprise drives that generate more heat than the average joe who is likely to be using green or low-power drives.
Even the Norcos are noisy bastards until you replace the 4x mid-fans with something like Noctura's or Arctic's. Rear fans are only needed if you are running the host system in the rear otherwise can be omitted.

A Norco with 4x quiet fans, a good 700W PSU (you can use a 500 if keen), Chenbro 36-port expander and its mounting plate makes for a simple enclosure. If you really want density, then adding more drives in the void space in rear is possible along with a second expander that will also fit the Chenbro adapter.

I am very much against the 120mm mid-fan plate as this means using bigger fans designed to more more air. The drive bays when populated are very restrictive to airflow and usually result in the 120mm fans stalling or cavitation.
I have tested this theory myself and proven it before, good quality 80mm fans can be quiet while still flowing more air than the 120mm options.

While at it, DON'T run the rear 80mm fans that come with the case, they are both very noisy but also move large volumes of airflow resulting in a partial vacuum in the rear section. This seems trivial but when you have a ATX PSU that has a 120 or 140mm fan that is ALWAYS to slow and guttless, it results in bugger-all airflow through the PSU or even reverse flow.

I always mod my PSU's in rack enclosures to either get higher traction (static pressure) fans or aim for end-flow PSU's with 80mm fans like the bigger Antec's.
 
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Lost-Benji

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Jan 21, 2013
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Yeah, the nocies do come up on paper but still hard to get airflow around the drives.

They worked OK for me when I had 4+ drive bays empty (cages in holes, just no drives in them) but soon choked and I found my drives went 4+ degrees warmer than with 80's. Noise was the same roughly and certainly below the noise of a video card...lol
If you were filling the bays with low-profile drives then it would be a very different story.


Another trick with them is to knock out half the little plastic ribs in the front of the drive cages. This allows better airflow past them.
 

PigLover

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Jan 26, 2011
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Probably more important than the difference between 120mm and 80mm fans is sealing up all the "extra" holes in the mid-plane where air can backflow. The extra cable penetrations, etc. While the 120s move more air than the 80s, they move it more slowly and in doing so create more opportunity for air to just circulate between the front and back compartments instead of having outside air pulled through the drive cage.

While you don't want negative pressure in the rear compartment (as noted above), you absolutely want and need to create a negative pressure environment in the front compartment.

My experience is with the Norco (4220) fully of drives. Before closing up the extra spaces the drives ran hot and there was very little air coming out the back of the case. After sealing them up the drive temps dropped 15 degrees (7c) and there was a strong current of air blowing out the back.
 
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john4200

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Jan 1, 2011
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Yeah, the nocies do come up on paper but still hard to get airflow around the drives.

They worked OK for me when I had 4+ drive bays empty (cages in holes, just no drives in them) but soon choked and I found my drives went 4+ degrees warmer than with 80's.
It is just a matter of static pressure. I'm not sure why you had so much difficulty, unless it is because you failed to plug up the holes as suggested by Pig.

Or perhaps you were not using the Noctua NF-F12 fans, which have decent static pressure. You are aware that Noctua has multiple models of 120mm fans, and the F12 are the ones with the highest static pressure? Anyway, the F12's work fine for me.
 

nitrobass24

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Dec 26, 2010
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When i had my norco I was using the Scythe Ultra Kaze 3000RPMs - Not the quietest but plenty quiet for my needs and had a ton of airflow.

Model Name:ULTRA KAZE 120mm Case Fan 1000rpm
ULTRA KAZE 120mm Case Fan 2000rpm
ULTRA KAZE 120mm Case Fan 3000rpm
Model Number:
DFS123812L-1000 (1000rpm version)
DFS123812L-2000 (2000rpm version)
DFS123812H-3000 (3000rpm version)
Manufacturer:Scythe Co., Ltd. Japan

Model Number:​
Fan Speed​
Noise​
Airflow​
Rated
Voltage:​
Rated
Current:​
DFS123812L-1000
1,000 rpm​
19.81dBA​
44.44CFM​
DC12V​
0.25 A​
DFS123812L-2000
2,000 rpm​
32.91dBA​
87.63CFM​
DC12V​
0.25 A​
DFS123812H-3000
3,000 rpm​
45.90dBA​
133.60CFM​
DC12V​
0.60 A​
 

john4200

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Jan 1, 2011
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The airflow spec is measured at minimal resistance (pressure difference). For use to draw air through the closely packed HDDs in a rackmount chassis, the static pressure is the critical spec. You won't achieve airflow anywhere near what you quoted there if you use the fans drawing from a high-resistance airflow path.
 

john4200

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Jan 1, 2011
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I just quickly glanced at your link, but if I read the chart right, the Ultra Kaze at 2000rpm only achieves 1mmH2O (0.1cm).

In contrast, the Noctua NF-F12 spec is 2.6mmH20 at 1500rpm.

It looks like you have to run the Ultra Kaze at 3000rpm (twice that of the Noctua) to achieve a similar static pressure.

I agree the Noctua fans are more expensive, but it appears that you get better performance (i.e., higher static pressure or lower noise at the same static pressure) as compared to the Ultra Kaze.
 

Mike

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May 29, 2012
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I only use Scythe gentle typhoon (nidec), although i'm not sure if they were EOL'd. Highest quality i've found to date.
 

abulafia

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Jun 17, 2014
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I ran that board (D20) with two L5639, 48GB RAM, Brocade 1020, some cards of various levels of oddity (e.g. USB3, GPIB PCI host) and a AMD W5000 Firepro, 2-4 SSDs, 4-5 4TB HDDs, BD-RW and other miscellaneous.

This was (eventually) powered by an *S20* (665W, iirc) PSU - do note that you need a Lenovo specific but hackable 12V *ten pin* connector for this to boot, but both 12v/10p sockets need not be filled, which is why I'm giving you my general build specs.

It was in a Norco RPC-470 4U, and indeed, everthing was swapped for Noctuas (even jammed a couple of 140mms on the fan wall) except for the "third party" 5x3.5" mobile racks, because those used 70mm fans; I replaced those too, probably with Fractal Design 70mm, which is my usual go to for 70mm and 50mm, the notable 10/15mm depth sizes which Noctua doesn't make.