Which is quieter: SC732D4F-903B or SC732D3-1200B?

Notice: Page may contain affiliate links for which we may earn a small commission through services like Amazon Affiliates or Skimlinks.

ullbeking

Active Member
Jul 28, 2017
506
70
28
45
London
Hi all,

I'm looking to create a lightweight virtualization host and file server, for my main home server.

The most important thing is that it run quiet.

It will have a few SSD's and a few HDD's to server the VM's. The is a proper NAS on the LAN too, which will store all sorts of data, including a LOT of multimedia, especially music.

I bought a SC732D4F-903B quite some time ago because I was going to build a very lightweight server with a small amount of local storage. (But mostly I thought it was just so cool!) Now, a couple of years later, I'm still without a home compute server due to complicated reasons (although my NAS is now set up).

I would consider a µ-ATX or ATX board with efficient CPU's that won't draw a lot of power. Perhaps an E3-1200 v6 CPU and a nice X10 or X11 board for a single CPU. I'll research these boards and CPU's in more detail and choose a power-efficient one that, in turn, doesn't need the fans to work hard.

I have realized that the SC732D3-1200B might have been a better choice due to the Platinum PSU. (The SC732D4F-903B is a Gold PSU.) The idea is that Platinum efficiency will further decrease power usage and its fans won't need to work as hard as the Gold PSU's.

What do you think? Would the difference be noticeable? Any other advice? Thanks!!

@ullbeking
 

DavidB

Member
Aug 31, 2018
60
19
8
Your chassis has a PWS-903-PQ Power Supply which is probably the quietest you can get from SuperMicro. Given the low amount of hardware you're planning to install a lower rated Gold PSU will be more efficient in your use case than a higher rated Platinum PSU as the PSU efficiency rating is for 50% of nominal rating (so ~450W on the PWS-903-PQ but ~600W on the PWS-1K25P-PQ)

if power efficiency is your main goal SuperMicro motherboards are likely not your best choice, take a look at motherboards from Fujitsu like the D3644-B which are famous for being ultra power efficient. Combined with an i3/i5 or Xeon 2xxx series CPU the idle power consumption will be around 25W. Add in another NIC or HBA and you'll add 5-10W of power consumption to that.

All in all your PSU is way overdimensioned for the typical workload of a small and efficient server so the only way to have an even more efficient machine in idle is to replace the PSU with a much lower rated one (but this is likely not worth the investment).
 
  • Like
Reactions: ullbeking

ullbeking

Active Member
Jul 28, 2017
506
70
28
45
London
Your chassis has a PWS-903-PQ Power Supply which is probably the quietest you can get from SuperMicro. Given the low amount of hardware you're planning to install a lower rated Gold PSU will be more efficient in your use case than a higher rated Platinum PSU as the PSU efficiency rating is for 50% of nominal rating (so ~450W on the PWS-903-PQ but ~600W on the PWS-1K25P-PQ)

if power efficiency is your main goal SuperMicro motherboards are likely not your best choice, take a look at motherboards from Fujitsu like the D3644-B which are famous for being ultra power efficient. Combined with an i3/i5 or Xeon 2xxx series CPU the idle power consumption will be around 25W. Add in another NIC or HBA and you'll add 5-10W of power consumption to that.

All in all your PSU is way overdimensioned for the typical workload of a small and efficient server so the only way to have an even more efficient machine in idle is to replace the PSU with a much lower rated one (but this is likely not worth the investment).
Apologies for the delayed reply. I've actually been investigating Fujitsu boards and servers since I read this this, and there are a LOT of options!!

I was just about to go for this board, then I realized it has no IPMI.

Is it really possible, using this famply or level of Fujitsu boards ,that I could build a 16-cores home server with a Xeon-E, mount it in a good tower, and have it stay mostly silent or very quiet?

Edit: oh u mentioned Xeon 2xxx series CPU. I didn't realize these would be too quiet.... not the Xeon-E?