This thread serves the purpose of sharing my modification on a CSE-825 so others who are interested in a similar setup can take this as a reference.
So I was looking for a server that can hold a few HDDs and VMs. I had a few used 1U servers that I tried to repurpose as my router and hypervisor. Those 1U counter rotating fans were just mind blowing noisy and I ended up unplugging all the fans and put some 120mm chassis fans on top of the components, leaving the lid wide open.
As I was looking for a thiccker chassis I found a 2U CSE-825 that's sold at ~$120 shipped. Checking the spec I found that it's actually a SC825TQ-563LPB | 2U | Chassis | Products | Super Micro Computer, Inc.. 2 fixed + 8 hot swap drive bays, low profile card slots, and a single 560W gold PSU. As I happen to have a X9DRi-LN4F+ that looks like a good match, I put down my order.
And it arrived. A bit of cleaning job first.
Then I put the motherboard in. I changed the PWS-563-1H to a spare PWS-605P-1H, a platinum PSU, just for the PMBus, completely not necessary. Both PSU are dead quiet, with fans running at 2000 RPM or lower you can barely hear them.
I rewired the backplane as I planned to pass though a few disks to a Windows VM so I can do some stuff on Windows without using my personal computer. I ended up wiring the right 2 drives and bottom 2 drives to a breakout cable, wiring the left 2 drives and top 2 drives and the fixed bays to motherboard. I put an HBA in the slot and connect the breakout cable, but then I noticed the SCU port on the motherboard. So, the breakout cable ended up being on the SCU, and I don't really need an HBA then.
My base system is Proxmox on a 1TB SSD that I put in the fixed drive bay. Top center 2 bays are for my NAS storage, 2 shuckees. I blacklisted isci kernel module so that the SCU controller can be passed through into the VM.
Last thing is the fan wall. At idle, those 0126L4 (V80E12BHA5-57, 7000 RPM) running at 2600 RPM are reasonably noisy. I replaced them by 0074L4 (5000 RPM) running at 2200 RPM. Not a big improvement but that's the quietest I can find at this size (80mm*80mm*38mm).
Now the server sits at corner of living room, and I'm in bed room. The noise is at same level as my desktop computer fans. At zero distance it's about 55 db, at 10 feet distance it's about 45 db, measured by phone.
Maybe I'll do a bit more testing and see if I can simply remove some of the 3 fans and still keep enough airflow to cool the drives. Ideally I should just control the PWM duty cycle, but unfortunately the motherboard has very limited options so I'm either at 100% or 40%ish. Another option is to give up the hot swap fan slot and connect 3rd party fans directly to the motherboard? Not sure if a regular fan can work with the hot swap fan plug.
So I was looking for a server that can hold a few HDDs and VMs. I had a few used 1U servers that I tried to repurpose as my router and hypervisor. Those 1U counter rotating fans were just mind blowing noisy and I ended up unplugging all the fans and put some 120mm chassis fans on top of the components, leaving the lid wide open.
As I was looking for a thiccker chassis I found a 2U CSE-825 that's sold at ~$120 shipped. Checking the spec I found that it's actually a SC825TQ-563LPB | 2U | Chassis | Products | Super Micro Computer, Inc.. 2 fixed + 8 hot swap drive bays, low profile card slots, and a single 560W gold PSU. As I happen to have a X9DRi-LN4F+ that looks like a good match, I put down my order.
And it arrived. A bit of cleaning job first.
Then I put the motherboard in. I changed the PWS-563-1H to a spare PWS-605P-1H, a platinum PSU, just for the PMBus, completely not necessary. Both PSU are dead quiet, with fans running at 2000 RPM or lower you can barely hear them.
I rewired the backplane as I planned to pass though a few disks to a Windows VM so I can do some stuff on Windows without using my personal computer. I ended up wiring the right 2 drives and bottom 2 drives to a breakout cable, wiring the left 2 drives and top 2 drives and the fixed bays to motherboard. I put an HBA in the slot and connect the breakout cable, but then I noticed the SCU port on the motherboard. So, the breakout cable ended up being on the SCU, and I don't really need an HBA then.
My base system is Proxmox on a 1TB SSD that I put in the fixed drive bay. Top center 2 bays are for my NAS storage, 2 shuckees. I blacklisted isci kernel module so that the SCU controller can be passed through into the VM.
Last thing is the fan wall. At idle, those 0126L4 (V80E12BHA5-57, 7000 RPM) running at 2600 RPM are reasonably noisy. I replaced them by 0074L4 (5000 RPM) running at 2200 RPM. Not a big improvement but that's the quietest I can find at this size (80mm*80mm*38mm).
Now the server sits at corner of living room, and I'm in bed room. The noise is at same level as my desktop computer fans. At zero distance it's about 55 db, at 10 feet distance it's about 45 db, measured by phone.
Code:
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 072 025 000 Old_age Always - 28 (Min/Max 18/75)
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0002 203 203 000 Old_age Always - 32 (Min/Max 19/44)
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0002 050 050 000 Old_age Always - 33 (Min/Max 21/45)
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 073 025 000 Old_age Always - 27 (Min/Max 16/75)
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