quiet enclosure

NeverDie · Jan 30, 2015

I've ordered a Nanoxia Deep Silence 6 for what I hope will be a quiet enclosure for a home environment:

Nanoxia - Turn on German Engineering

In theory, it can hold 16 hard drives. I'm starting with just 6 hard drives, but my theory is that I can space them apart, giving them plenty of airflow without needing to use loud fans for cooling. Also, I'll be using green drives, because they use less power, which equals less heat, which equals less fan noise.

The case itself is greater than 40 pounds. For noise supression, mass helps.

lundrog · Jan 30, 2015

I'm running this, Obsidian Series® 900D Super Tower Case while not a server case, you could fit some massive boards in it.

NeverDie · Jan 30, 2015

lundrog said:
I'm running this, Obsidian Series® 900D Super Tower Case while not a server case, you could fit some massive boards in it.

How quiet is it?

Atomicslave · Jan 30, 2015

I have the same case, its not quiet at all but I have 2x 290x video cards in it and I think thats where most of my noise comes from.

Its not "Rackmount Server Loud" though

lundrog · Jan 30, 2015

it doesn't pick up on my mic or phone and I sit next to it. but you can hear it. And yes it's my three video cards that make the noise.

Atomicslave · Jan 30, 2015

Amazing case though, I just got tired of working in small spaces and said screw it I want the biggest/easiest case to work on lol.

lundrog · Jan 30, 2015

+1 :0)

NeverDie · Jan 30, 2015

Since noise isn't a priority for you guys, maybe you would prefer an open air case instead.

lundrog · Jan 30, 2015

NeverDie said:
Since noise isn't a priority for you guys, maybe you would prefer an open air case instead.

a noiseless server case is hard to do unless you water cooled...

TType85 · Jan 30, 2015

NeverDie said:
I've ordered a Nanoxia Deep Silence 6 for what I hope will be a quiet enclosure for a home environment:

Nanoxia - Turn on German Engineering

In theory, it can hold 16 hard drives. I'm starting with just 6 hard drives, but my theory is that I can space them apart, giving them plenty of airflow without needing to use loud fans for cooling. Also, I'll be using green drives, because they use less power, which equals less heat, which equals less fan noise.

The case itself is greater than 40 pounds. For noise supression, mass helps.

I have my desktop system in a Deep Silence 5. (I7-5820K, Notcua cpu cooler 32gb ram, GTX970, 512GB SSD, Corsair 650W powersupply) It is about as quiet of a PC case as i have ever (not?) heard. It stays cool and quiet OC'd to 4.2ghz. The side panels weigh a ton.

Chuckleb · Jan 30, 2015

I am looking for noiseless and realize that you costs go up

. Switch out to all SSD and go with low power CPUs, large cooler, 4U desktop chassis. Built in video card and should be pretty quiet. The GPUs are what make the noise and it depends on what the server does if you need them.

PigLover · Jan 30, 2015

"silent" or "noiseless" is almost impossible with 16 3.5" spinning hards disk inside a case with up to 12 fans (not counting the PSU fan and CPU cooler).

But...while "silent" is not reasonably possible, "quiet" is quite do-able and with a bit of effort "very, very quiet" is possible. For a couple of years I lived in a small house and ran a machine with 2x X5650 CPUs, 13 3.5" drives, a few early SSDs and other stuff all running in a big Chieftec case in my bedroom. Yes - I got it quiet enough that my wife did not complain about noise while sleeping in a quiet room.

It wasn't water cooled...

To do that you have to be very, very careful.

- Use only the quietest fans possible and if possible only use 120/140mm. Noctua were my fan of choice at the time.
- Use passively cooled GPU or get a passive add-on cooler. There are some good ones around
- Carefully plan the airflow for EVERYTHING, use careful wiring so you don't block any air.
- Snip out the fan cutouts on the case so that they are nothing but big open circles the same size as the fan (and keep small children away)
- Use tower-style coolers for the CPU and run them passive/ducted direct vent to outside (duct them directly to a big case exhaust fan)
- Suspend your HDDs to prevent chatter or use a case with damping mounts.
- Use a disk strategy that supports spindown so that they are quieter and cooler when not in use.

It can be done. Visit SPCR • Index page for lots of examples, ideas and a gallery of silent builds. I'd point you to some suppliers that are great for the odd things you need to do quiet mods but you appear to be Europe based and every supplier I know is USA based.

Chuckleb · Jan 30, 2015

I agree with @PigLover, remove the fans and obstructions will quiet anything down. I did similar for my HTPCs to cut down noise. There is also sound dampening foam you can install and lastly, shoot for lower power stuff (GPU and CPU). Even fanless power supplies with big heatsinks.

Hardest part actually is to get rid of the heat....

NeverDie · Jan 30, 2015

PigLover said:
"silent" or "noiseless" is almost impossible with 16 3.5" spinning hards disk inside a case with up to 12 fans (not counting the PSU fan and CPU cooler).

But...while "silent" is not reasonably possible, "quiet" is quite do-able and with a bit of effort "very, very quiet" is possible. For a couple of years I lived in a small house and ran a machine with 2x X5650 CPUs, 13 3.5" drives, a few early SSDs and other stuff all running in a big Chieftec case in my bedroom. Yes - I got it quiet enough that my wife did not complain about noise while sleeping in a quiet room.

It wasn't water cooled...

To do that you have to be very, very careful.

- Use only the quietest fans possible and if possible only use 120/140mm. Noctua were my fan of choice at the time.
- Use passively cooled GPU or get a passive add-on cooler. There are some good ones around
- Carefully plan the airflow for EVERYTHING, use careful wiring so you don't block any air.
- Snip out the fan cutouts on the case so that they are nothing but big open circles the same size as the fan (and keep small children away)
- Use tower-style coolers for the CPU and run them passive/ducted direct vent to outside (duct them directly to a big case exhaust fan)
- Suspend your HDDs to prevent chatter or use a case with damping mounts.
- Use a disk strategy that supports spindown so that they are quieter and cooler when not in use.

It can be done. Visit SPCR • Index page for lots of examples, ideas and a gallery of silent builds. I'd point you to some suppliers that are great for the odd things you need to do quiet mods but you appear to be Europe based and every supplier I know is USA based.

I've used damping mounts on hard drives before, but I never got as far as actually suspending them. It would probably help though. What kind of material is used to suspend them?

I hope to use a picopsu power supply. That way much of the psu heat is in the power brick, which is outside the case. It may require an additional, similar psu to power the six drives, but we'll see. I imagine the power demand is greatest when first spinning the hard drives up.

The main trick I've learned is that multiple low RPM fans is quieter than a single high RPM fan, assuming total CFM's are equal. In generally, lower RPM's are quieter, so one big low RPM fan is quiter than 4 smaller, higher RPM fans of equal CFM airflow rate.

I try to target all the components to have < 20dba of noise. The lower the better, but the highest dba component generally is what you hear. It becomes the weakest link in the chain, as it were.

I won't have a video card, and the CPU graphics will be primative, so the CPU fan would ordinarily be the loudest component of the assembly. I have some fairly elaborate finned heat-pipes from prior builds that I used for passive cooling CPU's. Hopefully I can repurpose them for this build rather than buy any more.

Removing the protective grill in front of the fans does reduce noise, but it's a bit of a hazard as well. Removing any grilling from behind the fan would make perfect sense though.

I live in the USA by the way.

Many years ago I purchased stuff from xoxide (e.g. Intel LGA 1366 / 1156 / 2011 CPU Coolers at Xoxide! ) but I don't know how they compare these days in terms of price/selection. If there are better places to shop now, I'd be interested. It looks as though prices are generally a lot lower now than they used to be for this kind of gear. It also looks like the basic technology is still pretty much the same: heat pipes, radiator grills, and fans.

I'm not sure how loud the pumps are which are used in liquid cooling, as so far I haven't gone that route. Hopefully by now there are some decent outside-the-case passive radiators for liquid cooling, in which case there would be no fan noise. Without fans, either the pump noise or the HDD noise would be the loudest thing governing what you hear.

Spotswood · Jan 30, 2015

Suspend the HDs with 1.8mm Stretch Magic: Stretch Magic 1.8mm Bead & Jewelry Cord-3 meters/Clear at Joann.com

A how-to.

NeverDie · Jan 30, 2015

Spotswood said:
Suspend the HDs with 1.8mm Stretch Magic: Stretch Magic 1.8mm Bead & Jewelry Cord-3 meters/Clear at Joann.com

A how-to.

Thanks! Looks almost like a cat's cradle kind of thing:

I did try a silentdrive enclosure once (Silent Drive - internal hard drive enclosure to reduce HD noise- Directron ) but I didn't find that it made enough of a difference to justify it. Maybe 2dba improvement. Also, it raised the HDD temperature. I can see how the stretch magic would likely do better, although it plainly takes a lot of space.

NeverDie · Jan 31, 2015

I tried hooking up a picopsu to the motherboard last night. In addition to the regular ATX power connector, the motherboard also requires an 8 pin power connector to be connected at the same time:

Although the picopsu does have the ATX power connector, it only comes with an additional 4 pin power connector, like this:

which doesn't fill all 8 holes. Offhand, I'm not sure whether a 4-pin to 8-pin converter (if they exist) would be sufficient, or whether that would draw too much current through the 4 wires. I'm assuming the engineers picked an 8 pin rather than a 4 pin connector for a reason? Is 8-pin simply more common these days? Or is it to allow the 8 traces to go on separate layers rather than need to interconnect through via holes or share a common trace?

NeverDie · Jan 31, 2015

It turns out the 4pin to 8pin adapters do exist. I just ordered one from amazon. It appears the 8-pin power connector may be for supplying power to the fans that are powered through the motherboard? It would make sense, as my motherboard can power 4 different fans (including the CPU cooler). So, one pair of wires per fan.

canta · Jan 31, 2015

Chuckleb said:
I am looking for noiseless and realize that you costs go up . Switch out to all SSD and go with low power CPUs, large cooler, 4U desktop chassis. Built in video card and should be pretty quiet. The GPUs are what make the noise and it depends on what the server does if you need them.

the real word that I know: much reduced noise.
this is doable:
1) buy used or new close/forced air rack/server rack, such as APC netshelter CX or others.
2) make DIY closed/forced air rack/server rack.

just one warning as I know(since already made one DIYly), closed/forced air rack/server rack increses temperature ~2-4 degree

.

NeverDie · Jan 31, 2015

canta said:
the real word that I know: much reduced noise.
this is doable:
1) buy used or new close/forced air rack/server rack, such as APC netshelter CX or others.
2) make DIY closed/forced air rack/server rack.

just one warning as I know(since already made one DIYly), closed/forced air rack/server rack increses temperature ~2-4 degree .

Thanks for the interesting post.. I didn't know such a thing existed.

quiet enclosure

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