Quiet Rackmount Server

[baddubbin]

I recently got a full 42U rack for my home server and networking and want to replace my existing tower server to a rackmount server. I was initially looking at Dell R7X0 and R5X0 series servers but I have heard some conflicting comments about noise and power consumption.

I do not need it completely quiet, but it will be in a storage room next to a living area so it can't sound like a jet engine.

I am not planning on utilizing RAID. My current server is Windows Server 2012 with 6x 3TB drives combined with DrivePool and I would prefer to keep that setup mainly because it is what I am accustomed to and my free time is limited. I will also be adding a couple 8TB drives as part of the upgrade, so I would like a minimum of 12 3.5" bays.

The server will be running Plex with DVR, automated backups from all the devices in my house and a torrent client.

After the Dell servers, I have started to look at Supermicro SC-846 servers, but there are a ton of different models and I am kind of lost at the moment. Is there a SC-846 that would fit my needs? Is there some other server that might work out better? My budget for the server minus hard drives is $1500, but would be happy if I could keep it under $1000.

Any inputs or suggestions is appreciated. Thanks!

 

[i386]

Do you have already a mainboard, cpu(s) and ram? Becuase the 846 is just a chassis, not a full server and you would need other parts for a working system.

 

[baddubbin]

Do you have already a mainboard, cpu(s) and ram? Becuase the 846 is just a chassis, not a full server and you would need other parts for a working system.

I do not have anything other than hard drives for the new server. I thought the 846 stuff I was looking at on had processors, board and ram included.

 

[i386]

Yeah, sorry I was thinking about new chassis only

Companies try to sell loaded 846 chassis with older mainboads and cpus that nobody would buy else on ebay. That way they get rid of the chassis and the "useless crap".

If you want to buy such a "846 server" from ebay look ath the mainboards that are used in there. You want a mainboard from the x8 generation (socket 1366, cheap but power hungry) or newer (cost a little bit more, but consume less power).

 

[baddubbin]

Okay, so it sounds like I would be better off buying a chassis and parts separately if I the 846 chassis is the way to go for me. Are there any good sites for Supermicro stuff? Searching hasn't turned up much other than the 846 servers on ebay.

Yeah, sorry I was thinking about new chassis only

Companies try to sell loaded 846 chassis with older mainboads and cpus that nobody would buy else on ebay. That way they get rid of the chassis and the "useless crap".

If you want to buy such a "846 server" from ebay look ath the mainboards that are used in there. You want a mainboard from the x8 generation (socket 1366, cheap but power hungry) or newer (cost a little bit more, but consume less power).

 

[Aestr]

Where are you located? ebay or here are your best bets generally unless you happen to live near some recyclers.

As for keeping quiet make sure the power supplies are not the old ones with the loud fans that always spin full speed. Anything 80 plus gold rated or higher is decent, with the best being the SQ models. Also the case fans should be PWM. I'd push for an X9 board if possible as I've found them to have better fan control than the X8.

 

[baddubbin]

I am located in the US.

Most the stuff I see on Ebay are prebuilt servers from The Server Store.

Not even sure what reasonable prices are for these components because I am finding so few examples for sale. I am fine spending a little extra to be quieter and more power efficient. Would like to be under $1000 for everything except the hard drives, but willing to go higher if necessary.

 

[Aestr]

Sorry I meant where specifically within the US. Cases are difficult/expensive to ship for a lot of members, but if someone here sees you're local for them you might get an offer from someone sitting on a stockpile.

 

[baddubbin]

Sorry, gotcha. Ann Arbor/Detroit Area in Michigan.

 

[kenney]

Go with a lenovo RD450, they are amazingly quiet and work with v3/v4 xeons. I've gone through many systems (Dell R710, R720, R815s, Supermicro 1, 2, and 4U including the 846 - w/ x8, x9, and x10 motherboards) and they are all crazy loud compared to the RD450's.

My current setup is:
Server #1 (kmttg) - RD450 w/ 2x E5-2630v4 (QK3G ES), 32GB DDR4, 8 x 8TB, 2x 750W Power, Mellonox ConnectX 10GB, 512GB SSD
Server #2 (plex) - RD450 w/ 1x E5-2630v4 (QK3G ES), 32GB DDR4, 8 x 4TB, 2x 750W Power, Mellonox ConnectX 10GB, 512GB SSD

I use the kmttg server to extract and re-encode TV shows from my TiVo in a completely automated fashion, and the plex server to stream. These could easily run on the same server but I needed more drive bays. Power usage is rather low (especially when compared to the R815 w/ 4x6376 opterons, or the large supermicros). Currently my dual proc system is using 180w and it is encoding two videos!

I love the QK3G chips and recommend those to save a bit of money, I got an amazing deal on ebay at the beginning of the year for barebones systems, still good prices out there, but they have gone up a bit over the year.

I recommend the 70QQ_____ models with the 8x3.5" drive bays, this is the xeon v4 refreshed version over the v3 RD450's. The older RD450's can take v4 chips too, but the newer RD450's have a bit nicer build quality.

 

[WeekendWarrior]

Speaking only to your Supermicro interests (and ignoring your noise concerns): a lot of system configurations are available at the $1k level and below. Nonetheless, some generalizations can be made without causing too much mischief.

The general trend is for X8 boards (or earlier) to be long-in-the-tooth now due to power concerns as @i386 mentioned. X9 boards are readily available in quantity and quality for very reasonable prices. These boards allow first and sometimes 2nd-generation E3 or E5 processors. IMHO, this is the "bang for the buck sweet spot" right now. X10 and X11 boards are available for reasonable prices at the entry level but are less likely to be available used for higher processing interests. Thus, a X9 motherboard seems like a good place to start because it sets the tone for other things.

I won't suggest how much RAM you should get but I can say that another "sweet spot" exists with 8GB DDR3 RDIMMS, which work with E5 processors and X9 boards. This specific RAM configuration is about $2.50/GB right now. It won't run in E3-based boards or consumer-based boards, and a lot of used RDIMM RAM came on the market after the larger player decommissioned their first-gen E5 servers, so the resale market is a bit of buyer's market. All other size configurations (2GB, 4GB, 16GB, 32GB, etc) seem to be more expensive on a per-GB basis. Exceptions always exists, of course, but this will usually be true right now. DDR4 RAM, by contrast is $4-6/GB for 4GB DIMMs and $8-10/GB for larger DIMMs. If you have 8 memory slots on the motherboard you select, you can get to 64GB using the 8GB RDIMMs (obviously). X10 and X11 generation motherboards tend to use DDR4.

Coupling your 846 interests with your goal of using >2TB drives, you should investigate and consider a SAS2 backplane for the 846. A year ago these could be readily had for around $225 but now they are less common and more expensive; say $300 and wait a couple weeks. Alternatively, you could use a TQ backplane and directly connect your existing HBA outputs through breakout cables to 8 individual connections on the TQ backplane. Few people discuss this scenario but you don't currently seem to have > 8 disks so it would be an option (assuming your HBA directly supports 8 disks). It would also be compatible with SAS3 if you later go that route (the SAS3 backplane is expensive and hard to find). An 846 TQ backplane can be had for $90. If you expand - sooner or later - to more disks than your HBA will directly support, you can use a SAS expander with the TQ backplane to drive the additional disks.

A simple solution that many people use for boot disks is 2x 80GB Intel S3500 SSDs. These are readily available for $40 each and often available for $28-30 each (with some patience). If you go this route and wish to store them in your 846 trays, 3.5"->2.5" adapters are available for 846 trays (probably $8-10 each). You can drive this with SATA3 ports on your motherboard to preserve your SAS ports.

Here's a reasonable 846 system is right at your 1k budget including shipping: Supermicro 4U X9DRI-F 1x Xeon E5-2680v2 2.8ghz 8x 8gb 10600R 24-Bay SAS2-846EL1

The couple things worth mentioning about this system are:
1. it has the 846 chassis you want - allegedly in really good condition
2. it has the SAS2 backplane
3. it includes a (one) capable e5-2680 v2 processor (15k Passmark for example)
4. 64GB RAM
5. a server-grade Supermicro motherboard (X9DRI-F) with 8 RAM slots per processor and 5 PCIe slots; note that you'll need to add a 2nd processor to use all PCIe slots
6. two power supplies - presumably loud ones

The component cost of this system (in the near term) is > $1100: $300 (chassis), $275 (backplane), $175 (processor), $200 (motherboard), $150 (RAM), and $15 (heatsink). Thus, you could not build it for less than the system price in the near term (unless you wait for great deals).

You can add a 2nd processor and RAM for it as your budget allows. Note that rails not included (would be about $45 extra).

Hopefully this perspective gives you a starting point for wading through the sea of detail around 846-based systems.

Regards,
Dave

 

[jmccoy555]

Make sure you get Supermicro SQ PSUs and a decent CPU cooler to stop the system fans spinning up. Mine is nice and quiet, my POE switch is louder!!

Sent from my Pixel C using Tapatalk

 

[K D]

Make sure you get Supermicro SQ PSUs and a decent CPU cooler to stop the system fans spinning up. Mine is nice and quiet, my POE switch is louder!!

Sent from my Pixel C using Tapatalk

Also in an 846 if you are not fully populating all the drive bays. Noctua or arctic cooling 80 mm fans are sufficient for hard drive cooling.

 

[sfbayzfs]

x8 Supermicro boards are actually still completely serviceable for many applications, and very inexpensive to outfit as well - they are first gen core, X9 are gen 2 and 3 core, and X10 are gen 4 and 5 core.

For X8 you can get hyperthreaded low power 40W quad core L5630 and 60W hex core L5640 CPUs for them for $20 or less per CPU, and they use the same DDR3 ECC Reg RAM as x9.

X7 are still even very useful if you want to load up on RAM for cheap (like $1/GB or even less sometimes) but I wouldn't use anything older than X7. The lowest power X7 CPU is the L5420 quad core no hyperthreading, 50W, but you can use the full set of RAM slots with only one CPU if you are more interested in RAM than cores!

846 and 836 chassis' are easy to quiet down with lower power fans as many have said above.

 

[i386]

For X8 you can get hyperthreaded low power 40W quad core L5630 and 60W hex core L5640 CPUs for them for $20 or less per CPU, and they use the same DDR3 ECC Reg RAM as x9.

Meanwhile the chipset and other componenets on the mainboard consume ~100watt.

 

[sfbayzfs]

Hmmm, I don't think it's anywhere near 100W for an X8 mobo - I know X7 is slightly worse than X8, but mostly due to the higher power draw of the FBDIMM RAM. When I get a chance, I will break out the power meter and get some readings from X7, X8, and X9 DP mobos with low power CPUs and otherwise identical components.

 

[kapone]

When I was still running the westmere CPUs (not anymore), their power consumption wasn't THAT bad. With a Tyan s7012 5520 board, a single X5650, 3 sticks of RAM and an SSD, I believe the idle power draw was ~45w. Adding a second CPU and another 3 sticks, made it go to ~60w. That's not too bad, although the 2011 (Ivybridge) CPUs idle at far less.

 

[sfbayzfs]

I don't have any numbers for DP boards yet, but so far, PSU and fans make more of a difference than processor / generation for power draw:

I am running an SC836 with a SAS2308 card connected to the SAS2 expander backplane and a 2C/4T Xeon e3-1220L v2 (low power, 17W TDP) with 32GB ECC unbuffered as my FreeNAS box - running on a single platinum 500W PSU, it settles down to just under 80W with no drives after booting to the FreeNAS menu on the console (last time I measured it, it was running FreeNAS 9.10, I should retest it for more accurate results, or find my notes.)

I just tested the x8 equivalent X8SIE-LN4F running a Xeon x3450 2.66GHz 4C/8T CPU in it (not low power - 90W TDP), and with 32GB of ECC Reg in a SC836 TQ running the fans and an LSI SAS2008 card connected to an HP SAS expander, and with a 900W platinum PSU it was idling at 86W at the FreeNAS menu on the console. With a single 1200W gold PSU it was pulling 90W in the same conditions, and with one stock Ablecom 800W PSU it was pulling 98W.

Those are both with stock fans, but spun down in workstation / energy saving mode in the BIOS BTW. Also, the 2308 controller in the X9 should draw about 2-3W more than the 2008 in the X8, but the 500W platinum PSU in the X9 is much closer to it's optimal efficiency, so that should shave off 1-3W, so it is very close to equivalent.

The X9 loaded with 16x 5700RPM HGST 4TB drives draws typically 160W with all drives spinning but otherwise idle.

7200RPM drives draw roughly 30% more power per drive than equivalent low power drives, but the smaller drives probably draw less even so - Testing the X8 with 16x older multi-platter 7200RPM 500G drives, I get

• 190W AC draw w/ 900W platinum
  
• 199W AC draw w/ 1200W gold
• 209W AC draw w/ 800W stock Ablecom

Subtracting the base 86W draw from the 190W with drives, gives us 104W used by the drives, divided by 16 drives = 6.5W per drive (spinning but idle) vs 5W per drive for the low power 4TB drives in the other system. Subtracting 24W (16x1.5W) for the actual drive power draw difference, takes us to a predicted 166W draw with 16x4TB low power drives spinning but idle, only 6W more overall predicted difference.

I'll try to measure some DP X8 boards vs X9 with equivalent CPUs, etc. as well in the next few weeks.

 

[beatle]

I bought an 8-bay R510 about a year ago and it has been great. Flashed the PERC H200 to IT mode and it does all the things you asked about (Plex, SABnzbd, NAS, cloud server, and backups of my HTPC and desktop. It sits in my basement, though it's not very loud. The fans turn slowly all the time.

I have a single X5670 CPU which only gets around 8000 Passmarks, but that's plenty for a few Plex streams. 8GB of RAM is also plenty as I just run Windows, snapRAID, and Drivepool. RAM usage is generally 3-4GB.

With 6x 7200 RPM drives and an SSD, the system draws around 108W at idle.

Only change I've made was going from an L5630 to an X5670. Idle power consumption is the same, and it's nice to have a bit of headroom.

I went with the 8 bay instead of the 12 as I doubt I would ever fill all the bays (I use only 2TB and 3TB drives right now) and I wasn't sure if the PERC included with the 12 bay R510 could be flashed to IT mode.