SC846 stock fans or upgrade

[Jellyfish]

I have a SC846 case with the BPN-SAS3-846EL1 SAS 12G single expander backplane and wondered if there are any benefits to using a 16i HBA over an 8i, when the 8i already works to successfully access all 24 drives installed?

Secondly, I have done a lot of research on the cooling of the SC846 and have noticed many homelabbers seem to upgrade the stock 80mm internal fans to Noctua 120mm ones, since they can be spun at a lower RPM and are therefore quieter. My question is..are the stock 80mm fans still preferable if one is collocating within a datacenter where sound is not an issue? Or even in this instance, it would be preferable to upgrade the fans?

Within a datacenter environment, would three 140mm fans in front of the drive bays (jrs.io design) still be a wise addition? Or is this upgrade of primary benefit within a homelab environment where lower sound is preferred?

Finally, how would this be different if one has a 192-core AMD EPYC CPU installed within the case (within a datacenter)? Is this even possible or would the heat be too much?

 

[i386]

There are a lot of "it depdends"

With hdds it doesn't make sense to use even 8 sas/2 multilanes lanes (double wide) if you use just 24 hdds.
If you have many ssds or conenct to other expanders it could make sense (depending on what and how many devices are used)

The fans question is tough to answer because there are many variants of the 846 chassis (I think it's close to 20 years old?). Some old models had fans that run at 4.7k rpm, loud compared to "consumer" stuff but far way from the "x11" enabled chassis that come with 11k+ rpm fans. In between there are models with 5k &7k rpm fans (these are all still "supermicro" fans).

I'm not a fan of swapping the "datacenter" fans with consumer fans
If people change the fans they also change the fanwall (I think with norco/intertech fanwalls for 3x 120mm fans).
I'm not a fan because with these mods you (often) lose the hotswap capability (important for me, I don't like to fiddle with a screwdriver in a system) & the fans people use are often "low" static pressure and airflow models.These fans don't have much headroom and if one fan fails the others won't be able to compensate for the failed one. Also not to forget: fans not only cool cpus & gpus, but also other components in the chassis and on the mainboard.

If this system goes into a datacenter (I assume that it's a controlled environment, especially temperature and humidity) then I wouldn't bother at all about the (fan) noise

I had to look up the specs of the 192 core cpu, that's a 450-500 Watt cTDP cpu. My closest experience is a 280 watt threadripper pro and that system is hard to cool at low noise levels (I used noctua industrial 120mm fans with 3k rpm in a lian li big tower before moving it to a supermicro 745 twoer). If the cpu gets to hot it will throttle until it's cool enough again -> low noise but also low performance

 

[BlueFox]

Colo? Stock fans. All those Noctuas you've seen do a pitiful job of cooling compared to the ones Supermicro ships. You should not need to add more even with a high TDP CPU since that will be similar to a standard dual CPU setup. Make sure you have an adequate HSF however.

 

[Jellyfish]

Thank you both for taking the time to respond and provide clarifications and useful data points.

I was not aware there were so many variants of the SC846 chassis. I had a look at the make and model of the three fanwall fans that came preinstalled (presumably stock?) in the chassis and they are San Ace 80 Mpdel 9G812P1G09. It is unclear what RPM and CFM they are? If I'm reading between the lines correctly, a couple references suggest 5700 or 6300RPM with a CFM of 80/90?

I have a SC846 in my homelab that I never changed the fans in and the sound has been fine, but my setup here is much less powerful (H12SSL with 7443P (24 cores)).

Yes this new build is for a controlled environment colo datacenter only, so I'm not worried about noise, I just want the best cooling for the configuration as possible to prevent performance degradation!

If the fans mentioned abovr are deemed inefficient or ineffective for potentially cooling a 450/500w cTDP AMD EPYC configuration, would it be possible or preferred to switch out for even higher air flow/CFM fans, even if they're super loud..due to being 11k RPM etc?

I agree heatsink and HSF are important. I have not seen a 500w TDP rated heatsink that is not an AIO liquid cooled one (such as XE360-SP5 which cools up to 500w), but I have on hand a XED120S-WS heatsink (air cooled for up to 450w but has only one 120mm fan)...I'm not sure if one would consider the latter sufficient but with stock fans strong airflow, maybe?

 

[BlueFox]

Most of the variants differ in aspects other than cooling. RPM/CFM sounds about right for those San Ace fans though. I would go look at one of my 846 chassis, but they too are in colo and that's 30 miles away.

As for swapping them, yes, that should be possible. Probably not necessary, however, certainly an option if it is required. You can get some very powerful 80mm ones, though power draw on them starts to add up. I have some 13500RPM hot-swap ones from other Supermicro chassis (FAN-0209L4) and they're 30W a piece at full speed (I've seen higher than that too).

I think that HSF is probably going to be enough. In 4U, you have lots of room for very large ones (be glad you aren't trying to do this in 1U or 2U). Don't think the fan in it is going to do much though. Might consider removing it or swapping it out.

 

[Jellyfish]

The FAN-0209L4 sounds appealing but yeah 90W at full tilt (for three) is a significant bump in power usage. Do you know any other recommended fans which are more powerful than the San Ace but not as demanding as the aforementioned one? I'm going to test it with what I have first, just waiting for more parts to arrive.

Yeah I'm happy to be doing this in 4U... Any recommended 120mm fans to replace the HSF one? I'm used to buying homelab/retail fans like the Noctua series.

 

[kapone]

You're making this more difficult than it needs to be.

Yes, the stock fans can consume a lot of power at full tilt, but they are almost never at full tilt. That's just over engineering...just in case.

Set your fan profile to Optimal in the BMC, and they'll consume ~2-5w per fan at best, 99% of the time.