Silent Home Server Build Guide
SPCR has been focused for many years on reviewing components and systems for acoustics, power/heat, with a nod to performance and value. The periodically updated Recommended Silent Product Lists are central to the site, as they summarize the choice quiet pickings in each computer product category at any given time.
Now, we're adding another category of articles: Silent System Build Guides. You've seen build guides on other tech web sites before. They are usually shopping lists of components recommended for the "Ultimate Gaming Rig" or "Mini PC" or what have you. They justify the product choices with a sentence or two, offer some alternatives, and umpteen links to web sites that sell the products. There's nothing wrong with these types of guides — otherwise we would not be proposing to do them ourselves — but there's no question they can be improved.
The unique selling proposition (to borrow a phrase from marketing 101) of our Silent System Build Guides is that not only will we provide suitable lists of up-to-date recommended components for a particular type of computer, but we will actually build these computers, and run and test them acoustically under tough actual-use conditions in our anechoic chamber. We will walk you through the entire selection and build process, and even show you at the end, what kind of impact component substitutions will have. It's the closest thing to being in the SPCR lab with us while we build a custom silent computer for a given purpose, whether that purpose be general use, a media PC or a gaming rig.
This is our first build guide — the Fall 2010 Silent Home Server Build Guide.
Discuss this article in the SPCR Forums.
Introduction, WHS, NAS
Many DIY home servers are old PCs rescued from the reuse/recycle heap. The main task of the home server is to simply run, usually 24/7 day in, day out, and allow network access to a storage depot where files can be saved or accessed. If high speed is not a prime consideration, an old Pentium III or Athlon system can work fine in this role. For PC users, a fresh installtion of any Windows OS will do, starting with XP.
But most people who use such home servers realize, sooner or later, that these rescued PCs represent some inherent compromises. The older the components, the more prone to breakdown they are; replacement of components can be a pain with legacy hardware no longer supported by vendors (tracking down software drivers can be like seeking pins in haystacks); and data — which everyone realizes now as the most important thing in a computer — is more at risk in older hard drives.
It is estimated that the typical PC home already has a terabyte of data. Some of it is priceless and unique for the owners: Videos of the kid taking his first steps, photos from your great once-in-a-life month-long trip on the Trans-Siberian Railway from Moscow to Beijing through Mongolia last summer, the collection of digital files ripped painstakingly from your collection of rare LPs, or a decade's worth of archived home business emails from Outlook express. Trusting such valuables to old gear built for finite service isn't exactly brilliant.
There are many benefits to building a brand new PC for a home server. Here's a short list of the benefits we think are most notable:
- Longer life, higher reliability.
- New hard drives have far higher storage capacity, so fewer are needed. They can also be much quieter than older ones.
- New components are much speedier, and new motherboard routinely integrate gigabit ethernet cards (rather than 10/100mbit cards).
- Energy-conserving technologies built into high performance CPUs and motherboards for lower overall power.
- eSATA and USB 3.0 for fast backups, transfers to external drives, etc.
For DIY builders of home servers, there are many operating system options. The most obvious choice for PC users is the <$100 Windows Home Server, a home-friendly OS based on Microsoft Server, which has had several years of refinement and is widely accepted by PC home server users. WHS is also well supported by many web sites dedicated to the OS.
This is not meant to be a detailed exploration of WHS, but here's a quick summary of core features that make it compelling for Windows users who want good functionality without having to become a networking or server expert.
- Centralized Backup - Automated (or manual) backup of up to 10 PCs using Single Instance Store technology to avoid multiple copies of the same file on the network.
- Health Monitoring - For all PCs on the network, including antivirus and firewall status.
- File Sharing - Store files remotely, acting as a NAS. Separate categories for common file types like Documents, Music, Pictures and Videos, files indexed for fast searching.
- Headless Operation - No monitor or keyboard is required. WHS Console client software provides remote administration via any PC on the network. Also supports Remote Desktop connections to the server on the same LAN.
- Remote Access Gateway - To any connected PC on the network, including the server, over the Internet.
- Stream Media - To an Xbox 360 or other devices supporting Windows Media Connect.
- WHS Drive Extender file-based replication system provides three key capabilities:
- Multi-disk redundancy so that if any given disk fails, data is not lost
- Arbitrary storage expansion supports any type of HDD (Serial ATA, USB, FireWire etc.) in any combination and capacity — similar in concept to JBOD
- A single folder namespace (no drive letters)
- Extensibility through Add-Ins - Add-Ins allow third-party developers to extend the features and functionality.
- Server Backup - Backs up files in shared folders on the server to an external hard drive.
Another simple option is Windows 7, which has very good functionality for sharing and streaming media between Windows 7 computers in a network, and whose networking functions are simple and very speedy. It also allows the machine to be more than just a server, but also a general use computer with multiple functions, even gaming.
Among the free license options, Ubuntu Server is probably the best known of the Linux distributions, and it has enough functionality to be a full-fledged business or enterprise server. Customizations allow for a wide range of applications. There is also FreeNAS, a highly specialized OS which tries to be only what its name suggests, and is often enthusiastically endorsed by DIYers, but is hampered by incomplete documentation, although further work on it is progressing.
For this iteration of the Silent Home Server Build Guide, we are limiting ourselves to WHS and Window 7 builds. Time or the lack thereof is a primary hurdle.
NAS and WHS Alternatives
There are viable alternatives to a DIY home server PC. Most fall in the category of Network Attached Storage and WHS boxes. At the simplest and least costly level, a NAS with a single drive can now hold up to 2TB of data and allow access by every computer in the network. Small Net Builder, which we think is the best websites for network product reviews and information, maintains an excellent section on NAS, including this comprehensive NAS Chart. The main issue with most of the speedier NAS is price and value... and noise. Even a single HDD NAS box like the QNAP Turbo NAS TS-119 runs close to $300. The HP MediaSmart home servers are well marketed, the current 4-bay EX490 and EX495 selling for $400~650 (usually with a single 1TB drive) but the cheapest WHS box on the market today is probably the Asus TS Mini 500, a 2-bay model that comes with a single 500GB drive for $270.
One of the biggest advantages of the best ready-made NAS boxes is their hot-swap drive feature, which is very handy for dealing with faulty drives or quickly adding more drives. But in a home setting this is not neccessarily such an important benefit. Also, keep in mind that proven high performance boxes like the highly rated 4-bay QNAP Turbo NAS TS-459 Pro will set you back close to $900 — and that is before you add any hard drives.
For SPCR readers, the noise of these commercial NAS devices is just as important as price and value. Unfortunately, it's difficult to know just what their acoustics are, because no one really assesses NAS products for noise comprehensively, the way SPCR would. (And we are not ready to add yet another product type to our review roster.) Many NAS boxes employ a small (40~60mm diameter) fan to cool the CPU within, and one or more larger fans for the hard drives. We have encountered a handful of such NAS boxes, and they are not quiet by SPCR standards. As anyone who has read more than a few SPCR articles will know, small fans cannot provide much cooling without spinning fast and making a fair amount of annoyingly high pitched noise. This is probably the biggest mark against a commercially built NAS box.
Our focus here is on higher capacity home server PCs. If you are building one and paying for common components — a licence fee for the OS, case, power supply, RAM — the value or price-to-capacity ratio improves dramatically when you go for more drives.
Discuss this article in the SPCR Forums.
SFF Home Server Configurations
If this guide was being written even just six months earlier, there would be no SFF option. It is not that there are no SFF cases; there are lots of them. But most are not designed with quiet cooling in mind, and very few have room for more than a few hard drives. By few, we mean perhaps three.
All this changed with a single new case introduced in the last couple of months, the Lian Li PC-Q08. We reviewed the case a couple of weeks ago. It is a 21 liter case for a mini-ITX board with the capacity to fit six 3.5" hard drives, a 2.5" drive and a standard optical drive. On top of all that, it has room enough for a dual-slot video card and takes a standard ATX12V power supply. We found it to be a smartly built case with some clever design features, and certainly suitable for a very quiet system.
The only other mini-ITX case that we know of which comes even close to competing with the HDD capacity and low noise potential of the PC-Q08 is the Fractal Design Array Mini ITX NAS Case reviewed last spring. This 18 liter case has a similar form factor, but it is wider than the typical breadbox PC, making its footprint bigger than the slightly taller Lian Li. Its HDD cage is considerably worse in design, it's difficult to work in, and the whole unit has a greater tendency to noise and vibration. We do not actually recommend it.
Our ideal SFF home server case is...
- No bigger than ~20 liters, with good proportions (as far from a cube as possible).
- Handle six or more desktop drives
- Good cooling for all components (including discrete video card)
- Accepts mini-ITX or micro-ATX motherboard
- Not prone to amplifying vibration from HDDs
- Equipped with PCIe x16 port for greatest versatility (for video card or SATA expansion)
- Easy to work in
Discuss this article in the SPCR Forums.
Case & Power Supply
Home Server Building Guide
CASE: LIAN LI PC-Q08
The Lian Li PC-Q08 has a relatively small footprint, holds six drives, comes with a pair of large acoustically-sound fans, and looks fantastic. The only issue is noise, or more specifically the noise generated by the vibrations passed from the hard drives to the loose drive cages and side panels — when we tested the PC-Q08 with only three drives, it was a noticeable problem. However, we made a few simple modifications to damp the vibrations to the point where they aren't noticeable even with all its drive bays populated, at least with low vibration WD Green Power hard drives. Once this issue is taken care of, the PC-Q08 makes for a superb small server case. More details on the mod later on.
|
|
| Dimensions |
(W) 227mm x (H) 272mm x
(D) 345mm |
| Front bezel Material |
Aluminum |
| Side Panel |
Aluminum |
| Body Material |
Aluminum |
| Net Weight |
2.73KG |
| 5.25" drive bay (External) |
1 |
| 3.5" drive bay (External) |
none |
| 3.5" drive bay (Internal) |
6 |
| Expansion Slot |
2 |
| Motherboard |
Mini-ITX / Mini-DTX |
| System Fans |
140mm Red LED Fan x 1 (front),
120mm Red LED Fan x 1 (top) |
| I/O Ports |
USB3.0 x 2 / HD Audio |
| Maximum Video Card Size
|
300mm |
Why mini-ITX and not microATX? To be blunt, there are few microATX cases with quality construction and decent drive support. Most of the models we found with four 3.5" bays or more were cheap, ugly, rebranded generic enclosures with thin panels and flimsy construction. An ideal case would be a tower with a a surplus of 5.25" bays so we could suspend all the drives, but no such microATX case seems to exist.
Our search turned up only a pair of real contenders: the Antec Mini P180, and the Lian Li PC-V354. The Mini P180 is a little too big for our liking, standing about the same height as a standard ATX tower. The Lian Li PC-V354A is significantly larger than the PC-Q08, with dimensions that make it look like a small ungainly chest, and yet it can only hold one more drive. If you're want a bigger case with more than six drives, we figure you will almost certainly want more than seven. For that many drives, a full tower would be best and there are a lot more ATX cases to choose from.
POWER SUPPLY: CHOICES, CHOICES!
The Cooler Master M700W offers far more power than needed for this system (it ended up idling at about 70W AC), but it's a modular PSU we have been using extensively in the lab, with well know noise and efficiency characteristics. In a small case that will be packed like this one, detachable output cables in a PSU makes installation so much simpler. The PC-Q08 case can mount a power supply with its bottom intake fan drawing air from the outside, via the side vent, so it should stay cool and thus not add anything measurable to the system's overall acoustics, especially with six drives installed.
Of course you don't have to spend US$100 to purchase a suitable quiet power supply. You can spend less... and you can spend more. Below is a selection of PSUs that we've assessed to be as quiet or quieter at loads at ~150W and less. These are mostly models we've had experience with — there are sure to be many others that are appropriately quiet. A decent fanless unit would work too though the top case fan may need to be reversed to blow air across it.
|
Quiet Power Supply Comparison
|
|
PSU Noise (dBA@1m) vs. Power
in Hotbox/Anechoic Chamber
|
Street Price (US)
|
|
Model
|
90W
|
150W
|
200W
|
|
|
<10*
|
<10*
|
<10*
|
$140
|
|
|
<10*
|
<10*
|
12
|
$140
|
|
|
11
|
11
|
11
|
$120
|
|
|
11
|
11
|
12
|
$100
|
|
|
11
|
11
|
12
|
$80
|
|
|
12
|
12
|
14
|
$120
|
|
|
11
|
11
|
16
|
$75
|
|
|
<11
|
12
|
16
|
$100
|
|
|
14
|
14
|
18
|
$110
|
|
*<10= below the ambient of our anechoic chamber;
immeasurably low @1m in any environment
|
Other obvious options include any lower power variants of the models above, including the fanless Seasonic X-460, the fan-cooled X-560, the Antec TP550, and the Cooler Master Silent Pro M 500/600. There are also quiet offerings from the newly refreshed, modular Corsair HX series (still made by Seasonic): HX450, 520, 620 and 650. Seasonic's reliable S12II series are also very quiet, >82% efficient, and start as low as $60 for the 520W model.
Use the SPCR/Pricegrabber Shopping Engine to help you get the best deal on the right PSU.
Discuss this article in the SPCR Forums.
Motherboard
MOTHERBOARD: Zotac H55-ITX-C-E
The Zotac H55-ITX-C-E is our chosen motherboard simply because of its six SATA and one eSATA port, a total of seven SATA ports, which is unmatched by any other mini-ITX motherboard on the market. It also has a 16x PCI-E slot for a discrete higher performance video card or further SATA port expansion if necessary, a mini PCI-E slot (if the included WiFi module is not used), and a fan header with a decent level of PWM customization in the BIOS.
The only downside is its relatively high power consumption; our sample board feeds a higher core voltage processors than other boards. The CPU can be undervolted by 0.10V in the BIOS, however, which alleviates the problem a little. We know this is not the most energy efficient or affordable solution (the cheapest LGA1156 processor costs about US$100), but in almost every other way, the Zotac H55-ITX-C-E suits our purposes.
POSSIBLE MOBO ALTERNATIVES
Comparison: Mini-ITX Motherboard Features
|
|
Model Number
|
CPU Type
|
SATA (int/ext)
|
Expansion
|
Street
Price (US)
|
|
|
Atom 330
|
4 / 0
|
PCI-E 16x
|
$150
|
|
|
LGA775
|
4 / 1
|
PCI-E 1x
|
$100
|
|
|
LGA775
|
4 / 1
|
PCI-E 1x
|
$130
|
|
|
AM2/AM3
|
4 / 0
|
PCI-E 1x
|
$95
|
|
|
AM2/AM3
|
4 / 0
|
PCI-E 16x, mini PCI-E
|
$200*
|
|
|
LGA1156
|
4 / 1
|
PCI-E 16x
|
$105
|
|
|
LGA1156
|
4 / 1
|
PCI-E 16x
|
$120
|
|
|
LGA1156
|
6 / 1
|
PCI-E 16x, mini PCI-E
|
$130
|
|
* estimated
|
The table above lists some possible alternatives with gigabit ethernet, more than three SATA ports, and a PCI-E expansion slot for an optional SATA controller card to expand storage. For the LGA1156 socket, there are a couple of cheaper alternatives to the Zotac H55-ITX from Gigabyte and Intel, but they only have four SATA ports. Try the SPCR/Pricegrabber Shopping Engine to help you get the best deal on the right mini-ITX board.
ALTERNATIVE MOBO COMPARISON
To give you a better idea of what you can expect with other boards/platforms, we wrangled up a few mini-ITX boards that may be suitable alternatives and briefly checked them for power consumption, undervolting capability and fan control.
|
Comparison: Motherboard Power Consumption
|
|
Board
|
CPU
|
Idle
|
Load
|
Min. Core Voltage
|
|
Intel DH57JG
|
Core i5-661
|
29W
|
87W
|
N/A
|
|
Gigabyte H55N-USB3
|
Core i5-661
|
39W
|
97W
|
-0.80V
|
|
Intel DG45FC
|
Celeron E3300
|
40W
|
82W
|
N/A
|
|
J&W 890GX-USB3
|
Athlon II X2 250
|
45W
|
91W
|
-0.30V
|
|
Zotac H55-ITX-C-E
|
Core i5-661
|
47W
|
112W
|
-0.10V
|
|
Test system components: 4GB DDR2-800/DDR3-1600,
WD Scorpio Blue 500GB, Seasonic SS-400ET PSU.
|
|
Compariosn: Motherboard Fan Control
|
|
Board
|
Controllable
Headers
|
Customizable
BIOS Control
|
SpeedFan
Control
|
|
Intel DH57JG
|
1 x PWM, 1 x PWM/DC
|
No
|
Yes
|
|
Gigabyte H55N-USB3
|
1 x PWM/DC
|
No
|
Yes
|
|
Intel DG45FC
|
1 x PWM, 1 x DC
|
Basic
|
Yes
|
|
J&W 890GX-USB3
|
2 x PWM
|
Extensive
|
No
|
|
Zotac H55-ITX-C-E
|
1 x PWM
|
Extensive
|
No
|
Intel DH57JG
Like the Intel DH55TC, the DH57JG is supremely energy efficient especially when idle, using a lot less power than H55 boards from other manufacters. Unless you opt for an embedded CPU/motherboard (e.g. Atom), there is simply nothing that can match it. Even paired with a 87W Core i5-661, the DH57JG pulled only 29W from the wall with our standard motherboard test setup. There are no undervolting or fan control options in the BIOS, but it does manage both fan headers automatically. If you run a Windows operating system, SpeedFan can give you custom control.
Gigabyte H55N-USB3
The Gigabyte H55N-USB3 seems to offer the best bang-for-your-buck amongst the current crop of LGA1156 mini-ITX boards. It's priced at only US$105, yet sports USB 3.0 in addition to the usual features and has plenty of undervolting ability. Its power consumption is middle of the road at both idle and load, much better than the Zotac H55-ITX, but much worse than the Intel DH57JG. It has a single PWM fan header that can control both 3-pin and 4-pin fans, but the curve can't be adjusted in the BIOS — the only fan control option available is an on/off toggle. If you prefer to have some say in how the fan speed behaves, SpeedFan offers full PWM and voltage control.
Intel DG45FC
If you don't mind some older hardware, the Intel DG45FC is a solid budget choice. It's more costly compared to say the Gigabyte GA-H55N-USB3, but LGA775 has the advantage of cheaper processors with singe core Celerons starting at about US$40 and dual cores models at only $10 more. Most home users won't need a lot of horsepower in their server, so the only thing you will likely miss out on compared to the DH57JG is a power savings of about 10W when idle. The board has only basic options in the BIOS for adjust the fan control; there are no target temperature or minimum/maximum fan speed settings, but SpeedFan can be utilized for full control.
J&W Minix 890GX-USB3
The J&W's Minix 890GX-USB3 is the only modern AM3 mini-ITX board we could get a hold of. While AMD boards are usually cheaper than comparable Intel boards, the Minix is a premium product that is expected to retail for close to US$200 and like the Zotac H55-ITX, its power consumption isn't great even with a standard low-end dual core processor. The board's BIOS allows you to undervolt up to -0.30V and it has plenty of fan control options but the current version of SpeedFan doesn't work with it. Aside from the price, our biggest complaint is the constant coil whine emenating from our sample during operation — a brutal weakness for a desktop system, less so for a server — but as usual, it's impossible to know whether is this a sample-specific problem or endemic to the breed.
Use the SPCR/Pricegrabber Shopping Engine to help you get the best deal on the right mini-ITX board.
Discuss this article in the SPCR Forums.
Hard Drives, CPU & RAM
Hard Drives: 6 x Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB (WD20EVDS)
For storage we chose six Caviar Green 2TB drives from Western Digital's AV-GP series which are optimized for video streaming and have head-parking disabled. (Editor's Note: FYI, despite the anxiety of some users, there is absolutely no evidence that high head park counts — seen in SMART data — in WD Green Power drives leads to premature failure.) The drives are from older 2009 stock and have similar acoustics to a WD20EADS we reviewed last year but half of the samples vibrate less, scoring higher on our subjective scale.
|
2TB DRIVE COMPARISON
|
|
HDD
Mfg date
firmware version
|
Vibration
1-10
(10 = no vibration)
|
Activity State
|
Airborne Acoustics
(dBA@1m)
|
Measured
Power
|
|
WD Caviar Green 2TB WD20EADS
February 2009
|
7
|
Idle
|
13
|
6.4 W (4.0W heads unloaded)
|
|
Seek
|
13~14
|
6.5 W
|
|
WD Caviar Green 2TB WD20EVDS
May/November 2009
|
7 / 8
|
Idle
|
13
|
5.3 W
|
|
Seek
|
14
|
6.6 W
|
|
Samsung EcoGreen F4 2TB HD204UI
August 2010
|
7
|
Idle
|
13
|
4.0 W
|
|
Seek
|
15
|
5.6 W
|
The latest three-platter Samsung EcoGreen F4 2TB would be a good alternative as it more or less matches the noise and vibration levels of older four-platter Caviar Greens, but WD's new three-platter revisions of the 2TB GP may be superior. Try the SPCR/Pricegrabber Shopping Engine to help you find the best deal on the right hard drive.
Processor: Intel Core i3-530
Given the low load activity for a typical home server, sharing files, streaming video, and performing backups, not a whole lot of computing power is necessary. In fact, many pre-built WHS boxes run perfectly well with Intel Atom CPUs as long as you only use its basic functions. However, higher-end NAS boxes utilize dual-core higher-clocked Celerons and Pentiums, which are far more powerful than any Atom processors. Our choice, the Core i3-530, is the second slowest model available for the LGA1156 socket and probably higher performance than the processor in any retail NAS box.
|
System Power Consumption (AC)
|
|
Board
|
Core i5-661
|
Core i3-530
|
|
Voltage
|
Stock
|
-0.10V
|
Stock
|
-0.10V
|
|
Idle
|
47W
|
46W
|
45W
|
45W
|
|
CPU Load
|
112W
|
99W
|
100W
|
90W
|
|
Test system components: 4GB DDR3-1600, WD Scorpio Blue 500GB, Seasonic SS-400ET.
|
The i3-350 has a TDP of 73W vs. the i5-661's 87W, but both CPUs use about the same amount of energy when idle. There was a 12W power consumption difference on load at stock voltage, and a 9W gap when undervolted by 0.10V. Try the SPCR/Pricegrabber Shopping Engine to help you find the best deal on the right CPU.
Memory: 2 x 2GB Corsair XMS3 DDR3-1333
Most home users can get away with 2GB or even 1GB of system memory, but again, like CPU power, it really depends on what you do. WHS uses very little RAM on its own, but throw in a bunch of add-ins and its memory usage will go up. The various flavors of linux popular in NASes and home servers are also very light in this regard.
Discuss this article in the SPCR Forums.
CPU Cooler & Total Cost
CPU Cooler: Scythe Samuraii ZZ
With approximately 110 mm of clearance between the processor and the power supply above it inside the Lian Li PC-Q08, the Samurai ZZ is a lock as the CPU heatsink. Of the coolers we've tested that can physically fit in our chosen setup, the Samurai ZZ is the best performing and has a high quality stock fan. The ZZ also offers cross compatibility with AMD and LGA775 motherboards if that's your preference.
|
°C rise Comparison
|
|
Heatsink
|
16 dBA
|
12 dBA
|
|
|
23
|
27
|
|
|
24
|
30
|
|
|
25
|
31
|
|
|
24
|
33
|
|
|
27
|
36
|
|
Tested on an AMD Athlon II X4 630 in an open platform.
Compatible coolers in yellow.
|
Total Cost Breakdown
|
Cost Comparison: SPCR vs. Budget Build
|
|
SPCR Build Components
|
Street Price (US)
|
Budget Build Components
|
|
Intel Core i3-530
|
$115
|
$50
|
Intel Celeron E3300
|
|
Scythe Samurai ZZ
|
$30
|
$30
|
Samurai ZZ
|
|
Zotac H55-ITX-C-E
|
$140
|
$100
|
Intel DG45FC
|
|
4GB Corsair XMS3 DDR3-1333
|
$70
|
$40
|
2GB DDR2-800
|
|
6 x WD Caviar Green 2TB
|
$660
|
$440
|
4 x WD Caviar Green 2TB
|
|
Lian Li PC-Q08
|
$110
|
$110
|
Lian Li PC-Q08
|
|
Cooler Master Silent Pro M700
|
$110
|
$75
|
Nexus Value 430W
|
|
TOTAL
|
$1,235
|
$845
|
TOTAL
|
The total cost for our server came out to over US$1,200 but there are a few places we could have skimped without much impact on system performance. If we had opted for a Pentium G6950 processor, 2GB of RAM instead of 4GB, and a Nexus Value 430W power supply, the total price would've been shaved down to US$1150 (US$490 without any drives).
A four drive build based on the Intel DG45FC would have lowered the cost to approximately US$845. In comparison, a pre-built WHS box from a manufacturer like HP equipped with a single 1TB retails for around $500~550. Bringing the total capacity up to 8TB would put the cost up a little over our SFF home server, but that would be the current capacity limit with all four of its drive bays filled.
Discuss this article in the SPCR Forums.
Assembly & Modifications
ASSEMBLY
Extensive details about the internals of the case as well as assembly can be found in our Lian Li PC-Q08 review. It's a rather straight forward process and the enclosure has a few features that make it more convenient than a typical case.
MODIFICATIONS
The less than sturdy hard drive situation in the Lian Li PC-Q08 is easily our biggest complaint about an otherwise competent case. The bottom hard drive cage is fairly solid thanks to gravity and being secured with four screws to the case floor, but the main four-bay cage above it hangs on using only a single thumbscrew. The optical drive section is screwed in from the sides, but this is only possible because the frame has been bent. Since the frame isn't a straight rectangle, it doesn't have as much structural integrity and thus is quite malleable. It also relies on the loose cage underneath it for stability.
 Problem areas. |
These three problem areas all work together to amply vibrations generated by the hard drives. The slight differences in the rotational speed of hard drives, even of the same model, creates intermodulation which causes the case to resonate, sounding like an unending rhythmic pulse. This behavior was encountered when we tested the case with multiple drives and only went away when we pressed the side panels inward with our hands. Rather than clamping the side panels or drive bays together, we applied some simple and easily reversable modifications to deal with this issue.
 The modified hard drive cage. |
To steady the main drive cage, a versatile, cheap, and easy to find material was adhered to the top and bottom of the main drive cage: cardboard. A small piece of cardboard folded in half was enough to increase the height of the cage and thus create a tighter fit. Long strips of electrical tape were used to stick it on so that the edges of the cardboard would not catch an edge and come off. The result is so snug that one must reach into the case and pull from the other side to get the cage out, so some convenience was sacrificed for the sake of silence.
 The modified optical drive bay. |
To brace the optical drive bay, we simply folded up some paper and packed it between it and the ceiling.
While these modifications did not lower the measured noise level of the test system from our original review, the end result is clearly audible in the noise recording below. This recording starts with 10 seconds of ambient noise followed by 10 seconds of the test system operating in stock form and then 10 seconds of the test system after our alterations:
If you listen closely you will hear the unmodified system pulsing like it has its own shallow heartbeat. After our modifications, it smooths out into an almost completely stagnant hum. In our anechoic chamber, no resonance was audible unless we stood very close to the machine.
FAN CONTROL
 Zotac H55-ITX fan control settings. |
The Zotac board we chose supports fan control for one PWM fan, and the behavior can be adjusted in the BIOS. However given that a typical home server doesn't get placed on heavy load often we opted to choose a manual, static setting that will keep the fan speed at an appropriately quiet level for our needs (usually at ~800 RPM).
The PCQ-08 has a pair of system fans that run faster than we would like. We will be connecting them to a 3-pin Y adapter so that they can be controlled manually using a Zalman Fan Mate, a well-known and simple device that can vary the voltage supplied from 5V to 11V. For safety purposes we will power the Fanmate using a molex connector (via a 3-pin to 4-pin molex adapter) as we have had some experience in the past with motherboard fan headers burning out with more than one fan connected.
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Six-HDD SFF Server Test Results
FROM THE ANECHOIC CHAMBER
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System Measurements
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Activity State
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CPU Temp
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HDD Temps
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System Power (AC)
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SPL@1m
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Idle (on foam)
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33/37°C
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37~39°C
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71W
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18 dBA
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Idle
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20 dBA
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Streaming video
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74W
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Extended read/ writes ~30 mins
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<40°C
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37~45°C
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79~82W
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CPU fan at 800 RPM, system fans at 6V.
Ambient temperature: 22~24°C.
Ambient noise level: 11 dBA.
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Noise - During operation, our six-drive SFF server build was very quiet, measuring only 20 dBA@1m. This was with the server sitting atop our standard wood-top office table. There is usually some amplication of vibration and noise due to the table top acting like a sounding board, so we tried slipping a 1" thick piece of common closed-cell foam (used originally as packing for a case) beneath the server. The mechanical decoupling effect of the foam was audible immediately as a general reduction of noise, mostly lower frequency, but also higher up in the range. The measured SPL drop was 2 dBA. As expected, the PSU fan never sped up, and it was not identifiable as a discrete noise source.
 Turning the front and top case fans on to 6V increased overall SPL to 20 dBA@1m
Placing the system on a 1" thick closed foam pad dropped the SPL by 2 dBA@1m. It had the greatest subjective impact at the lower frequencies, but there was a broad smoothing and lowering of the sound across the entire audible band. |
Power & Temperature - Despite using a relatively power hungry motherboard, the system only pulled 71W from the wall, a few watts more when streaming video, and 10 watts extra when performing large file transfers. The front 140 mm fan, running at just 6V, was enough to keep the drives under 45°C throughout testing. The CPU temperature also never eclipsed 40°C. The load on the CPU occasionally reached 100% on some multi-taking operations, but rarely for longer than a few moments. Typical WHS operations kept CPU utilization well under 50%.
These thermal results are very reassuring, indicating some 15°C of thermal headroom, assuming you wish to keep the HDD no hotter than 55°C. That means safe operation in >35°C ambient temperature.
Media Streaming - This is a function affected by so many different factors, including the OS on the participating PCs, and all the various hardware, including the network, so it is not a test of the server, per se. But it was interesting to see what could be done.
A 40GB MKV copy of a pretty much uncompressed 1080p Bluray movie Avatar was streamed for viewing on a PC in the network. The same movie was streamed to a second PC, and a third. We found that all three video streams were free of glitches in either video or audio. When a file transfer on yet another computer was initiated to/from the server, glitches and stutters occured in all three playback streams, however. Two different movies streamed to two different PC simultaneously suffered no problems, but again a file transfer to/from the server caused some hiccups. CD quality audio could be streamed from several different files on the server to several different PCs without any problems. The interruption caused by file transfer to/from server was less, and less consistent with streaming audio files; sometimes none, sometimes a bit of a glitch.
Effect of the Number of HDDs - Much of the impressively quiet performance can be attributed directly to the sterling acoustic properties of the Western Digital Green Power hard drives. It's hard to imagine any other stack of six HDDs measuring just 18 dBA@1m. To explore the acoustic summing effect, we tried listening and measuring SPL with different numbers of WD GP drives. Removing a single drive, so that the total number of active drives was five, resulted in virtually no difference in perceived or measured noise. With two drives removed, the SPL@1m dropped by only 1 dBA, a barely noticeable difference. When just three drives were running, the difference was a total drop of 2 dBA, which is a surprisingly small improvement and less than the theoretical 3 dB difference expected. (Editor's Note: The A-weighting probably had an impact due to the relatively high proportion of lower frequencies in the total SPL of the HDD. In effect, our system with three hard drives on a wooden table was acoustically indistinguishable from the same system with six hard drives, but sitting on foam. The latter, in some subtle way, may actually be more benign to hear, perhaps because it is slightly less tonal in the lower frequency range.
OTHER FACTORS
Network Speed - In our gigabit network with three switches and over a dozen devices, the maximum file transfer speed was 110 MB/s, writing or reading. The speed was affected a bit by the hardware at the other end, by the number of switches the transfer passed through, and by the operating system of the other PC. Windows 7 PCs were the only ones that consistently reached 100 MB/s in file transfers from/to the server. Windows XP machines generally fared worse, sometimes just 30~40 mb/s. Vista machines generally fell between XP and Windows 7.
Another important aspect of achieving the fastest nework speed was the ethernet cable. Initial inconsistent result forced us to examine every cable in the network. All cables were of types that support gigabit speed — Category 5e and CAT6, yet when replaced with others of the same type, a few were found to have limited the speed to 100mbps, instead of 1000mbps. Sometime even flipping a cable allowed the speed to bump up, from 100mbps to 1000. One particular cable which WHS and Windows 7 both reported as being megabit allowed file transfer speed of only ~75 MB/s when other identically spec'd, similar length cables achived over 100MB/s.
After an entire afternoon of experimentation with ethernet cables and ensuring similar >100MB/s maximum file transfer speed through every length of cable in the network, we came to the following practical conclusions:
- Not all CAT5e or CAT6 cables sold prefitted with connectors achieve gigibit speed between all gigbit devices, so it is best to check each cable at its actual use position.
- Some connectors simply do not work together well. For example, the female socket on a switch might not make good consistent contact with the male connector on the cable.
- Don't just rely on the reported connection speed shown by Windows. Use a real file transfer to test, and ensure that all the cables in the network reach the same speed.
- If you terminate your own cables, with lengths cut from a big spool, be aware that some connectors are optimized for use with solid core wire while others are best for stranded core wire. Apparently. We were unable to find more than one type of connector at any local Vancouver stores, so we cannot confirm this info definitive. It is probably worth asking about if you're shopping for either cable spools or RJ45 connectors.
PRELIMINARY CONCLUSIONS: 6-HDD SFF SYSTEM
Let's summarize the six-HDD SFF home server system we have detailed above:
- Small enough to fit neatly in any number of locations in a home. The 21-liter size and tall breadbox shape allows it to be placed even on a shelf in a closet,
with headless remote access.
- At 20 dBA@1m with a smooth broadband character, it is quiet enough to be quieter than 99.9% of all complete PCs on the market. It is quiet enough to leave on a desktop without being obtrusive in most home environments. Just a modicum of care in placement will make it inaudible.
- The speed of file transfers to/from the server in a gigabit network can come close to direct SATA speed within a PC, and simultaneous streaming of media to multiple PCs is achieved easily enough when traffic in the network is not saturated or the server isn't asked to multitask with large file transfer tasks.
- 12TB of storage space is enough for all but the most demanding home users. It is a massive amount of space, a home archivist's dream: The equivalent of about 20,000 hours of uncompressed CD-quality music or 1440 hours of uncompressed HD video.
- The cost of the system with six 2TB WD GP drives is over $1,200 by today's market prices. As our cost calculations earlier showed, a socket-775 board and CPU could lower the price by at least $100. There is no home NAS or WHS system sold commercially that can match its cost per gigabyte or even its maximum capacity.
- Cool enough for almost any climate without increase of noise or risk of overheating.
Given the thermal and sonic headroom, we decided that it was worthwhile exploring the possibility of using this plaform not just as a WHS box but a general purpose Windows 7 PC, one equipped with a discrete video card suitable for gaming but with massive shared storage capacity accessible on the network. Such a system would lose the nifty Drive Extender features of WHS, and unless you implement some form of JBOD, the single automatically formatted storage volume of the combined drives would not be possible. But each drive could be assigned and named for a unique function, such as VIDEO, MUSIC, PHOTOS — much the way WHS provides default folder for such. The real challenge for us was how powerful a video card we could cool adequately and still keep the system quiet enough. This will come in a few days... in the next installment of the SFF Home Server Build Guide.
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SFF Gaming/File Server
The surprisingly high thermal headroom of the SFF home server we built encouraged us to try installing Windows 7 and discrete video cards so that it could play the role of a gaming machine as well as a basic file server. The biggest compromises entailed in this multi-role PC is the loss of WHS Drive Extender techology, lowered maximum storage capacity (only four HDDs instead of six), more wear and tear, and greater risk of data corruption. If the hardware is perfectly stable and adequately cooled even under the high stress of gaming, these are not serious compromises. But gaming will tend to expose any underlying weaknesses or instabilities in the system more than just about any other application you can run on your computer. Anything that causes crashes or blue screens, including game software bugs, have the potential to cause data loss.
Accepting these potential risks, we considered video card options for our SFF server. The bottom drive cage and the two drives mounted within would have to come out, as any decent gaming video card would extend into that space. Top performance cards such as the ATI HD5800 series or the nVidia 480 series were barred without serious consideration. The cooling requirements just seemed too great for the little Lian Li case.
SFF GAMING FILE SERVER V1
Looking further down scale, the ATI HD5770 appeared to be a good choice, given its 108W maximum Thermal Design Power (cited by AMD and confirmed by independent reviewers) and modest 18W idle power. The fanless Gigabyte GV-R577SL-1GD was our first choice; alas, no samples were available in time, and no retailers had stock. We settled on an XFX Radeon HD 5770 (1GB DDR5), one of many 5770s that use the stock ATI cooling solution.
Windows 7 Pro 64-bit was installed in an Intel X25-M 80GB solid state drive for this build. The main reason for using a separate drive was to minimize wear and tear on any of the data storage drives. An 80GB partition is plenty big enough for the vast majority of OS + applications, even if you are are serious gamer, and the SSD provides a nice boost to the startup speed of any application. The SSD was mounted in the optical drive cage with a single screw holding it in place. The SSD is so light and runs so cool (barely a watt) that little more is rarely needed.
Four WD GreenPower 2TB drives remained in the main hard drive cage as before. A bit of thin cardboard was added as a tightening spacer atop the bottom C-bracket that supports the HDD cage, to help minimize vibrational effects. For the same reason, a small piece of close-cell foam was also wedged into the C-bracket to make it push up a bit against the HDD cage. (You can see the foam piece in the photo below.)
The same CoolerMaster Silent Pro 700W PSU was used as before, and the same Zotac H55-ITX-C-E motherboard. Only five SATA ports were used, so the six SATA ports of the Zotac were not quite as crucial as before. Still, there are no other mini-ITX boards with five SATA ports, and only a couple with four SATA ports and an eSATA port that could be used as a SATA port.
After the 2-slot XFX HD5770 was installed, there was still nearly an inch of space to the bottom panel vent of the case. |
This configuration proved to be unusable right from the start, at idle. The overall SPL was a not-too-bad 25~27 dBA@1m, but the fan of the stock cooler in the HD5770 had a nasty signature, tonal in both mid and higher frequencies, along with some buzzing. The overall power draw at full CPU + GPU load reached a little over 240W AC. Under such load, the overall SPL jumped well over 30 dBA@1m, with a nasty sonic character completely unacceptable for a system meant to be silent. Increasing the speed of the case fans had little effect on the video card cooler fan, and only served to increase overall noise even further. We quickly pulled the video card from the system and moved on.
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SFF Gamer/File Server V2
The second card we tried was a PowerColor Go! Green Radeon AX5750 1GB, a passively cooled version of the next model down in the Radeon HD lineup.
 This PowerColor Go! Green AX5750 is passively cooled by a heatsink that looks like it is made by Arctic Cooling. |
Dropped into the SFF system with the case fans at 6V, exactly as they were without any discrete video card, the AX5750 increased the idle power by about 10W, to ~80W AC. When pressed hard with Prime95 + Furmark, the temperatures of both the video card and the CPU rose up a bit too high for comfort unless the case fans were turned up to 8V or higher, which then made the system a bit too loud for our goals.
Given the fairly large gap between the card and the bottom of the case, there was some room for a slim fan. A Scythe Slipstream Slim 120x12mm low profile fan was pulled into service in a quick and simple mod.
This is more like it. With the GPU fan set to a fixed 5V, and virtually no changes to any of the other fans, the overall SPL of the system did not change. Nor the subjective perceived noise; the Sycthe fan really is inaudible at this low speed. The cooling was very effective, however, keeping the GPU to a mere 75°C.
The primary costs are a drop in the maximum number of hard drives (from six down to four), an increase in power consumption of about 10W at idle, and if you play games hard, the system will pull over 200W at peaks. In monetary terms, the cost of the video card + fan and even an external fan controller is more than offset by the elimination of the two WD GP drives; this setup is actually cheaper... except of course for the extravagance of the Intel SSD, which you could forgo by using a partition in one of the WD GP drives for the OS.
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SFF Gamiing / File Server V2 Measurements
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Activity State
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CPU
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GPU
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HDD
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System Power (AC)
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SPL@1m
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Idle (on foam)
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35°C
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42°C
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37~39°C
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80W
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18 dBA
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Idle
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20 dBA
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Streaming video
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38°C
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85W
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Extended read/ writes ~30 mins
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<40°C
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39~44°C
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80~90W
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Prime95 + Furmark
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56°C
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75°C
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37~43°C
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206W
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|
CPU fan at 1000 RPM, system fans at 6V, GPU fan at 5V
Ambient temperature: 22~24°C.
Ambient noise level: 11 dBA.
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The Radeon HD5750 is not likely to be a favored card among "serious" gamers, but it provides good enough performance for casual players who don't demand all the eye candy while blitzing at 100fps. If you want higher performance, we think it is possible to run a 5770 with a similar cooler (like the aforementioned Gigabyte GV-R577SL-1GD) in exactly same configuration, perhaps the only compromise being a slight increase in the speed of the fan you attach to the cooler.
We should note that as a home file server or media streaming box, Windows 7 Pro 64-bit and WHS are hard to differentiate in actual use with this hardware. File transfer speeds were very similar if not identical to that found with the WHS installation, and streaming of HD video worked the same as well. We're not saying a Win7 PC is as secure as a separate headless server setup, but for file serving or media streaming functions, it works pretty similarly to WHS. Remote desktop can be used easily to access the Win7 SFF Gamer/File Server, if necessary, although not being headless, the system could easily be your main rig. With a well-fitted piece of close-cell foam under it and placed behind your big flat monitor, this Lian Li PC-Q08 setup could be just about invisible and inaudible on your desk.
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Mid-Tower Home Server Configurations
We stated early on that the most common home servers are actually rescued old PCs, often just running a copy of Window XP (but sometimes with a fresh install of a better OS) and serving as a glorified network attached storage. These PCs are typically in mid-tower ATX format, which has the benefit of the broadest, deepest, and cheapest range of supported hardware in the PC universe. It is also the choice of many a savvy power user (read: geek) — it is cheap, old parts can be easily reused, and they are very familiar with it. It is also easy to run very quietly, with very good cooling. All good reasons. About the only real downside is that it is big, typically 40~50 liters in volume.
What about building one from scratch? That's simple enough. Aside from good cooling and the ability to use large slow spinning fans, the biggest advantage of mid-tower and larger ATX cases from an acoustic point of view is that they often have room to elastically suspend multiple hard drives. Long time readers of SPCR need no introduction of the concept of mechanically decoupling the hard drives from the case, as it has been standard practise here for virtually the entire 8+ years of our presence on the web. For those who are encountering it for the first time, here's the most salient section from our Recommended Hard Drives reference article:
"The noise of a disc drive mounted in a case comes in two forms:
"1. Airborne acoustics is what all drive manufacturers currently specify as the HDD noise. It is the sound that comes from the drive through the air to the observer. This value is measured with the drive suspended in space by wires.
"2. Structure-borne acoustics induced by the drive's vibration during idle and seek is not quantified by HDD makers. This vibrational energy is transmitted to the PC chassis and causes the chassis to act much like a sounding board."
Structure-borne acoustics is the dominant source of HDD-induced PC noise. Nearly a decade ago, Seagate's testing showed that changes in airborne drive acoustics had little effect on the overall system acoustics when drives were hard mounted in the chassis. With the near universal adoption of Fluid dynamic bearings and lower platter numbers due to increased areal density, vibration in HDD has been lowered, but it is still a major component of HDD noise. Hence, the dramatic noise reduction with most HDDs evident with decoupled mountings such as the NoVibes, SPCR's elastic suspension, or simply placing the drive on soft foam. The noise emitted by even drives with very quiet stand-alone performance is affected by how it is mounted to a chassis. There is a still-active 7-year forum thread on the effectiveness of various HDD decoupled mounting techniques, and a similarly long-lived, 400+ post thread on how-I-suspended-my-drive.
There are many cases that offer soft rubber grommets to help reduce the mechanical coupling between HDD and chassis, but very few that have the more effective, true elastic suspension like the NoVibes or the hundreds of DIY variants. The only cases with elastic suspension that are widely available and still in production are the Antec P150, Solo, Sonata Plus 550 or Sonata Designer 500 — all of which are variants of the same basic case. But this Antec case allows suspension of just three HDDs, and we're looking to suspend at least six; ideally, 10 or more.
Behind the perforated facia of the Antec Twelve Hundred is an optical drive cage that runs the entire height of the case, allowing up to 12 HDDs to be suspended with bungee cord or some other sturdy elastic. |
We will have to make a multi-drive suspension ourselves, as no such case exists. It is a simple task requiring just a few meters of clothing elastic and a case with a 5.25" drive bay that extends from the top to the bottom of the case. There are quite a few cases that have this feature. Here is a short, not comprehensive list of such cases in alphabetical order:
- AeroCool VX/VS-9 Pro
- Antec 1200
- Antec 901
- Chieftec Smart WH-01
- Coolermaster Centurion 590
- Lianli PC-P80
- Lianli PC-P50
- NZXT Evo
- Sharkoon Rebel 12 Eco / Value
- Silverstone KL01 & KL02
- Silverstone TJ-07
- Sunbeam AC9B-T Acrylic
- Thermaltake V5
- Xigmatek Utgard CPC-T90DB
- Zalman MS1000
- Zalman Z7 Plus
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NZXT Tempest EVO Case
The main advantages of a mid-tower case over a SFF case for a file server are...
- Potentially mount a larger number of hard drives for greater storage capacity. The SFF file server we detailed has room for six HDDs, giving us 12 TB with 2 TB WD GP drives... but now that WD has released a 3TB version, the maximum potential capacity of that system just jumped to 18 TB. Presumably, you'll want to have at least 8-9 HDD capacity if you're going for a bigger case — for a maximum potential capacity of >24 TB with 3 TB drives. We don't know how people fill such storage space... but they seem to.
- Have the system be just as quiet (as our 20 dBA SFF 6-HDD file server) by mechanically decoupling the HDDs. This is the goal, anyway. We'll see if it can be achieved.
- Possibly run a serious gaming rig with a high power video card, given the extra space and airflow potential of a bigger case. While still being ultra-quiet, of course.
So... the first order of the day was to get our hands on an appropriate case. A few, mostly by Antec and Silverstone, have come through the lab; alas, they are no longer with us. A spate of emails to potential sample providers resulted in the prompt receipt of a NZXT Tempest EVO, which we had identified from web photos to be suitable. It was the first suitable case sample to arrive, so we jumped in.
As you can see from the above series of photos, the NZXT Tempest Evo proved to be a perfectly suitable canditate. The sheet metal was a reasonably sturdy 0.8 mm thickness, and the only place where it seemed a bit flimsy was on the side panels. All the edges were rolled, and amazingly, not a single cut or drop of blood was exacted by the case in the course of this project —and there was ample opportunity!
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Other Components & Modding For HDD Elastic Suspension
COMPONENT LIST
As for the rest of the components, quiet ATX power supplies have been long studied and documented here, as have quiet CPU coolers, and fans. Just check out the pertinent articles in the Recommended Section for details. Given the sheer number of HDDs we're dealing with, a modular PSU is a practical option. Among them, the Seasonic X-series (and the Corsair AX series) is king, with 90% efficiency, super low noise and all completely detachable cables. That leaves just the motherboard, CPU and RAM. In reality, just about any modern multiple-core processor, supporting board and RAM will do. For our build, we chose solid products that we've already reviewed. Here's the build roster, with links to our reviews or product pages.
Notes about the Components
The Gigabyte 890GPA-UD3H ATX motherboard is well equipped; its only real limitation being 8 SATA ports. There are a very few boards with 10 SATA ports or more, but we simply could not afford the time to hunt for them and then get them to the lab. Eight HDDs would have to do; one more would be installed and powered up (for noise measurements) but not hooked up to the motherboard. It is also possible to choose a motherboard with the features you seek, then add a PCIe SATA expansion card. Keep in mind that high performance PICe SATA cards are not cheap, however.
The Athlon II X2 255 AM3 processor should provide high enough performance for any home server, with dual cores at 3.1 GHz and 2MB cache. A 45W TDP processor might have been a better choice, but because the CPU is so unlikely to be pegged in a home server, the additional cost (and slower speed) of a lower TDP part was deemed unnecessary.
We always find low voltage RAM to be very useful in low-power silent PC builds, as reliability is ensured even when components are undervolted. The OCZ RAM worked well.
The Seasonic X-650 is overkill in terms of total available power, as the CPU and motherboard will probably never draw over 90W, but the startup power spike of nine drives could exceed 200W (even if only momentarily)... and if a gaming video card is ever installed it will add >100W, so the extra power is not such a bad thing. Besides, the price difference between this and the next model down (Seasonic X-560) is trivial, and efficiency is extremely high even when overall power draw is well under 100W.
The WD GP 2TB are the same parts used in the SFF server, but since we posted that article, the WD 3TB models has been launched. The latter is still around $250, so it's not exactly a bargain compared to the 2TB's $100 price. Just wait a few months (or even weeks) and that 3TB is sure to come down in price, especially as other brands launch competing drives.
The Noctua NH-C12P cooler we used is the old one with 12cm fan which we reviewed quite some time ago. It has been replaced by a similar one with a 14cm fan, the price for which is cited. This is not great value, actually, as there are tower coolers at half the price with at least as good cooling performance. Many of those listed in our Recommended Heatsinks article are certainly good alternatives. In any case, the Noctua provides perfectly good enough cooling for our application. We were motivated to use this cooler for another reason: It fits much more easily into a smaller horizontal style HTPC case; that is the next configuration planned for this server build guide.
THE HDD SUSPENSION MOD
Our modifications to the NZXT Tempest EVO case for HDD suspension can be applied to just about any case with an extended optical drive cage. It begins with stripping out everything from the ODD cage that could interfere with the rigging of the suspension. Then, you need a spool of sturdy clothing elastic (available from any sewing shop), a sharp pair of scissors, possibly some plastic wire ties, and maybe a lighter, which can be useful in "cauterizing" frayed ends of the elastic, if necessary. Finally, some patience and time.
This suspension mod of nine pairs of elastic cord loops (one in front, one nearer the back) for nine HDDs took a little over an hour... but we have had a lot of practice. It might take you longer. Only existing holes were used, and in a few instances where space was very tight, plastic wire ties were used to anchor the ends.
If this server was going to be used long term, we would have drilled more holes on the sides of the drive cage so that three or even four loops could be used for each drive. This reduces the stress and strain on the elastic cord, which can wear (though it rarely every breaks due to the outside fabric mesh). It's also wise to check the elastic periodically (say every half year) for wear and tear.
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Testing the System with Nine Suspended HDDs
Nine drives suspended in any case is quite a sight.
 Nine elastically suspended hard drives, all WD Green Power except for two Samsung Eco Green 5400rpm models.
Note that around an inch of space was left between the drives, to allow airflow and ease installation. Once slipped into the loops of elastic, each drive can be further adjusted for ideal position. This comment might make little sense now, but it will make perfect sense once you're at the tail end of a HDD elastic suspension project.
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The motherboard, CPU, CPU heatsink/fan, and RAM were all installed in the case before the elastics and HDDs were installed. The Seasonic X-650 power supply came next. It was a relief not to deal with attached cables with so many drives to hook up. Cable management was still not easy, but it would have been much more tedious with cables permanently attached to the PSU. Each set of cables had to be carefully "dressed" so that the tension and stiffness in the cable would not move the HDDs out of ideal position.
 All the welcome cable management features of the Tempest EVO case were used. Sharp-eyed readers will see an OCZ SSD at the bottom of the case. This was in anticipation of the next system configuration; it was mounted with a single screw. |
Only two fans were set up to run — the Nexus 120 on the CPU cooler and the stock fan on the back panel of the Tempest EVO case. That stock 120mm fan proved to be quite smooth and quiet. It ran quietly enough at reduced speed that with the combined noise of all the drives, it would not be an audible factor.
We did not think either of the top panel case fans were needed. The top fan vents were blocked off by simply placing a couple of small notebooks on the top grill (on the outside of the case). This effectively stopped any air flow through the top. Ordinary packing tape was used to block off most of the other vents on the back panel as well as the fan on the side panel. All this was to ensure that most of the air pulled by the single back case fan would come from the front, and provide some cooling for all those hard drives. (Naturally, the use of packing tape for vent-blocking is only for temporary testing; appropriately-colored cardboard, plastic or closed cell foam sheets are preferred for more permanent vent blocking.)
Windows Home Server was installed on one of the nine WD Green drives, updates and drivers loaded. The system was run for a couple of hours afterwards to ensure complete stability before embarking on any testing. (As mentioned before, one of the drives was powered up but could not be connected to the motherboard as it has only eight SATA ports.) Then we took the system into the anechoic chamber and put it through its paces in the same way as we did with the SFF file server configuration.
NOISE & THERMALS
|
Mid Tower Silent File Server Measurements
|
|
Activity State
|
CPU
|
HDD
|
System Power (AC)
|
SPL@1m
|
|
Idle
|
39°C
|
34~41°C
|
84W
|
<19 dBA
|
|
Streaming video
|
41°C
|
90W
|
|
Extended read/ writes ~30 mins
|
<41°C
|
39~44°C
|
88~101W
|
|
CPU and case fans at 700 RPM.
Ambient temperature: 22~24°C.
Ambient noise level: 11 dBA.
|
The numbers were hard to believe at first. Less than 19 dBA@1m from a computer system with nine hard drives! That's a maximum storage capacity of 27 TB with 3 TB drives. The increase in system power draw was around 10W compared to the 6-HDD SFF build. We decided at this point to pull a couple of drives out to make a direct comparison to the SFF file server.
|
Mid Tower 6-HDD Silent File Server Measurements
|
|
Activity State
|
CPU
|
HDD
|
System Power (AC)
|
SPL@1m
|
|
Idle
|
39°C
|
34~41°C
|
72W
|
<17 dBA
|
|
Streaming video
|
41°C
|
74W
|
|
Extended read/ writes ~30 mins
|
<41°C
|
36~44°C
|
78~82W
|
|
CPU and case fans at 700 RPM.
|
|
SFF 6-HDD Silent File Server Measurements
|
|
Idle
|
33°C
|
37~39°C
|
71W
|
20 dBA
|
|
Streaming video
|
37°C
|
74W
|
|
Extended read/ writes ~30 mins
|
<40°C
|
37~45°C
|
79~82W
|
|
CPU and case fans at 800 RPM.
|
The differences in CPU temperatures (in the table above) can be dismissed; they are completely different processors... but it's interesting to note both are similarly low, so cooling is more than adequate for both CPUs. HDD temps in the two systems are close enough to be considered the same, as are the power consumption numbers. We'd guess that the Gigabyte 890GPA-UD3H + Athlon II 255 probably draw more power than the Zotac + i3-530 in the SFF box, but the difference is compensated by the higher efficiency of the Seasonic X-650 power supply.
There were no significant differences in network access speed between this build and the earlier mini-ITX SFF build. File transfer speed peaked around 100 MB/s on both, with lows being 30~40 MB/s. The same caveats apply with regard to ethernet cables.
Measured noise is over 3 dBA quieter for the bigger box. This is because there is one more fan in the front of the SFF box, and the suspension mod in the mid-tower reduces HDD noise. The tower box with nine HDDs is slightly quieter than the SFF box with 6 HDDs. (Note that when placed on a 1" thick closed-cell pad, the SFF box noise dropped to 18 dBA; this trick does nothing for the elastic suspended HDD mid-tower because there are no vibrations in the case to be damped.)
This chart is with case fans turned off. Turning the front and top case fans on to 6V increased overall SPL to 20 dBA@1m
The hump at 250~300 Hz appears to be a transient anomaly captured accidentally here. (A "thump" outside the chamber, perhaps.) The measured SPL would have been lower without it.
The main increase in noise over the 6 HDD config occurs in the midband, 500~3000 Hz. This is still a dB quieter than the 6-HDD SFF build.
|
Both SFF and the mid-tower systems can be extremely quiet with six HDDs, especially the latter with elastic suspension for the HDDs and the former with a foam pad beneath it. But the mid-tower system can accommodate 50% greater number of drives and still remains well under 20 dBA@1m. If you need/want the higher storage and you're willing to find room for another standard size PC, our build shows you how it can be done without any noise penalty.
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Gaming/Home Server: HD 5780 + 9 HDDs
In the SFF, we tried out a modest gaming card and found it perfectly viable as a silent Windows 7 gaming / file server box with four HDDs. What could be done with this mid-tower system? We went straight for the high end.
Some readers might recall that we reviewed a HIS HD Radeon 5870 iCooler V Turbo last spring. This is a HD 5870 variant overclocked to 875/1225 MHz, with increased performance and power draw over the stock-clocked models. We estimated its power consumption with Furmark to be around 215W. The 34 dBA@1m SPL of this card at full load would not be acceptable, so a quick swap of the cooler was made, to the GELID Icy Vision Dual Fan Cooler which did so well on the ~150W HD 4890 card we routinely use to test VGA coolers. The card + cooler installed easily with all that room inside the case. There was a bit of sag on the back end of the card due to the weight of the cooler, but this seems unavoidable. (For the total gaming performance fanatics, there is definitely no room for two of these cards and coolers, at least not on this motherboard.)
Mid-tower Gaming / File Server config: An overclocked Radeon HD5870 video card with Gelid Icy Vision cooler, still with nine WD Green hard drives and an OCZ Vertex SSD for Windows 7 and programs. |
Windows 7 was installed on an OCZ Vertex 32GB SSD, which was mounted on the bottom panel of the NZXT Tempest EVO case. The top fans as well as back fan were all powered up to our external voltage controller, with each fan fed about 4V for ~700 RPM. After a couple of hours with updates and stability checks, the acoustic and thermal testing began. Here are the results after a full hour of 100% load on both CPU and GPU.
|
Mid Tower 9-HDD Silent Gamer / File Server
|
|
Activity State
|
CPU
|
HDD
|
GPU
|
AC Power
|
SPL@1m
|
|
Idle
|
39°C
|
34~41°C
|
not recorded
|
95W
|
21.3 dBA
|
| CPUBurn x2 + Furmark
|
56°C
|
80°C
|
368W
|
|
CPU fan at 7V, back and two top case fans at 4V, GPU fans at 7V. Ambient conditions: 23~25°C, 11 dBA
|
That is not a typo. It really measured 21.3 dBA@1m with the system sucking a whopping 368W from the AC outlet. All component temperatures remained very modest. There was no impact on HDD temperatures with full load on CPU and GPU as they are far enough away, and the case fan do a good job of pulling air through the front vents across the drives. This airflow was undoubtedly helpful for both CPU and GPU cooling as well. The amount of room around the GPU surely helps as well.
It's safe to say this configuration is a success, and it is repeatable with any video card reasonably close in power consumption to the overclocked 5870. This includes the new HD 6870 (which runs cooler at 151W TDP) as well as the nVidia GTX 470 (215W TDP), although the GTX 480 (250W TDP) might require a bit higher fan speed. Whether it's a good idea to mix gaming and file storage is a whole 'nuther question. The answer is that anything which risks system crashes is not ideal for a file server... and games probably risk crashes more than any other type of computer application today. In our Mid Tower 9-HDD Silent Gamer / File Server, crashes due to hardware thermal overload is simply not going to happen unless your ambient temps are 20°C higher than ours. But whether to game on your file server is a choice for the individual user. We're simply showing you what can be done with silent computing.
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HTPC Home Server
We're not quite finished with our Silent Server Build Guide. There is one more form factor that can house a home server, the Home Theater PC case, with a horizontal layout designed to go into a shelf below a TV. Since a HTPC often becomes a central repository for media files, the concept of maximizing storage capacity on such a PC and using it as the file server for the entire home network has merit. This means the PC playes two roles, and one fewer PC is not a bad thing economically and ecologically.
The combination HTPC + Home Server approach eliminates WHS for the operating system; Windows 7 with its built-in Media Center is a far better choice for a HTPC. We have discussed in a previous Home Server section the pros and cons of using Windows 7 for a file server. There are some drawbacks like the absence of a built-in backup system as in WHS and the software that comes with most NAS devices. However, it is possible to replicate many core features with various software utilities such as Acronis, and Windows 7 has Media Center built in, with full support for media streaming to/from other PCs in the network.
As with previous server builds, we start with a case. First, we have to accept that there are no HTPC cases with HDD elastic suspension — either built-in or DIY. There are none with such features built in and none we know of that can be modified for such. Hnece, we have to accept a certain level of mechanically indusced noise from the hard drives. Secondly, unless we opt for a huge (and usually expensive) case, more than about 5~6 drives is out of the question. Never mind. Now that 3 TB HDDs are here, half a dozen of them will give us 18 TB.
So, with those thoughts in mind, what are the main criteria for choosing a horizontal-style case for use as a quiet HPTC/file server? Why it's no different than a HTPC with a large number of HDD bays. Keep in mind that we wished to reuse the components from our mid-tower server build, to keep things simple.
Key criteria:
- ATX motherboard support
- High number of HDD bays, minimum six
- Excellent ventilation, 12cm fans ideal
- Sturdy construction
- Room enough for good sized CPU heatsink
Our own short list of Recommended HTPC cases has only a few models that support ATX boards. Recent HTPC case development has focused mostly on micro-ATX or smaller boards. The requirement of six 3.5" HDD bays shrinks the selection dramatically — there just aren't many. In fact, only a handful of cases by Silverstone and nMediaPC can take six or more HDDs. There is little difference in the layout among these cases. If they were stood up on end, they would have the PSU on the bottom, be a bit narrower, and perhaps a little shorter than most mid-towers.
In the end, we went again with the first suitable sample that arrived in our lab: The recently introduced Silverstone GD-03, which can accommodate up to seven 3.5" drives, two of them in hot-swappable bays. As before, an SSD was used for the Windows 7 OS. The 30GB OCZ Vertex is small but big enough for our purpose.
The main difference between this build and the mid-tower server is the case itself, six HDDs instead of nine, and no elastic suspension. Even the Noctua NH-C12P cooler could be reused, as it fits with nearly an inch to spare. (You might recall that we had a specific reason to use this cooler instead of a taller one in the mid-tower build.)
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Silverstone GD-03 Case
The GD-03 uses the same chassis as several previous ATX HTPC cases from Silverstone such as the GD01 and LC17. It combines a brushed aluminum facia with a very sturdy 0.8mm steel chassis. The main difference is in the front bezel and the HDD cage area.
GD-03 uses the same chassis as several previous Silverstone cases, including LC13, LC16, LC17, LC20 and GD01.
Two doors swing down on the aluminum facia to reveal a couple of hot-swap HDD slots on left, and extra ODD bay plus external 3.5" bay on right. Front panel I/O on includes two USB ports, mic, headphone and Firewire. There's also a clip-off grill and dust filter which gives access to dual 80mm fan mounts in front of the HDDs.
Hot-swap HDD slots unlock and slide out easily. Note adjacent grill and dust filter.
Dual 80mm fans on back panel, PSUs on other side of motherboard I/O panel with side intake, similar side vent closer to CPU area on motherboard.
The two HDD bays on the far right are hot-swap; five more drives can be fitted in the main HDD cage, which is insulated by strips of soft damping material on the bottom and the top of the cage. As with previous Silverstone ATX HTPC cases, a bar across the middle provides support for the top cover and add rigidity.
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HTPC Home Server Assembly
Assemby of the system began with removal of the HDD cage and mounting of all the drives. Five of the WD Greens were installed in the main section. The sixth WD Green was mounted in one of the hot-swap bays; an OCZ Vertex 30GB SATA II SSD for the operating system went into the second hot-swap bay.
The HDD cage had to be removed to install the drives.
The drives installed in the cage, and all the cables to/from the motherboard and the front panel routed.
View from top: Everything ready to go: Even with the fully modular Seasonic X-650 PSU, the cabling was tedious and difficult with the somewhat shallower depth of this HTPC case (compared to a typical mid-tower).
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Windows 7 was installed onto the SSD. With the cover in place and the front doors closed, the system was left running in idle for a while before testing.
One question loomed: With the front bezel so closed, would the WD drives overheat? In all the other cases we used for server boxes thus far, there have been generously sized vents at the front, close to the hard drives.
The answer came with a quick glance at HDD temperatures using Lavalys EVEREST PC diagnostics software after the system had been sitting mostly in idle and doing Windows updates. They were running too hot, with the hottest one at nearly 60°C and the coolest at 52°C. The ambient temperature in the anechoic chamber was 24°C. In summer, the drives would cook. Back to the drawing board.
Testing the HTPC Home Server
The simplest and quickest solution to cool the HDDs is to add fans in the front of the Silverstone GD03 case. But as mentioned earlier, the front door over the intake vent is meant to be closed normally, and once the door is closed, there's virtually no way the fans can pull any outside air into the case. Surely this would not be effective. Was it worth a try? Well, why not. The system was already fully built in the case.
A quick search for decent 80x25mm fans led us to a big box of 80mm Panaflo fans that were once the finest quiet fans in computing. The brand is history, and there are substantially smoother, quieter fans around today. However, 80mm fans are out of favor these days and we did not have two identical newer 80mm fans on hand, so the old Panaflos would have to do.
The grill over the intake fans was clipped back on, the front door closed, and the PC powered up again. At full speed, the panaflos added quite a bit of noise, but of course, it was not our intent to keep the fans running that high. Instead, fan voltage was reduced to 5V, then the system was allowed to sit idle in Windows for quite some time. Three hours later, we came back to have a look, listen and take some measurements.
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HTPC 6-HDD Silent Home Server
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|
Activity State
|
CPU
|
HDD
|
System Power (AC)
|
SPL@1m
|
|
Idle
|
42°C
|
42~50°C
|
84W
|
19 dBA
|
|
Streaming video
|
44°C
|
91W
|
|
Extended read/ writes ~30 mins
|
<44°C
|
44~52°C
|
88~101W
|
|
CPU and case fans at 700 RPM. Panflo 80mm front fans at 5V.
Ambient temperature: 22~24°C.
Ambient noise level: 11 dBA.
|
The HDDs basically ran 10°C cooler with the Panaflo 80mm fans running slowly in front of them, even with the intake air access pretty much closed. At 42~50°C, the temperature range is acceptable; HDDs are generally rated for safe operation to 60°C. Still, keep in mind this is in a room of 24°C ambient.
What would happen if the hinged door in front of the fans was left open? Temps drop substantially again, while noise goes up by 2 dBA@1m. There is no significant change to CPU temperature; it dropped around 2°C Here's a quick summary of drive temperature under the different cooling schemes.
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HDD Temperatures in 6-HDD Silent Home Server
During extended read/ writes ~30 mins
|
|
Cooling
|
None
|
Two 80mm fans at 700rpm
|
|
Door closed
|
Door Open
|
|
Temperature
|
52~60°C
|
42°~50°C
|
33°~42°C
|
|
SPL@1m
|
17
|
19
|
21
|
|
Ambient temperature: 22~24°C.
Ambient noise level: 11 dBA.
|
The HDDs temperatures are lowest with the two 80mm fans on at a very low speed, with the front door open. The overall noise is 21 dBA@1m, which is still extremely quiet compared to typical PCs. Some years ago, it would have been a low noise champ at SPCR (if fanless PCS are ignored). Keeping that door open allows not only the fan noise but also the noise of the hard drives to be more audible. With the door closed, the noise drops, but the temps go up. In winter in a temperate zone, this would be perfectly acceptable... but in summer, the HDDs would probably run a bit too hot for comfort.
CONCLUSIONS
Finding a HTPC case with the capacity to hold a large number of drives and with airflow design good enough to keep them cool turned out to be quite a challenge. The Silverstone GD-03 can hold seven HDDs, which is more than any other HTPC case we know of, and with the addition of a couple of 80mm fans, it can keep the HDDs reasonably cool except in very hot weather. A smaller number of drives would probably stay a bit cooler, but simply removing the front door or leaving it open in the summer is also a solution for cooling. For now, in appears that a tower style case like the ones mentioned in the Mid-Tower Home Server Configurations portion of this build guide is the best, most cost-effective housing for a silent home server.
* * *
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Backup Options
Backup Options
Data Vulnerability
Not only do hard disk drives have a finite lifespan, they can also fail suddenly with little or no warning signs. Sometimes all that is required is a replacement circuit board, but sometimes an expensive data recovery service is the only option to get your data back. If you value your data at all, having a sound backup scheme is vital, whether you have just a single PC or multiple computers in a home network.
While a home server is no more likely to suffer a drive failure or experience some other critical problem than the client computers on the network, housing so much data puts it in a precarious position. If it only holds backups of other machines, the server going down would not be a significant loss unless one of the other PCs on the network also fails during downtime. In most cases however the server stores a centralized collection of music, movies, pictures and documents that may have taken years to collect and/or have financial/sentimental value.
Some prefer to use a form of RAID (RAID-1 and RAID-5 are the most popular) on their servers to protect their data but it is not supported by the current version of Windows Home Server and more importantly, we don't consider it a true backup method. With RAID-5, the data on a dead drive can be reconstructed through parity regeneration, but there is no second complete copy of the data. RAID-1 technically does backup as a drive that fails can be replaced by a mirrored one, but it is dangerous having a backup drive in the same machine its backing up. If something happened to the server like a power surge, or if it suffered a physical attack (it is still a PC after all), all the drives inside would have an equal chance of being damaged. Ideally you want the backup, in order of increasing security, in a separate machine, in a separate room, or completely off-site.
Consumer Backup Options
- PC: A second PC in a different room with the same storage capacity as the server. Obviously this would be a waste of computing power and electricity just to house a second copy of your data.
- Network Attached Storage: A small NAS device or enclosure sitting on the network to backup for a server would be an ideal choice if money was no object. The only truly affordable ones are the single and dual drive variety and while they may advertise gigabit interfaces, they do not operate anywhere close to speed you'd get with a PC. 4-bay NAS enclosures start at US$300 while a "cheap" 6-bay model can cost three times as much or more.
- External Hard Drive Enclosure: The cost of hard drives has gone down considerably in the last few years and as a result the external hard drive has become an affordable and common backup solution. Fanless enclosures get very hot when left on 24-7 though and the ones with tiny fans are loud, so often users will only use them to do sporadic, impromptu backups. Though they cannot be connected directly to a network like a NAS enclosure and thus have to piggyback off a PC, they are quite cheap with 4-bay eSATA models often going on sale for as low as US$100.
- Optical Media: Recordable CDs and DVDs have their place, but they do not excel as backup mediums. Their limited capacity means large individual files and sets of content must be broken up into parts and it can be time consuming to burn and keep track of these discs. We imagine restoring a large data set after a drive failure would be a tedious experience as well. Data can't be updated either unless more expensive and slower rewritable discs are employed. BD-Rs offer much bigger capacities but still suffer from some of the same inherent problems.
- Online Backup: There are many backup services available that can throw your data up in the cloud so even if your house burns down to the ground, your data is intact in a safe data center presumably far away from the local disaster that has just destroyed all your worldly possessions. For an affordable subscription fee, companies like Mozy and Carbonite offer unlimited storage, automated backup, and encryption to keep all your data up to date and secure. However if you have 1TB of data and a 1mbps upstream connection, you would need to saturate your connection and continuously upload for more than three months to send it all. If you have an ungodly internet connection (by North American standards) or only a small amount of data to backup, it may be safer and more convenient simply to hand your data off to someone else.
Icy Dock MB561US-4S
Obviously we cannot make a blanket recommendation on a backup device for all home servers, but the best general option in our view for a small home network that requires a moderate amount of storage is a multi-bay hard drive enclosure like the Icy Dock MB561US-4S.
 The Icy Dock MB561US-4S. |
Retailing for about US$200, it is a little expensive compared to similar devices like the Mediasonic ProBox or Sans Digital TowerRAID but it is very well built and surprisingly quiet. It's a 4-bay enclosure with a mostly aluminum construction and a 80 mm fan at the rear with an adjustable speed switch. It has USB 2.0 and eSATA interfaces and like most multi-drive enclosures/docks eSATA requires a controller that supports port multiplication. Many third-party SATA controllers (like the JMicron controller in the Zotac H55-ITX-C-E inside our SFF server build) and basic SATA expansion cards will work with it, but the majority of native chipset controllers will not.
Find the right multiple-bay external storage enclosure at the best price with the SPCR Shopping Engine.
|
|
| Model Number : |
MB561US-4S-1 |
| Color : |
Pearl White |
| Host Interface : |
eSATA + USB2.0 combo |
| I/O Port : |
1 x e-SATA (port multiplier) ports, 1 x USB 2.0 port |
| Drive Fit : |
4 x 3.5” SATA I & II |
| Drive Type : |
Standalone with vertical positioning |
| Transfer Rate : |
Up to 480 MB/Sec. via USB 2.0
Up to 3 Gb/Sec. via eSATA |
| Insert& Extract connection Via : |
15 pin direct hard drive connection |
| Structure : |
Aluminum body w/ partial plastic |
| Drive Cooling : |
Rear outtake fan w/ adjustable fan speed control |
| Cooling Fan : |
80 x 80 x 25mm ball bearing fan |
| LED Indication : |
Device Power & Drive Activity |
| LED Display Color : |
Mini White |
| OS Requirement : |
Windows 98/SE/ME/2000/XP/VISTA ; Mac OS 9.0 or higher |
eSATA Port Multiplier
Interface Requirement : |
PCI-Express / Express Card /
PCI-X Host Bus Adapter with eSATA connector /
Onboard eSATA connector that support port multiplier function |
| Plug & Play : |
Yes |
| Hot swap : |
Yes |
| Power Supply : |
Built-in |
| Power Supply Voltage : |
12V / 6A , 5V / 8A , 112W (12V PEAK 12A) |
| Power ON / OFF : |
Built-in Switch |
| Dimension (L x W x H) : |
234.9×141×175 mm |
Physical Details
 At the back, the Icy Dock has eSATA and USB 2.0 connections, a fan adjustment switch, and an on/off switch. The Icy Dock has a built-in power supply so it uses a standard power cable (no AC brick). |
 The fan holder at the back is a little loose and be removed by hand. |
 The front plate of the hard drive sleds are made of plastic, but the rest is aluminum, making them fairly strong. |
 Airflow is a problem for many of these enclosures because the circuit board with the SATA connectors is usually located in the rear in front of the fan. We would've designed it with side-mounts and a fan on the case floor blowing up. |
Find the right multiple-bay external storage enclosure at the best price with the SPCR Shopping Engine.
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Icy Dock Enclosure: Assembly & Results
Icy Dock Enclosure: Assembly & Results
Assembly
Before assembling the Icy Dock, we did a quick check of its acoustics to make sure it was suitable. With the cooling fan on low speed, it was quiet enough for us to proceed, but the quality of the sound wasn't great. The fan was a little growly, but it also rattled because of how it was mounted; the plastic holder was rather loose and wiggled around quite easily. To deal with this issue we performed another ghetto mod, inserting a few pieces of cardboard to make it a snugger fit.
 A few strips of cardboard makes the fan rattle go away. |
 A Caviar Green mounted in one of the sleds. |
 Four drives ready to go. |
 Fully assembled and turned on. White LEDs indicate which drives are active. |
Test Results
To test the Icy Dock, we installed four drives from our SFF home server build (2TB Caviar Greens) into it and left it running for various periods of time at different fan speeds. We checked the hard drive temperatures by periodically connecting it via eSATA to the Puget Serenity SPCR Edition v.2.
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Measurements
|
|
Fan Speed
(time elapsed)
|
HDD Temps
|
SPL@1m
|
AC Power
|
|
Empty
|
|
Low
|
N/A
|
18~19 dBA
|
3W
|
|
Auto
|
N/A
|
28 dBA
|
|
Filled
|
|
Low (one hour)
|
35~38°C
|
20 dBA
|
30W
|
|
Low (three hours)
|
39~42°C
|
|
Auto (one hour)
|
35~39°C
|
29 dBA
|
|
Ambient temperature: 22°C.
Ambient noise level: 11 dBA.
|
Despite the obviously limited airflow inside the Icy Dock, it managed to keep all the drives inside at 42°C or lower after three hours of operation, even with the fan speed set to low. It was also very quiet measuring only 20 dBA@1m, no more than our SFF server build. Setting the fan speed to automatic resulted in a hefty increase in noise but with no significant thermal difference. Vibration was only a minor issue and the enclosure did not exhibit the resonance effects encountered with the unmodified Lian Li PC-Q08.
  Turning up the fan speed from low to auto is not worth 9 dB increase in noise level. |
Audio Recordings
These recordings were made with a high resolution, lab quality, digital recording system inside SPCR's own 11 dBA ambient anechoic chamber, then converted to LAME 128kbps encoded MP3s. We've listened long and hard to ensure there is no audible degradation from the original WAV files to these MP3s. They represent a quick snapshot of what we heard during the review.
Each recording starts with ambient noise, then 10 second segments of product at various states. For the most realistic results, set the volume so that the starting ambient level is just barely audible, then don't change the volume setting again while comparing all the sound files.
Speed & Summary
We also managed to get fairly good performance using the eSATA interface. Copying a 38GB file from the enclosure to an internal drive (both Caviar Greens) took about six minutes and 30 seconds with an average speed of 101MB/s. For all intents and purposes it was as fast as have both drives inside the same system.
Fast, quiet, cool, easy to use, the Icy Dock MB561US-4S is a strong backup device for a middle-of-the-road home server with only one weakness, its US$200 street price. However as we stated earlier, there are a few more affordable alternatives on the market that should perform similarly, though we cannot vouch for their acoustics.
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This is what the intake fan mount looks like behind the filter/grill. There are friction clips for two 80x25mm fans. 
The 80mm Panaflo fans locked in place, hooked up and ready to go.