NAS build - Nexus Prominent 5 / Xeon L3406

[Taxcheat]

Case: Nexus Prominent 5
CPU: Xeon L3406 (30w TDP)
Cooler: Thermalright 120 Rev C + Scythe S-Flex 1200 rpm fan (on fanmate)
MB: Supermicro X8SIL-F
Ram: Kingston ECC 4GB (might need to add more, we'll see)
HD: 5xWD Green 2TB
PSU: Seasonic X650
OS: Ubuntu Server 10.10.

First Impressions: This is only my second attempt at a build, so my point of reference is an Antec P183 + CP850 setup. By that measure, this case is not as well designed. There are clips on the right-hand side of the motherboard that let you route the river of cables, but you can't hide everything behind the MB like you can in the Antec. The worst aspect is the grilless 140mm top fan is less than an inch away from the MB main power connector. So the only way to connect the MB and CPU power cables is to drag them across the motherboard. Fortunately, I'm not going to look inside the case very often. The acoustic foam on the side panels is very thin, but the panels themselves are thick. The TRUE barely fits. A test fit (don't have the CPU yet) left no room to spare.

The thing that sold me on the case is that there are five plastic bays for hard drives with a Nexus fan blowing right on them to keep them cool. It's pretty easy to load up a drive and they feel secure. It'll be interesting to see if it helps reduce vibrations. When I want more storage, there are 4 more 5.25 bays to hold drives. I put 2 fanmates in the top drive slot so that I would just need to pull off the front bezel (one yank) to adjust them.

Workmanship on the case is excellent -- no jagged edges anywhere. It feels very solid. I like the looks. Top marks here.

To the guy who asked about fans: there's room for 2 x140mm fans up top (one supplied). There are 2 cutouts for fans on the bottom and one on the back. They look like 120mm spaces to me.

[Taxcheat]

Ok, system's built and is quiet. The fans hum, but probably will be inaudible when on the ground and the settings are tweaked. It's been running Memtest at a solid 32-33C. Will run mprime next. Being able to watch bios temps and the test screen over wifi (via IPMI) is pretty awesome. Pics:

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[Taxcheat]

COMP3.JPG

[flemeister]

The Prominent 5 looks almost exactly like a Coolermaster CM690, save for a few mods by Nexus.

When you hit the side panels with your knuckles, do they "clang" or "thud"? Nice build by the way.

[Taxcheat]

When you hit the side panels with your knuckles, do they "clang" or "thud"? Nice build by the way.

Thanks. I just hit the sides and it sounded like hitting thin metal more than hitting a bank vault. It didn't keep reverberating long, but I'd go with clang. The sides aren't screwed on, so it might be a bit better when fully buttoned up.

The system has been calculating prime numbers all night and the temp actually decreased. My UPS says, at idle, the system uses under 50w (doesn't measure below 50). Maxed out on primes, the system takes 50-55w. Only one drive is installed for now.

Next up, benchmarks. Didn't see many on the web for the L3406.

[bozar]

That mobo has a strange set of locations för connectors but is there room for cable-management on the back of the tray with a common ATX mobo? There is atleast one hole for it.....

[Taxcheat]

There's plenty of room behind the MB. I have a few cables hidden behind there. Even if the Supermicro had different placement, the problem remains. E.g., I had no place to put the cables for the 140mm fan (left side of board).

Basically, the choice of Nexus (or Coolermaster) was to have the wiring be exposed and held by plastic clips. It would have been almost as easy to make a channel to hide the cables. This lowers the score I would give the case, but it's a minor issue for me. I specifically wanted a case without windows and neon lights from the latest Fast & Furious movie because I don't want to look inside.

[tdr.]

Is this case noisier than the p183 ?Do you think i could i fit a thermalright hr-02 heatsink into this case?

[Taxcheat]

Is this case noisier than the p183 ?Do you think i could i fit a thermalright hr-02 heatsink into this case?

Compare the measurements of the TRUE to the HR02. If it's taller, I doubt it.

Which case is quieter? Not sure. My P183 case holds an i7-920 that is a beast to cool down so it's hard to compare. I think if I swapped parts, the Antec might be slightly quieter -- but only if you swap fans. The Nexus case fans are awesome. I just dialed all three fans to the bare minimum speed with Fanmates and this setup is pretty much silent unless you stick your ear near the vents. Temp at 37C. Waiting to see if it stabilizes.

[tdr.]

It has almost double width.Soo ,from what i understand the p183 doesn t realy worth twice the money the nexus costs or does it?
Wasn't your PSU suposed to sit with the fan facing down in this case?
L.E. the hr02 fitted perfectly and i have still space left for an eventual cooler and fortunately i didn't have the problem with the power connection beeing in front of the cooling fan because of the diferent layout of my MB.
Now i have to get rid of the noisy hdd and gpu .Are you satisfide with the green hdd-s ?

[dmo580]

perhaps getting a grille for the 140mm fan up top would be nice.

im always scared of being clumsy and getting bloodied up by those damn things

[Taxcheat]

tdr,
The Nexus case is as expensive as the P183 Mostly because it's a new case and there's currently only one supplier.

I was confused on which way to face the PSU. Google brought me to a MikeC post that suggested upwards. It's totally irrelevant because with a total power draw that will never exceed ~75-80w once all the drives are installed, the fan will never activate.

Only one drive is installed while I configure the OS, but during partitioning and formatting with case fans at 440rpm (dead silent), I could not hear the drive at all. So I'm optimistic the greens will be quiet. Temp on the drive is 30C.

dmo,
Gravity is your friend. No need for a grill because the wire is being pulled downward.

[tdr.]

Here ,in europe, the nexus 5 is under 90euro and the antec p183 is around 170euro.
I have put the psu downwards because of the cooling grate on the bottom .

[Taxcheat]

Couldn't find any good Linux benchmarks except this one: y-crunch.

The L3406 calculates 25m digits of pi in 23.8s. 50m digits takes 51.3s.

For comparison:
i5-540M laptop 25m @ 32.4s / 50m @ 58.4s
i7-920 desktop 25m @ 13.2s / 50m @ 27.2s

temps after calculating pi for 6 hours --
40C for CPU via bios. (Intel TCase is 53.9)
CPU cores are 76.5C each
HDD is 36C (WD max temp is 60C)

All fans at lowest voltage, dead silent when placed on the ground and I'm in a chair. Power usage is ~55W. I'll probably up the CPU fan a bit.

[Taxcheat]

Here's the final look of the quiet file server next to the old-fashioned file server.

final.JPG

I also got a Killawatt from the Newegg sale for more accurate power measurements. Drive load was copying files to each of the RAID1 arrays:

Code: Select all

Off:			 4.3w (IPMI active)
Boot:		   58w, max spike 89w
Idle:			38w - 45w
Drive load:	44w
CPU + drive:  70w, max 72.1w
load