Supermicro SC846 cooling questions

[ccruzen]

I'm looking for some advice/suggestions for my setup.  I've got a Supermicro SC846 case I got from TAMS that I moved my current hardware into.  I've got the following:

 

PSU: Corsair HX750

MOBO: Supermicro MBD-X9SCM-F-O

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1240

Controller Card: IBM ServeRAID M1015

Expansion Card: Intel RES2SV240

Hard Drives: 20 total, green and not, all different sizes.

 

I replaced the fans in the case but am having heat issues with the hard drives.  I put Arctic F8 fans in the 2 rear spots and have 3 Arctic F12 fans where the old fanwall was.  I've turned the fans onto full through IPMI.  Everywhere else heat isn't an issue, in fact, the power supply fan almost never runs.  Is there any trick to getting good airflow over the drives or are the fans I'm using just not powerful enough?  I've got it set up to pull air from the front through and out the back.

Thanks for any/all help.

[StevenD]

Those fans probably don't pull enough air.  What are the temps on your drives?

[Squid]

In any hotswap environment, the fan ratings for CFM are irrelevant.  Its the rating for static pressure that's important.  And the two ratings do not always go hand-in-hand.

 

Any time your trying to pull air through a limited gap the higher the static pressure rating the better cooling you will get.

 

 

[ccruzen]

Those fans probably don't pull enough air.  What are the temps on your drives?

They've gotten as high as 45 degrees.  I've got a big fan placed in front for a stopgap that is keeping the temps plenty low.

 

Any suggestions on replacements or just be sure to look at static pressure ratings?

Thanks,

[StevenD]

I used these in a SC933 for several years. My drive temps never went above 38 degrees.

 

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B0034AFDL4

 

I would just put the factory fans back in and make sure IPMI is set to Optimal.  You also need to make double sure that your fans are plugged into the right ports on the motherboard.

 

If you are having issues with noise, look at replacing your power supplies with SQ's.

[CyberSkulls]

As others have pointed out the Arctic fans have a descent CFM in a open environment such as a large tower case with no obstructions. But as you have seen they have literally no static pressure meaning they just can't pull enough air through the drives/backplane.

 

I use the stock fans running off my motherboards fan controller (ASUS M5A97 R2) and my drives idle in the upper 20's and under load hit 30-31C.

 

I also left the stock PDU and upgraded to SQ power supplies. System stays cool and although not silent, it's quiet enough for me.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[ccruzen]

FYI, I got the chance to shut down and get into the BIOS yesterday afternoon and found that, although I had changed the fan setting via IPMI, it didn't actually put the fans on full.  That's why, even though the drives were getting hot, with the rest of the system not, the fans weren't running.  I set via the BIOS the fans to full and am 90% through a parity check with the hottest temps being 40 degrees.  I'm still going to swap these fans in the next week or two but am comfortable it will be fine until then.

Thanks for everyone that helped, any questions or further advise, let me know.

[StevenD]

FYI, I got the chance to shut down and get into the BIOS yesterday afternoon and found that, although I had changed the fan setting via IPMI, it didn't actually put the fans on full.  That's why, even though the drives were getting hot, with the rest of the system not, the fans weren't running.  I set via the BIOS the fans to full and am 90% through a parity check with the hottest temps being 40 degrees.  I'm still going to swap these fans in the next week or two but am comfortable it will be fine until then.

Thanks for everyone that helped, any questions or further advise, let me know.

 

Yes, its worth noting that if you change the fans in IPMI, whether via the GUI or via ipmiutil, you must shutdown the server, and reboot it. 

[StevenD]

You may also need to change the lower and upper fan limits since you arent running SuperMicro fans.

[ccruzen]

Yes, its worth noting that if you change the fans in IPMI, whether via the GUI or via ipmiutil, you must shutdown the server, and reboot it.

Thanks, I did not know that and is useful information for the future.