Can I use and silence this? 24 Bay Supermicro SC846

[maxse]

Hey guys,

So not a typical post...

 

About 6 years ago when I was just getting into unraid there was a seller (Tamsolutions) of server systems and everyone was going crazy over them so of course I bought 2 for about $350. Only issue is that I never ended up using them! I remember people were saying that they are VERY noisy and I feel like at the time there were all sorts of guides on how to make them quiet?

 

Anyway I just found that I still have 2 of these guys! I definitely wouldn't use it with these components but here is the description:

Case is 24 Bay Supermicro SC846 with caddies

Motherboard: H8DME-2

Procs: Qty 1 AMD Opteron Quad Core 2346HE @ 1.8GHz

Ram: 8GB 4x 2GB, 12 empty slots

IPMI Card: Kira 100

Qty 3 SAT2-MV8 Raid cards

Qty 2 Ablecom PWS-902-IR Power supplies

 

------------

So here is my big question. Can I get rid of all of the components and use one of JDM_WAAT's cheap Nas Killer builds with this case? I would consider it but ONLY if there is a way to make this thing quiet. Like living room quiet, otherwise I would just get a Rosewill hot-swappable case (which I won't be doing now anyway just figured I could use what I have to have some fun). 

I don't know if it's simple to replace stuff on this case, or if it's even compatible with the intel Xeon mobo/parts, and if it's easy to make it quiet or even worth the trouble?

 

Any suggestions?

 

[bnevets27]

I just recently bought a sc846, I would have happily taken one off your hands . I got the less popular AIC case from tams as they were out of stock of the supermicro at the time. With serious modifications I was about to get 2 x 120mm fans in the rear to get it very quiet. I had it in a room next to the living room and didn't hear it.

 

As far as I'm concerned you can't get anything silent enough with 80mm fans, they have to run at too high of a rpm to get any air movement.

 

So to get one of these cases living room quiet, though every one's opinion on quiet is different, you would need to remove every fan, including the PSU's.

 

You can look at some of what the guys did in the avsforum but for the most part they just replaced stuff with quieter parts.

 

The easy stuff is replacing the PSU's with an atx PSU. Most replaced the entire back panel with one that was designed for an atx PSU, which I think was a norco part.

 

And I think most replaced the fan wall with one that used 120mm fans, again I think a norco part but can't remember off hand.

 

But that leaves the rear case fans being 80mm. I don't think there is any easy way to fit 120mm back there.

 

So you could, if you have the ability or can get it done for you, cut 2 or 3 120mm holes in the to top cover at the back, making sure you have clearance to the top of the CPU coolers and atx PSU. Install 2 or 3 120mm fans up there and if all the fans run relatively low rpm then it will be very quiet.

 

Never saw JDM_WAAT's builds before, pretty interesting and resourceful.

For someone that's been use the older generation server parts he was using the same concept I have been for building on the cheap, so I like his builds.

 

To directly answer some of your questions, yes you can replace all the components in that case. It is compatible with just about any board I would assume as you can move the stand offs around depending on what board is in there. Depending on the CPU generation you may or many not need standoffs for the CPU heatsink, but I think in your case they will already be there. So depending on what cpu use you they may be in the right place, need to be moved, or removed entirely but all of that is simple.

 

You can fit up to an ee-atx but you'll be stuck with the noisy server PSU. I think the biggest board you can go with and fit an atx Pau beside it is an e-atx.

 

Just looked up the rosewill case, if you know that will be quiet enough for you then you can easily convert the supermicro to the same configuration. That being an atx PSU and a 120mm fan wall. The rosewill case also uses 80mm rear fans.

 

For the record, those components will do just fine if you are planning on running unraid as a pure NAS. I was actually using the same generation components, though running intel and a bit faster dual CPU with more ram, until about a month ago. And I was running a buch of dockers, and some VMs. I was running it hard but kept up.