Silent File Server?

gruntLOL · 1st January 2010, 9:24 PM

Hi all I am considering making myself a new file server for home. I currently use an old laptop and use VNC to remote desktop into it and control it from there (which to be honest is quite clunky).

Been playing around with Ubuntu in a VM and I think I will just run utorrent via wine with its webui (though I am yet to work out how to add torrents that contain a cookie that way...but I digress). At the moment my 1TB HDD will be going into it as I have a spare 250gb and 320gb hard drive I will be use for my gaming machine.

My question is though can I make this case silent? It will be idle 99% of the time, the rest will just be streaming media through the network to my machine, iphone, laptop whatever.

I will be looking around for old p4 stuff (something I can pick up really cheap). Is it as simple as just buying a bigger heatsink and then just not attaching a fan to it? Will no fans in the case and no airflow be a bad thing if this case is just idle most of the time? The room generally doesn't get very hot as its a large area and is also cooled by the aircon from the rest of the house.

vkritter · 1st January 2010, 9:42 PM

Wouldn't waste your money with an old P4 board unless you have all the parts required or can pick them up for nothing, they are power hungry and you can get power efficient gear for a hundred new.

If you are going down the cheap pc path, look at the atoms, not expensive and will save you in juice if you decide to leave it running 24/7. You can pickup a dual core atom board (cpu/mobo/giglan/2or4 sata ports) for under $150 and it will only chew 20W of juice.

If you're just after something that works, silent(ish) hdds ticking away makes noise, and don't want a project out of it (crazy I know) you can't go wrong with a thecus or qnap nas. They have offerings from 1,2,4+ drives and are no nonsense up and running in 15 minute setups.

If you go down the DIY path have a look at freenas or openfiler. They both have their pros and cons but they will make your life easier and offer a decent gui to manage smb/nfs/iscsi/ftp/ssh/etc shares.

Jonchilds · 1st January 2010, 9:42 PM

The hard drives will mean it'll not be completely silent, but the usual things like a good PSU with a 120mm fan, a good CPU heatsink, and fans with 5 or 7 volt mods.

Airflow is a must, unless you've got a case that's largely mesh and will naturally convect.

You need to design the PC to cool the maximum load the machine is likely to experience, not the average, otherwise it'll fall over mid-task each time.

I've got an Atom 330/Ion board in the HTPC, and apart from a single fan it's silent. The fan only runs because it's overclocked and needs the cooling for when it gets loaded up.

terrastrife · 1st January 2010, 9:46 PM

shove it inside a 1" thick mdf 1m squre box witha 120mm fan and it shoudl be pretty quiet.

pick two of the below

cheap
quiet
small

bigheadache · 2nd January 2010, 2:48 AM

I'm thinking about using PriceUSa to buy the following home file server:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...Tpk=hp%20lx195

Should work out to $350 odd shipped.

Davo1111 · 2nd January 2010, 3:14 AM

bought an asus ebox from onlinecomputer.com.au for ~$400
Is super quiet, wouldn't know its on if the led light was broken*.

Otherwise a combination of the above posts.

Atom motherboard
Good Heatsink (with proper heatsink glue)
Thick ish case
Put rubber washes around all the hard drives (to stop vibrations)
buy a good Fan to blow air into the case

*it isnt broken, just hypothetical. but its a bloody bright led

gruntLOL · 2nd January 2010, 7:47 AM

Thanks guys I only used the word silent because I was having a brain fart and couldn't think of the word "passive" at the time. I understand it won't be totally silent but I am fine with that, being that it is in a large room that has fairly frequent background noise and it is at the opposite end of the room some HDD noise will likely be unheard anyway.

I will investigate these atom boards more, see if I need a different case or anything like that.

Cheers guys

Omwols · 2nd January 2010, 3:34 PM

I actually have a fileserver running ubuntu that I built recently.. though i went a bit overboard tbh. Main components are a sempron 140 and ASRock A780GM-LE/128M, which cost me less than $150 inc postage. The sempron is basically a single core Athlon II X2, with 1MB cache, and the motherboard is very solid and includes 6 sata ports, and is mATX.

This is housed in a brand new Antec mini P180, with Corsair CX400W psu, and i've fitted My old Ninja Rev.b and Noctua NH-U6 coolers to it. With my 2x 1TB and 1x 1.5 TB greenpower drives, and spare 64GB Falcon SSD fitted, the whole system idles at less than 30W and gets to 34W when watching a HD movie.

This system was left running orthos overnight during the build stage in a case with no fans fitted, just the heatsinks and running from the ssd, and it was silent and eventually the cpu maxed out at 43 deg C.

1st January 2010, 9:24 PM	#1
gruntLOL Member Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Adelaide Posts: 2,765	Silent File Server? Hi all I am considering making myself a new file server for home. I currently use an old laptop and use VNC to remote desktop into it and control it from there (which to be honest is quite clunky). Been playing around with Ubuntu in a VM and I think I will just run utorrent via wine with its webui (though I am yet to work out how to add torrents that contain a cookie that way...but I digress). At the moment my 1TB HDD will be going into it as I have a spare 250gb and 320gb hard drive I will be use for my gaming machine. My question is though can I make this case silent? It will be idle 99% of the time, the rest will just be streaming media through the network to my machine, iphone, laptop whatever. I will be looking around for old p4 stuff (something I can pick up really cheap). Is it as simple as just buying a bigger heatsink and then just not attaching a fan to it? Will no fans in the case and no airflow be a bad thing if this case is just idle most of the time? The room generally doesn't get very hot as its a large area and is also cooled by the aircon from the rest of the house.

1st January 2010, 9:42 PM	#2
vkritter Member Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Sydney Posts: 93	Wouldn't waste your money with an old P4 board unless you have all the parts required or can pick them up for nothing, they are power hungry and you can get power efficient gear for a hundred new. If you are going down the cheap pc path, look at the atoms, not expensive and will save you in juice if you decide to leave it running 24/7. You can pickup a dual core atom board (cpu/mobo/giglan/2or4 sata ports) for under $150 and it will only chew 20W of juice. If you're just after something that works, silent(ish) hdds ticking away makes noise, and don't want a project out of it (crazy I know) you can't go wrong with a thecus or qnap nas. They have offerings from 1,2,4+ drives and are no nonsense up and running in 15 minute setups. If you go down the DIY path have a look at freenas or openfiler. They both have their pros and cons but they will make your life easier and offer a decent gui to manage smb/nfs/iscsi/ftp/ssh/etc shares. Last edited by vkritter; 1st January 2010 at 9:44 PM. Reason: spellaring

2nd January 2010, 3:14 AM	#6
Davo1111 Member Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Syd Posts: 2,598	bought an asus ebox from onlinecomputer.com.au for ~$400 Is super quiet, wouldn't know its on if the led light was broken. Otherwise a combination of the above posts. Atom motherboard Good Heatsink (with proper heatsink glue) Thick ish case Put rubber washes around all the hard drives (to stop vibrations) buy a good Fan to blow air into the case it isnt broken, just hypothetical. but its a bloody bright led Last edited by Davo1111; 2nd January 2010 at 3:16 AM.

2nd January 2010, 7:47 AM	#7
gruntLOL Member Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Adelaide Posts: 2,765	Thanks guys I only used the word silent because I was having a brain fart and couldn't think of the word "passive" at the time. I understand it won't be totally silent but I am fine with that, being that it is in a large room that has fairly frequent background noise and it is at the opposite end of the room some HDD noise will likely be unheard anyway. I will investigate these atom boards more, see if I need a different case or anything like that. Cheers guys Last edited by gruntLOL; 2nd January 2010 at 7:52 AM.

1st January 2010, 9:42 PM	#3
Jonchilds Member Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Perth Posts: 635	The hard drives will mean it'll not be completely silent, but the usual things like a good PSU with a 120mm fan, a good CPU heatsink, and fans with 5 or 7 volt mods. Airflow is a must, unless you've got a case that's largely mesh and will naturally convect. You need to design the PC to cool the maximum load the machine is likely to experience, not the average, otherwise it'll fall over mid-task each time. I've got an Atom 330/Ion board in the HTPC, and apart from a single fan it's silent. The fan only runs because it's overclocked and needs the cooling for when it gets loaded up.

1st January 2010, 9:46 PM	#4
terrastrife Member Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: ADL/SA The Monopoly State Posts: 15,947	shove it inside a 1" thick mdf 1m squre box witha 120mm fan and it shoudl be pretty quiet. pick two of the below cheap quiet small

2nd January 2010, 3:34 PM	#8
Omwols Member Join Date: Oct 2006 Posts: 19	I actually have a fileserver running ubuntu that I built recently.. though i went a bit overboard tbh. Main components are a sempron 140 and ASRock A780GM-LE/128M, which cost me less than $150 inc postage. The sempron is basically a single core Athlon II X2, with 1MB cache, and the motherboard is very solid and includes 6 sata ports, and is mATX. This is housed in a brand new Antec mini P180, with Corsair CX400W psu, and i've fitted My old Ninja Rev.b and Noctua NH-U6 coolers to it. With my 2x 1TB and 1x 1.5 TB greenpower drives, and spare 64GB Falcon SSD fitted, the whole system idles at less than 30W and gets to 34W when watching a HD movie. This system was left running orthos overnight during the build stage in a case with no fans fitted, just the heatsinks and running from the ssd, and it was silent and eventually the cpu maxed out at 43 deg C.