How to build a silent server?

Question

Computers

I will collect the server for experiments and for the site. I will assemble in unit corps. We need to make them as quiet as possible. What do you advise? Which case to take: u1,2,3,4...? And just share your experience.

Answer 1

VPS in the European DC will be completely silent for you. The price of the issue is a few euros per month, experiment.

Answer 2

A quiet computer, no matter if it is a server or a gaming one (this is a role and not a physical choice of hardware, although it often happens that tasks limit the choice to a server one) is real.
To make a computer silent, you need to eliminate components that make noise (I'm directly KO). At the moment, these are two main sources - an air cooling system and hard drives.
The air cooling system changes to liquid. And everything you can reach - the motherboard, RAM, disks, even ssd and of course the processor and video cards. There will be some problems with power supplies, price tags for passive systems or with the possibility of cooling with water, which are not at all adequate, but you can work on a collective farm ...
Heat can be removed passively using cheap and affordableheating batteries .. with prices of about 300 rubles per 100 watts (one section), otherwise some run to buy expensive cases ... well, who cares.
With disks, if you have money, everything is simple - replace it with ssd, otherwise, if hdd is uncontested, stuff them into a sealed heavy case (literally, a stone slab, much heavier than the disks themselves), upholstered in sound-absorbing material (rags, cotton wool, foam rubber, specialized materials) or blocking expensive multi-level sound insulation (in fact, it is very difficult, since low-frequency vibrations are difficult to shield with light materials). The plate will reflect the sound and absorb low-frequency vibrations, and the hermetic case and soundproofing materials will dampen the sounds to zero.
In practice, it is not necessary to completely dampen all the noise, for low-power hardware, power supplies are almost silent, disks hang quietly on vibration-absorbing pads, and the components on the motherboard will still have to be air-cooled, at least some kind of weak cooler, minimal air circulation is needed ... enough stuff the whole household into a closed cabinet, and hang the cooling battery at the back (leaving 10-20 cm space up to the wall and under the cabinet, for natural air circulation.
ps if your load is above 1 kWh, then you can bring the liquid through the pipes to the street, leaving the batteries there, it's a little harder but still cheap, 3 and more kWh you need a better system, for example, put an air conditioning outdoor unit from split systems ... in general, it is more difficult and expensive to choose further, since there are no ready-made solutions for heat removal in the consumer sector
for example, I discussed the design for removing 4 kWh of heat to the street, a 7 kWh outdoor unit (freon, so the system power doubles from a constant load, it is designed only for peak and permanent stops), a heat exchanger from a water tank (clean or mixed with antifreeze from the computer cooling system) and lowered into it with a wound coil of copper tube. I was estimated the cost of the system - about 15t.r. work + 20t.r. heat exchanger with control electronics + 50-70t.r. for the street block.

Answer 3

If we are talking about a budget server living at home in a rack case - naturally 4U, large quiet fans for blowing and for a power supply unit, an office motherboard, a large cooler with a large carlson ...
The case is budget, to your taste and budget, choose for example from these .