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T320 Drive Cooling
Does anyone have a suggestion about SAS drive(s) cooling in this server as they are running around 48-50 degrees even when not under load?
I am going to replace the case fan with a static pressure pwm from Noctua as I don't think the case fan is sufficiently cooling. The fan ramps down nicely after boot as I have the server in a living space + need to think about energy efficency and don't want the fan running full blast. I have a small desk fan which I place in front of the drive bays and this brings the temps down to the 20-30 degree range so I know that it must be a fan issue and I can't understand why only one fan is in the case.
Does anyone have any ideas about adding a secondary fan - perhaps within the cooling shroud to pull additional air through? Alternatively, placing a fan directly behind the drive back-plane?
I am running the latest firmware and have 8 x Dell SAS drives.
Ninemeister
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August 28th, 2023 03:50
Something that helped the airflow greatly in my T320 (upgraded with T420 motherboard) was replacing the factory heatsinks with dual Noctua NH-D9DX i4 3U CPU coolers that have their own individual fans, and then replaced the factory exhaust fan with a Noctua NF-12 iPPC 3000 PWM. I also added a Noctua NF-A14 fan into the upper area above SAS drives to blow at the upper PCIe area at the rear. This configuration allowed me to manually control the rear exhaust fan and lower the speed down to 40%, which is very quiet with the new Noctua fan.
With the row of Noctua CPU fans creating an efficient breezeway under the shroud and the now slower (and quieter) exhaust fan evacuating that heat, the system is near silent and the CPU temperatures never get hot even under heavy stress testing. This is with dual E5-2470v2 processors. This efficient flow of air under the shroud also creates a hefty suction at the front lower SAS drive array.
Ninemeister
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August 28th, 2023 03:56
(edited)