Dell R630 Server For HomeLab use - How loud is it having a server in your living room?

[@NeonSphinx89]

Did you really just make a video with "how loud is..." in the title, and not once actually put a microphone up to it while it was running in its natural environment? I'm never getting that 13 minutes of my life back.

[@UKsystems]

it is not fair to do that as they shoudn;t just be left like that not in an enclosure

[@networklink5974]

Good video, and a really nice topic about low fan noise. But it would have been better to explain plus show what you did to lower the fan noise except saying one line 'removing PCI cards'. Hope to see it here

[@501Bakky]

I like the way you make the server sound!

[@SpaceRexWill]

Server go brrrrr

[@juansolis310]

The people must know!! Truly, your quick example was dead on. I went with a Synology to keep peace in the household.

[@beary8549]

more home lab use videos!

[@SpaceRexWill]

100% More coming!

[@luckbeforeleap]

I needed an inexpensive, practically-silent server for my living room and settled on a Lenovo ST50 tower. I run a bunch of VMs using ESXi and it stays whisper quiet - you would not know it's there. I installed 64GB of Kingston RAM which works fine but Lenovo want you to buy their RAM so if you reboot the server unit itself, you get a prompt with an annoying message that you have to keyboard press F2 to proceed past (no remote reboot of the server itself). Other than that it's a great buy.

[@SpaceRexWill]

Hey good to know! I picked up a custom intel build that's dead silent and cheap

[@SpeakerCraft-q9m]

Thanks for sharing I did not know about this line of servers. The only limitation I see is the max 64 gb of ram but if you are careful that should fine for most home users! If not just buy 2!

[@Noobish588]

To add, if you get an older poweredge there are some sites that do a tutorial on how to flash your raid controller into IT mode so you can get all that pass through goodness by putting back the LSI firmware.

[@rbunpat]

Thank you very much! This is the type of video I'm finding and I finally find it!

[@SpaceRexWill]

Hey glad you liked it! Its kinda the video I wanted when I was getting this thing

[@bitcoinsig]

Two comments: First you can get the low power E5 variants. They clock in at a very low wattage( with only one cpu used, probably similar to a nuc), and it could well be worth it if you are running a machine 24/7 and power is expensive. The other comment is that the r630 has the ability to set your fan speed using ipmi and the ipmitool commands. You can easily set the fan speed to a lower percentage if your unhappy with the noise.

[@SpaceRexWill]

Good point on the lower powered ones. The issue with the IPMI script is that the new idrac update actually disabled this :(

[@TheManuforest]

Great video ! , thanks for sharing. You covered the key points, really. It helped me to make a right decision for starting my home lab project. Cheers mate !

[@SpaceRexWill]

Hey thanks! Glad you liked it!

[@alphabanks]

I've worked in IT for almost 20 years these servers are too loud to have in a home environment. You really need a basement or a dedicated server closet. I would buy Dell Precision workstations you can get them with dual Zeons and 256 gigs or more. I actually prefer to take those five year old servers part them out cpu, ram, nics, hba's, etc over to a new tower build. After you transfer over to a tower you will have nearly a whisper quite system. I also buy after market boards that have remote management giving you the same functionality as the IDRAC.

[@SpaceRexWill]

for some servers yes, but this R630 you don't hear it at all

[@Cheekygorilla1337]

The R630 isn't loud. You can make it loud by running a ton of compute intensive vms and setting the fan's to performance mode though

[@voidedspace5510]

I have a Nexus 7010, 6 poweredge 1950s, a DL 580, and a 380 G7. The issue isn't the OP computers lol, its the operator. I love the sound of white noise.

[@thespencerowen]

A 330 is the same way. After getting to the OS the fans are quieter than my desktop. It also idles at only 28W

[@SV-lw8jo]

Great video but next time just power it on especially (so we can hear it even for a minute or two) if your main subject is the noise level.

[@SpaceRexWill]

The problem is my mic is directional so you really would not be able to tell. What I plan to do in the future is use an omnidirectional mic

[@SV-lw8jo]

I just got two and loaded them with ESXi 8. You were correct, they are quiet @@SpaceRexWill

[@jeshenator376]

some of dells perc controllers have a HBA mode you can set within the devices settings if youre on a budget

[@Suzuki_Hiakura]

Was looking into using a Tape storage server for my Plex server a bit ago... there were many hurdles, mostly software and financial, that would require vaulting. Started with converting my movies to h265, but after the horrible performance with decoding (had converted to HEVC to improve streaming ability across poor connections for phone) and serious artifacting, I decided to leave the movies in their original bloated format; I have only recently started converting my original movie files to h264 to better optimize conversion on older and newer hardware unable to handle mpeg or whatever the original codec is. Visually good and so is the performance. Would be nice to store the files on an LTO13 drive (when that comes out) and just load the movies and episodes into the ram, but the serious costs makes me think I would need to either win the lottery, or invest heavily and successfully in ventures ':)

[@BlueFangbluser]

I'd really love to setup something like this. Anyone know what resources are available to learn more about these types of servers? I've built all my own computers and have a standard desktop setup as remote access home media server for my person cloud storage and media streaming so I have at least the bare minimum knowledge. But every time I try to look into genuine servers it feels like every component and part is so vastly different from consumer grade products I have no idea what I'm looking at. It's hard to find this info. This video was really helpful but where would I even start with researching these setups? Any info would be greatly appreciated

[@isthereanyname]

Will be interesting to know how many years the server lasts before it fails.

[@SpaceRexWill]

Most likely it will be no longer worth the power it draws by the time it fails

[@assonancex]

Great review. Looking to get a beastie home lab dell poweredge as a build server.

[@ChefEarthenware]

How can you do a "how loud is it?" video without switching it on?

[@tommye.3754]

Very curious what most people do with a home lab/server setup. I know I want one :), I just dont know what I can do with one and what cool things can be done. I have asked similar questions about NAS (synology) servers too, answer is almost always the same (do whatever you want). What do you guys use home lab servers to do?

[@JacobDanielson]

I don't have one yet, but I'm hoping to buy/build a Proxmox Server that has VMs for a NAS, Plex, Home Assistant, and a couple others to tinker with. I'm still pretty new getting into it, but that's my plans so far!

[@SpaceRexWill]

I use this for some insanely fast SSD storage and a Plex server as a VM. Its totally overkill but generally that's why its all about

[@Bergeronwebdesign]

I personally have 3 Dell r430's. Each has 24 physical cores and 96 gigs of RAM and 6 500gb Samsung SSD. I didnt list what i have to brag but to show that each person has a different use case. I do a lot of cisco studies so i run CML 2.1, but i also have physical cisco gear as well. my physical gear is connected to my virtual gear. for example i run a cisco router that is attached to my modem. but from that router it goes into my 3750x switch that is connected to my VMware environment. i have two ASAv firewalls running in active/standby. i have 7 linux OSs running, and 2 copies of Apple Catalina for python programming. i have redundant dhcp and DNS server 2019 running. i also run pihole that family and friends can access from the outside world fro AD blocking. i also run a Kemp load balancer that i direct traffic from the outside world to certain device on my network. i just point DNS entries from cloudflare to my load balancer using port 443 and since the load balancer is a layer 7 device it can read the packet and know what device is being requested and sends the traffic to its final destination. i said all that to say, there isnt much you cant do when using a virtual environment. it just dependents on what tech you want to focus on. i started out using it for cisco studies, but then i started diving deeper in VMware. then i realized how easy it would be to run a lot of thing with, and without having to buy more equipment. There is not much you cant do with them.

[@kenneth4902]

@@Bergeronwebdesign Do you have diagram to show your setup? That would be interesting to learn from your setup. Thanks.

[@cambridgeport90]

Active Directory,NextClloud, HTTP, and a bunch of stuff for me.

[@emanggitulah4319]

Really nice build... Great setup

[@SpaceRexWill]

Thanks!

[@EngineerNik]

Love Dell servers)❤

[@kevinhughes9801]

Nice love to see more vids in proxmox

[@MunrayClanton]

When you have a loud server and you have a problem with it you have to go to track idrac at the end of idrac there's a thermostat setting you have to check the thermostat and the temperature indicator that you won't have any problem with the temperature rating they probably need it to test it so unfortunately it is a high rate to use the thermo setting on the I track setting on the server you will have no problem with it whatsoever

[@Dimondgamer123]

I brought a r620 with 2 xeon e5 2670 total 32 cores and 32 gb of ram for £220 its silent and the best purchase ever

[@RealKeytones]

Can confer. Running a thinkserver rd640 in my bedroom. No fan settings, it just runs full bore constantly. I’m use to it now lol

[@zortingenstreet]

How it's going ?😂

[@notreallyme425]

Would like to hear the difference between RAM cache vs SSD cache. I know the difference between RAM and SSD hard drives, but I’m not sure how cache works in RAM, specifically in my Synology NAS.

[@SpaceRexWill]

RAM cache is an insanely fast cache that helps with things like where data is on disks, and even the data itself. pretty much all modern operating systems use ram that is not used for other things as this cache, ZFS does an insanely good job with it compared to other file systems. an SSD cache is similar, but compared to RAM a ton slower (still way faster than a hard drive for a random read)

[@notreallyme425]

@@SpaceRexWill right, so SSD caching can cache frequent files in the file system (data files) while the RAM cache just caches files that the OS uses, right? I’ve heard of exotic RAM caches (RAM disk?), but that’s not what I’m referring too. Thanks for the clarification.

[@SpaceRexWill]

They actually both do the same thing. Its just RAM is about 100x faster than a SSD, but is much smaller in terms of total size

[@remie1976]

Hi there, thanks for this great video ... I have once question, I recently acquired a R630 server which is diskless and with out a RAID controller (embedded), The 8 SSD back place is directly connected to the mother board (its a different cable than what you would use to connect to a PERC).... my question is do I need any additional hard ware to bring the hard drive up and running.... Please guide.. Thanks in advance

[@jacobanderson9530]

Amazing video! Subscribed :)

[@kbranchjr]

I have a R710, wow, it's been running Proxmox, for over a yr with Plex and OMV, I'm going to run XPEnology next, although with my business and personal data I just got me a 2bay synology NAS and Router with the addon MR2200 for the service bay as a backup and failover. The Dell is cheaper and u get more compute every thing with the Dell R710., But Synology is plug and Play with plugin that can be use as a server, R630 and 710 is a Server and the cost is Unbelievably low ( RE-PC have a stack of use one and parts) I bought 72g of Ram for $85 4g dim 18 slots 2 processors and my air condition is louder, well 630 is a little louder the 710, anyway have fun, the Potential is endless

[@HiFiMods]

Hey SpaceRex! I can see you're trying... I'm a pro. IT and a photographer.... I would like to give you a tip... If possible... during your recording shoots - move away from the back wall / background at least 3 feet, put your camera as far away as possible and zoom in on yourself ... and there you go... you're pretty much like MKBHD and others... since you already have audio and lighting figured out! ;)

[@cmdr_stretchedguy]

I have similar generation server and the fans are so dang loud, haven't found a way to drop down the fans to a slower speed.

[@focalpointehi]

What's the write/read speed of your ZFS array over that crazy 10GB network of yours?

[@petarsimovic5628]

How many "really" words can you say in one video? Yes

[@reinekewf7987]

but you can pass through the drives with the Raid controller so if you have one in it you dont need to replace them to a hba. i have a r630 too and mine was about 900€ and has the E5 2699v3 as cpus and it was coming with 768Gb of ram but unfortunately i had a 25gbit sfp network card without sfp modules in it so i needed to change this to a 10/1gbit card and this cost me again 400€ but i sold the sfp one on ebay for 300 so yea this was ok form me. also i had do buy drive caddys becuse i had only blanks in it and only one 900gb sas drive for some reason i dont understanded. but ok it was a used decommissioned server the was not refurbished. i dont know what they did whit that server but maybe they kept his drives and putted only one in it and forgot about the rest? i dont know and i dont have a enterprise idrac8 but all newest driver was already installed. i never used idrac before. i have printed out the manuel and as i saw it has 1200 pages , i decided i set up the settings with a monitor and do the rest in the os with ssh like normally.

[@pt_yt7]

Thank yoooooou soooo much I'm subscribe

[@first_gen_collector]

Can you do another video where you turn this on to hear the sound?

[@SpaceRexWill]

The thing is there is no way to make it make sense to what you would hear. I could not find a way to make it make since to what it would be in your house. Really what I would say is you have to be in a quite room you would have to listen for it to hear it

[@jankkhvej]

@@SpaceRexWill I use my Apple Watch to measure the sound level, I have 34 dBm near my idling Dell T7910 and it goes up to 56 dBm under reasonable load, while it can reach 82 dBm while testing fans or at the boot up.

[@Zaleskee]

Thank You for the info!. can we install Windows 11 or 10 on one of these servers? or do we need to purchase the Server OS?. Will this communicate to your Main PC via Ethernet cable?. what SSD do you recommend for this machine? thank You again in advance.

[@robertgarrison1738]

You might want to learn how networking works prior to setting up one of these servers. You also wouldn't run windows directly on the hardware anymore, instead using a hypervisor like hyper-v or vmware esxi.

[@Zaleskee]

@@robertgarrison1738 thank You!.

[@badrinair]

thank you

[@Piotr_T]

Hello. What about power consumption? What CPU do You have in this r630?

[@_purejosh]

Did you seriously not include a clip of it running, to prove the "quiet" you're talking about....?

[@handersonbarros7203]

super quiet? i am selling my becouse the noise is very high

[@ultraret]

Can this box plex transcoded 4k 265 media?

[@ryanlong6579]

Ah yes. The exact question I've had. Can I run this in my apartment living room and still be able to cook food and game on the couch occasionally without acquiring a migraine. Next up... can I run 2 or more? Like actually if anyone knows lmk. I'm trying to get the highest core count I can on a normal apartment breaker. I do some computationally bound work where 100% CPU usage is the best case. I'm hoping to get around ~100 cores and ~200 HTs. So far looking for E5-2699 V4 seems to be a good bet. Just wondering the noise level. So I know if I should just look at some server colocation lol

[@ryanlong6579]

I guess the less ADHD version of this is. How loud is it at 90-100% CPU load.

[@SpaceRexWill]

at 100% any of these servers will be screaming. You would have better bet building PC's or getting a Colo

[@santospoland]

I've watched a ton of videos on this subject. I want to purchase a poweredge to run some VMs for no other reason but to learn proxmox, have one of these 1U or 2U units (cause they are cool!) and to set up a large storage data pool. I am going to check out your other videos.

[@SpaceRexWill]

Hey glad you liked it! Yeah they are a ton of fun, though I might also look at getting a used PC off of Craigslist as they can be wayyy quieter and just as good if you don’t have a Rack

[@maxime_vhw]

Im looking to score an even bigger bargain with E5-2690 (or 2698) and over 200gb's of ram. Wanna use it as my VM powerhouse.

[@SpaceRexWill]

Nice! I am planning on upgrading my TrueNAS box to be 2u with 24 SSD's and after that I am going to use this as a VM host

[@Potatonater-it7gw]

The r630 WILL get loud if you run those CPUs and they're stressed

[@maxime_vhw]

@@Potatonater-it7gw my switch is louder anyway 🥲

[@Karthikeyan.Jayakumar]

What the cpu it's running ?

[@MacrofitCoaching]

Thanks for the great information. I recently purchased a synology NAS 920+. I am using it over wifi. The both read and write speeds are around 60mb/s. Any way I can speed this up? woul appreciate your help :)

[@SpaceRexWill]

The only way you will be able to speed it up is to 1) get better WiFi (but at 60MB/s there is not much better you can do) or get a wired Ethernet cable

[@MacrofitCoaching]

@@SpaceRexWill Thanks a lot 🙏🏼

[@CyberMachine]

Never showed how loud it is..

[@robinsonsaez3476]

Has anyone used this for, autocad, word, excel, etc etc?

[@prashanthb6521]

Sound ?

[@SpaceRexWill]

With no PCIe cards and lowest power settings, nearly silent. (in a quite room you have listen for it to hear it)

[@HemantVallabh007]

@@SpaceRexWill Great videos mate but If I could ask the video that depicts the nas running in your living room, including your setup and noise level!

[@NegroRotary]

I just got one without power supplies and motherboard, i'm going to build it from ground up

[@SpaceRexWill]

Nice! I thought about trying it but just did not have the time to do the research do to everything right

[@NegroRotary]

@@SpaceRexWill i'll update you on my build, i'm about to buy a motherboard from ebay, is a local company that i know and go from there, i'm going to try to see how similar is the chassis with the R640 or 650, if i can update to those version i will