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Fan-less silent PC

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rwortman

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If I was building a box specifically as a server, to store files I considered precious and couldn't just re-download from somewhere, I would want data protection, at least 2 drives mirrored. I doubt Roon needs high bandwidth so SATA SSDs are likely more than enough. For the boot / Roon drive if you use an NVME drive certainly don't get PCI gen 4 as they all run hot.

If you want 8TB of storage (and don't want to pay for a full drive 8TB+N array of SSD, which isn't that cheap) that puts you on spinning rust though, and HDDs aren't silent, and that also puts you in actual NAS territory. I don't use Roon so I can't speak to CPU requirements, but the Raspberry Pi players all do DSP etc with ease and I'm pretty sure LMS can run on a pocket calculator, it's not like you're transcoding video. Roon's page on NAS is like 5 years old and a modern Celeron blows the doors off a 5-year old i3 so I'm not really sure what their actual minimum hardware is.
I am a full Roon fan. It doesn’t need a lot of cpu power but if you want quick response it needs a medium strength cpu. I am not doing mirroring because today‘s conventional wisdom says to back up to the cloud. Mirrored drives don’t protect against viruses or power surge/lightning.
 
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rwortman

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This information would have been useful to put in the first post. You already have pretty solid ideas about what you want, so need to be pretty specific from the get go.

The more detail you provide, the less noise by way of reply (and wasted energy for other members).
No offense intended, but my initial post said I was going to build a silent PC for a Roon server with a couple of large SSD’s so it can be a file server too. It was a “hey guys this should be a fun project”. I didn’t ask for advice on how to build it, what to use, cheaper alternatives, other ways to stream music, or to be talked out of it. All those posts are the initiatives of the posters. It has made for an informative thread about music servers though.
I'd say the only trick is to watch out for component compatibility and make sure your motherboard of choice supports exactly what you need - CPU socket, memory modules, fans etc... and also compatibility in fit:
That’s why I went to a company’s web page that builds them and copied their BOM.
 
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rwortman

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"Backup of our treasure digital music library" is really an important issue; we may even better to start new thread on the issue.

I am living in the land of typhoon, earthquake and tsunami; of course I always keep multiple backups, therefore, of my entire digital library in several SSDs (within PCs and also in portable USB 3.0 SSDs), HDDs and NAS at my home and also in remote at my daughter's home and son's (300 km and 100 km away!). Of course, I periodically update the backups in my home at least once in a month and update the remote (daughter's ans son's) backups at least once in 6 months through high-speed optical internet connections.

I essentially do not like, do not fully trust, any of the cloud storage services especially for my large digital music library; I daily use Dropbox, however, for my daily business and for occasional "music sharing", but even with my Dropbox contents I always keep local and remote backups (in off-Dropbax folders) in SSDs, HDDs and NAS.

Fortunately my current iron-frame house is on a little hill with solid ground (free from flood), but almost no way to avoid possible mega earthquake (once in 600 years?) which might happen any place in Japan...
I keep two local backups and a cloud backup. If you are not going to use cloud backup you need at least one off site backup. Portable hardrive at a friend or family members house or a safe deposit box. I have seen at least three friends and family member’s possessions wiped out by fire.
 

sonitus mirus

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My super-quiet streaming PC that does not use fans and wirelessly connects to the app that controls my SVS subwoofers. :)

iPaDAC.jpg
 

Keith_W

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Macbook Air M1 is probably cheaper, smaller and more powerful than a lot of other "big" machines folks are using ... one can plug in a couple of 4/8/16TB portable disks for storage...

Or mac mini...silent under light loads...has fan though that kicks in at higher loads .

Problems with the Mac Mini:

- Upgrading storage options or RAM after purchase is impossible since the RAM is soldered on the motherboard, and Apple chips the SSD's to prevent swapping.
- Storage / RAM upgrades at the time of purchase from Apple is hideously expensive.
- Not enough USB-C / Thunderbolt ports for external storage without a splitter.

Typical Apple philosophy, limiting your choices and preventing you from doing DIY upgrades or maintenance. But if a Mac Mini suits your needs, go for it.
 

Prana Ferox

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Macs are awful choices for servers. Their primary advantage is in ease of use in the UI, and for that you pay out the wazoo, and for a server that's irrelevant. The hardware itself isn't anything special and as Keith says above their recent trend of soldered RAM/SSD makes them considerably less useful and cost-effective.

It wasn't that long ago that Apple had a server OS version and they killed it for a reason.

The Mac Mini with a 10gbE port is interesting as something to network with a NAS, but you would have to really really need the SFF form factor. And then you have a NAS anyway? And 10gbE network infrastructure? That begins to only make non-hipster sense if you're running a cluster of them for something, and that's getting really niche.
 

Palladium

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My own gaming desktop PC with a single Arctic P12 exhaust fan running at 50% is dead silent in the middle of the night. I can't even hear it when putting my ear right next to it, much less so when the air conditioning is on.

Fan noise for a PC with low computational demand is an overblown issue IMO unless you are really space constrained.
 

DWPress

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Apple just announced new M2 Mac minis and the base machine is ridiculously cheap. Shortly there will be a whole lot of M1 minis on eBay even cheaper and the older Intel models will drop even more.

$500 or less for a totally modern computer that will dance circles around any build on the previous 4 pages and that is completely silent is certainly something to consider if Mac OS can run the apps you need it to.

However, I love building things like mini computers, amps and all that geeky stuff too. Have fun with your project and getting it all sorted!
 

El Cheapo

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Macs are awful choices for servers. Their primary advantage is in ease of use in the UI, and for that you pay out the wazoo, and for a server that's irrelevant. The hardware itself isn't anything special and as Keith says above their recent trend of soldered RAM/SSD makes them considerably less useful and cost-effective.

It wasn't that long ago that Apple had a server OS version and they killed it for a reason.

The Mac Mini with a 10gbE port is interesting as something to network with a NAS, but you would have to really really need the SFF form factor. And then you have a NAS anyway? And 10gbE network infrastructure? That begins to only make non-hipster sense if you're running a cluster of them for something, and that's getting really niche.
I get that the Mac mini wouldn't provide the DIY fun, joy and mods.

Still...

Latest Mac Mini starts at $599. Also the context was low noise PCs.

Mac mini has made , in my and many people's opinion, amazing leaps in performance....below is a pic from the promo video showing them in use as servers.

1674363780482.png


Mac Mini Video
 

DWPress

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Only cheap if you are happy with a 256GB SSD. If you want a more "normal" 2TB SSD, that will cost you an extra USD$800. Why pay USD$800 for 2TB when you can buy a 2TB M2 SSD for $200?

Because you can easily attach a USB3/Thunderbolt storage drive with no real penalty in performance unless you're editing video.
 

voodooless

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Because you can easily attach a USB3/Thunderbolt storage drive with no real penalty in performance unless you're editing video.
So can my NUC, which cost about the same, but gets 64GB of memory and 2TB of storage. And it’s actually a competent virtualization machine, which the Mac isn’t really at the moment. CPU performance wise, they aren’t very far apart either.

I did think about getting a Mac mini as a home server though. Storage wise, external storage is fine, but a Thunderbolt enclosure to hold a few drives/SSDs isn’t cheap either. And now with 2TB in the NUC, I can hold that off until later. Ultimately the virtualization aspect made me pick the NUC.
 

Willem

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I use a 10th gen i7 NUC with 32Gb memory and a large SSD disc as my home office PC, and to play music while I am working. It sits in an Akasa Turing FX fanless case. The case is beautifully made but it is not an easy process. Intel frequently changes the dimensions of the NUC motherboards, so you have to be very sure about getting the right case. Fitting the NUC motherboard into the case requires some skill, and unfortunately the shop that originally did it for me made a bit of a mess of it. The result was that after a year the computer started to turn itself off because it was overheating and very soon after this the motherboard went up in smoke. I am now getting it redone by the Dutch importer who has successfully done it many times.
So that was a b it of a bummer, but other than that I really like this combination. It is fast enough for my use case, and silence is a great thing. Finally, it is also energy efficient, and I can actually notice the difference on my electricity bill compared to my old slow and power hungry desktop computer.
 

Berwhale

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I stumbled across this site discussing fanless PCs as firewalls. They've reviewed a few devices: https://www.servethehome.com/category/networking/


Sits under my desk, about 6" in front of my knees. It gets only slightly warm to the touch...

IMG_20230122_122504 (Small).jpg


pfsense says it's under 28C...

1674390820973.png
 

Berwhale

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I get it - building a computer from scratch is fun and allows one to truly build their "dream machine" - not unlike audio components. :) After all it's what I do for my main system every couple of years. It's fun and easy, I'd say the only trick is to watch out for component compatibility and make sure your motherboard of choice supports exactly what you need - CPU socket, memory modules, fans etc... and also compatibility in fit: with some compact cases it's impossible to fit a silent fan (they are obviously larger) etc.

This thread has provided great online communities and shops to get ideas. Personally, if it's for server duty, probably all that's needed is an i3, like this one https://www.intel.com/content/www/u...-12m-cache-up-to-4-20-ghz/specifications.html. If it's a main workstation, hey. go all the way :-D.

PCPartPicker is good for tracking parts lists and flagging up incompatibilities like heatsinks obstructing DIMM slots, etc.

Here's my current workstation built in 2018: https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/user/Berwhale/saved/93m4pg

It's been upgraded with a single 1TB NVMe drive and I added a Noctua fan controller since it was built. It's a very quiet PC in general use, I don't hear it unless I play a game on it. It may help that it's suspended under a 1 1/2" solid beech desktop.
 

Berwhale

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I did think about getting a Mac mini as a home server though. Storage wise, external storage is fine, but a Thunderbolt enclosure to hold a few drives/SSDs isn’t cheap either. And now with 2TB in the NUC, I can hold that off until later. Ultimately the virtualization aspect made me pick the NUC.

I bought a used Dell Optiplex 7060 Micro with an i3-8100T for ESXi duties...


I paid £140 for it, plus another £20 to upgrade the RAM to 20GB which was all I needed for the few small VMs I run.

I even managed to fit a 2nd NIC in the cut-out for RS-232...

WhatsApp Image 2022-04-09 at 13.10.17 (1) (Small).jpg
WhatsApp Image 2022-04-09 at 10.41.43 (Small).jpg
 

jerryfreak

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i have a beelink mini-s that is fanless and serves my needs

TBH, the 1L thinkcenter m910x i have has a fan but is equally as quiet.

heck even my SFF acer aspire 1660 is essentially silent - the 3.5" disk inside is louder than the single low rpm CPU fan in there
 
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rwortman

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heck even my SFF acer aspire 1660 is essentially silent - the 3.5" disk inside is louder than the single low rpm CPU fan in there
If you can hear that one part is louder than another, that is not silent.
 

Chr1

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...Also, I believe that the Beelink Mini S does actually have a fan.
 
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