[geeks] Dell sale on T105 Server

[Lionel Peterson]

Ken

On Jul 1, 2009, at 2:26 PM, Shannon Hendrix <shannon at widomaker.com>  
wrote:

> On Jul 1, 2009, at 12:23 , J. Alexander Jacocks wrote:
>
>> Lionel Peterson <lionel4287 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Just a heads-up for anyone thinking about a nice, small Virtual
>>> Machine hosting box, Dell is having a pretty good sale on their T105
>>> Server.
>>
>> How loud is this server, and how piercing is the note given off by  
>> the
>> fans?  Obviously 2 folks here are running these at home, but I live  
>> in
>> a single-floor house, so noise is annoying, everywhere.  I'd even  
>> like
>> to be able to work in my office, where the machine would live, if
>> possible.
>>
>> I'm somewhat more noise-sensitive than most other 15 year IT  
>> veterans,
>> so forgive me if my questions sound silly.
>
> The machine with a dual-core CPU and 4GB of RAM is almost noiseless.
>
> If you get quad core and 8GB of RAM, the main fan starts to spin  
> faster, but it's never loud.  Most of the noise you hear is the  
> blades and airflow going into the case.  I can't hear any fan motor  
> noise at all.
>
> It uses a central 120mm fan so it isn't a screamer.  The power  
> supply is pretty much silent.  The air path is straight through over  
> the CPU.
>
> You can also add a drive bay fan for $35.  Dell only ships it if you  
> buy the SAS controller, stating the fan is for the controller.
>
> That's a little silly because the drive bays benefit greatly from  
> the "controller fan". My drive temps dropped way down so even Dell's  
> inflated $35 for the fan was well worth it.

I understand it is a rather plain fan, and in theory a standard  
fancould be used. I think the part number is F6Y6, but I'm not  
positive (GIYF)[0]

> On Solaris, I installed drivers for power saving.  That made the  
> system quieter because my machine is frequently idle during the day  
> with a fairly bursty load.  Most of the time the CPU drops to 1GHz  
> and memory and CPU temps drop enough to allow the fan to slow down  
> considerably.
>
> You can get the same stuff for FreeBSD and Linux, not sure about  
> others.

It runs Window Server 2008 very well, and mine was upgraded from a  
dual core Opteron 1210 to a quad core Opteron 1356 with four gigs of  
RAM.

You can put in a better SATA controller if you like, there are PCI- 
Express and one PCI (32 bit) slots.

Very nice for modest needs (only 2 HDs, 3 if you use the second  
Optical Bay and a 3 1/2" to 5 1/4" adapter plate).

Lionel

[0] GIYF - Google Is Your Friend