Dell R510 2U NAS Server - 2x E5607, 8GB ECC, H700, 2x 750W, 8x 3.5" HDD Bays
Sep 21, 2021
Solid Storage Server
I said this is quiet, but I mean that relatively for such a server. After updating to the latest BIOS the initial noise when it starts up is greatly reduced in volume and duration. While running there is a whirr from the fans but any music or conversation in the room easily masks it.
I have tried out some RAID configurations, currently I have 4x 2TB SAS 2 drives in RAID 0 storing movies and TV shows, and 2x 128GB SATA SSDs in RAID 1 for the system boot drive. Everything is working well and I'm very happy with it.
Note that the H700 RAID card cannot be set to IT mode, so this makes the unit unsuitable for ZFS and certain other file systems.
Also the PCIe riser has 3 slots that are physically x8 in size, so most graphics cards will not fit. You can buy a PCIe x8 graphics card, or modify one of the slots. This kind of modification is well documented on YouTube and on the internet in general.
I have installed Kubuntu, Windows 10, openSUSE and Linux Mint and everything works as expected.