How much noise do PowerEdge servers create?

[1Drisnil]

Anyone know how much noise (dB) are created by racked mounted servers from the PowerEdge line of servers?

We would be changing from pedestal to rack-mounted chassises, but now I am wondering how much of a concern noise will be?

Also, are the competiors any quieter? HP & IBM ?

Iquiring Minds,

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[polymath5]

Ever hear a 747 land? ;-)

The older models had fans that were quite loud, Dell had some BIOS updates that helped. Newer ones are a bit quieter, but I don't have a db meter.

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[RichieRich75]

It's actually funny I ran across this. The first PowerEdge 2650 we purchased fans ran at a ridiculous speed that it did sound like 4 jet engines. The CEO, whose office is on the other side of the buidling from where the rack was located) could hear the server humming away. Luckily Dell soon came out with a backplane firmware upgrade that reduced the speed of the fans.

But now they are fairly quiet. Compared to HP/Compaqs they are about the same.

 

[polymath5]

I've found the same thing with new 2650's we just got in. Not as noisy as they had been.

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[jkupski]

I had the same situation as RichieRich, where we got a PE2650 in and our GM, with an office on the other side of the building, told us to "fix it, or else." Thankfully, Dell released new firmware, so we still have jobs.

I can also report that the newer ones are quieter. The server in the anecdote above is about two years old. I got a new 2650 in a couple of weeks ago, and it produces significantly less noise than even the firmware upgraded old one.

Also, this isn't limited to just their rackmounts. I have a 4600 that is normally fairly quiet, but when we replaced the system fans (per a dell recall) the sound level shot up the moment we pulled the first fan, and didn't return to normal for about 12 hours.