[JB72]

Does anyone know how much noise the Xserves make?

[Cipher13]

Too much.

In a room with six Acer Altos G900's (I think that's the model... it's a big mother, dual Xeon), 4 G4 towers (graphite), and countless beige G3's and whatnot, the Xserve simply overpowered everything. It was all I could hear.

It has two blowers, though, so it's sort of understandable... it isn't suitable for a home situation, unless you have a cabinet to keep it in.

What kind of application were you thinking of applying it to?

[gatorparrots]

There's a reason companies are making silencing cabinets for Apple's latest hardware:
Power Mac G4 - 67db
XServe - 82db
(By comparison, an empty 70 square-foot office with a computer, heat or air conditioning, and lights on typically emits 40 dB.)

[JB72]

Originally posted by Cipher13:
Too much.

...

What kind of application were you thinking of applying it to?

I was curious if I could find a used one for the home office. Use it for cheesy local serving, and simulataneously a logging/render station. The noise issue would way too much though. And I don't feel like investing in some expensive closet to quiet it. If I have a rack, I need it to be relatively exposed.

[The Placid Casual]

I saw an Xserve last week and it really was bloody loud... I though I had it bad with my Dual 867, but this was far worse...

I would say that any kind of home useage could be counted out...

[Cipher13]

Originally posted by JB72:
I was curious if I could find a used one for the home office. Use it for cheesy local serving, and simulataneously a logging/render station. The noise issue would way too much though. And I don't feel like investing in some expensive closet to quiet it. If I have a rack, I need it to be relatively exposed.

Yeah, I wouldn't bother. Buy a G4 tower, it'll accomplish the same tasks anyway, basically.

[JB72]

Originally posted by Cipher13:
Yeah, I wouldn't bother. Buy a G4 tower, it'll accomplish the same tasks anyway, basically.

That's an option too. Right now I'm using an iMacDV. I was thinging off maybe popping it in one of these Marathon rack cases and maybe adding a G4. It would certainly be silent. And tasty. The other option would be to get something like a dual 450 Gigabit Ethernet machine off eBay. Eventually I would rack that bad-boy. Buy it wouldn't be as quiet.

[cgc]

Originally posted by gatorparrots:
There's a reason companies are making silencing cabinets for Apple's latest hardware:
Power Mac G4 - 67db
XServe - 82db
(By comparison, an empty 70 square-foot office with a computer, heat or air conditioning, and lights on typically emits 40 dB.)

For reference, every 3dB increase is a doubling of power. An increase of noise from 67dB to 82dB (15dB) would be 32 times louder. The human ear hears in a logirithmic fashion so it may not sound 32 times louder.

[laxthxdude]

Compared to a Dell 1650, the XServe sounds like a whisper... Honestly. I don't know what the fuse is about, the XServe is VERY quite for a 1U rack server.

[CatOne]

Originally posted by laxthxdude:
Compared to a Dell 1650, the XServe sounds like a whisper... Honestly. I don't know what the fuse is about, the XServe is VERY quite for a 1U rack server.

Yes. It's quiet for a rack mount server. It's not quiet for a desktop machine. People trying to use it as a desktop machine will probably not want to tolerate the noise.

But lowest noise wasn't really a design consideration for it -- it's really designed to be rack mounted in a server room, where cooling and airflow is MUCH more of a concern than is low noise output.

[DrBoar]

10 dB corresponds to a subjetive doubling/halving of sound level. So a 30 dB sound difference is a lot. But dB only go so far the quality f the sound is important as well. 60 dB of a "whoosing" sound is far less irritating than 60 dB of high pitched sound. Think bad hard disks...

[Simon]

Originally posted by DrBoar:
10 dB corresponds to a subjetive doubling/halving of sound level. So a 30 dB sound difference is a lot. But dB only go so far the quality f the sound is important as well. 60 dB of a "whoosing" sound is far less irritating than 60 dB of high pitched sound. Think bad hard disks...

Yeah, if you're concerned about perceived noise you should use the unit phon instead of dB. It re-normalizes the dB scale in order to refelct that the human ear is more sensitive to certain frequencies than others.

[OreoCookie]

Hey, it's a server. It's usually got its own room, so noise is not as much of an issue. Don't use it as a home system.