This morning I pondered how much will noise reduce when I power off that server?
From the comfort of my living room, directly above the rack in the basement, I powered it off. At first, I was disappointed. I could still hear that repetitive whine. After considering powering off one of the other hosts, I realized the noise I heard was the ceiling fan. After switching that off, I could no longer hear the rack. I thought I could hear a wee bit of fan noise, but the noise from the main host was definitely gone. The window, 6ft to the right, was cracked open a bit. Cars going past on the street were louder than what I could hear.
Measuring
I went down to the basement, and stood an arms length from the rack. Let’s say three feet. I also turned off the dehumidifier which was (about 2ft) behind me.
The sound level with the rack on was about 55dB.
I powered on the rack and waited. Once fully booted, I measured the sound again. 67dB.
At least now I know the living room will be quieter once this migration is completed. I was concerned the new 4x 12TB drives in the Dell R730 might not be quiet enough.
Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
