Quiet RAID 5 Dual Tuner System Possible?

[aliburns]

Currently have an HP XW8000 with dual Xeons, 2 Nova-T 500s, 2 internal drives, 2 DVD-RW drives, a Soundblaster X-Fi Elite pro but it is audible from the bedroom when synching recorded TV to my Archos overnight and very noisy when sat in the room with it.

My aim is to build a near silent Vista 64-bit Quad core system with 5 drives, 4 RAID 5 for media storage and one boot and running my existing TV and sound cards BUT I would like it to be as near to silent as possible.

Bearing in mind the 5 drives, 3 PCI cards as well as a new graphics card does the team think it is possible to take this one box approach and get a nice silent-running system? It's hard enough finding motherboards and cases with 3 PCI slots and support for 5 HDs and 1 or 2 DVD drives so I would appreciate reassurance that I'm not heading down a blind alley where the noise problem remains.

 

[aliburns]

What part of it is noisy? You can swop all the fans for silent ones. No doubt people will recommend the best one. You could buy quieter hard drives, or buy enclosures for them. How big a case do you want / need / have?

During the day it's the fans that annoy but overnight when WMP is converting the DVR-MS files to WMV for Archos synching and Vista does its system tune up the hard drives seem to come into their own noisewise.

I'm minded to get a new system so I can swap in new processors, motherboards and maybe even solid state drives as technology advances and prices decline as well as go 64-bit. Current system won't allow for 64-bit Vista or PCI-Express cards and has proprietory HP fans which are designed for under the desks in enormous corporate offices rather than a domestic lounge. Just wondering if all this kit in a case with the right cooling, noise control and judicious selection of hard drives and mounts can ever be just a background hum before I dig deeper and research further.

 

[aliburns]

I've got a very overclocked AthlonXP (skta) system, with 5x samsung spinpoint hard drives, 3x YStech 120x120x38mm fans, usually at ~6v, and a 120mm PSU. this system is pretty quiet. It's not silent but isn't very loud. The CPU will be outputting roughly the same heat as a G0 C2Q chip @ stock.

Get a decent size case, decent quiet fans, and spinpoint sata drives. I disagree with enclosures because they tend to restrict HD cooling, and aren't really necessary. You'll not get it silent without spending a ton of cash but you will, by using the best heatsinks, decent fans, cable tidying methods, and quiet drives get it to be quiet. I also suggest you look into using anti-vibration mounts for your drives and fans, and put the pc itself on an anti vibration stand. I mount my big system on a paving slab with a THICK sheet of foam rubber on each side of it. Before I did this, you could hear the vibrations through the celing, in the room below the pc. Now it's inaudible unless you're in the room with it, and even then it's not a great deal louder than the 5 very quiet hd's.

Thanks, the SpinPoint drives look like a very good tip. Pretty much decided on OS, processor, motherboard, memory and drives which just leaves RAID controller, cables, case and cooling technology to keep me off the streets!