Sysracks 18U Gaming Rack Build

[IMI4tth3w]

Hello everyone!

Very excited to begin this build log/upgrade for my "Gaming Server Rack". 

It will be featuring the following current hardware:

• Server Rack
  • Sysracks SRF 18.6.10 18U 39" Depth Floor Standing Cabinet
  • 1" Foam Sound Deadening
  • Phobya G-Changer Xtreme NOVA 1080 Radiator 60mm - Replaces spot for 4 Exhaust Fans on Server Rack
    • EK quick connect fittings to hook up to Gaming Server
  • 9x Fractal Design Venturi HP 120mm Fans for 1080 Radiator
  • 10 way PWM Fan Splitter
  • Custom Arduino Pro Micro Fan Controller
    • Drives 10 way PWM Fan Splitter
    • 20x4 LCD to replace stock server LCD for feedback
    • Water Temp probe connected to 1080 radiator for water temp
    • Ambient air thermocouple
    • Fan speed based off temperatures
    • Lots of RGB
• Gaming PC
  • Rosewill RSV-L4000
  • 9700K @ 5.0GHz
    • EK CPU Waterblock - Clear Acrylic & Nickel Plated Copper
  • Gigabyte Z370 Aorus Ultra Motherboard
  • G.SKILL TridentZ RGB Series 32GB (2 x 16GB) 3600MHz 16-19-19-39 Memory
  • Gigabyte 1080Ti Waterforce WB
  • Samsung 960 EVO M.2 NVME SSD - OS Drive
  • Mushkin 1TB 2.5" SSD - Games Drive
  • WD Black 6TB - Bulk Storage/Games Drive
  • EK D5 Waterpump w/ Reservoir
  • EK Coolstream PE-360 (can run disconnected from server radiator if needed)
  • Custom acrylic top panel
    • Idea is to mount the rack so this will be visible from the front of the server rack
    • Will determine if this is worth doing once i get things together
• Supermicro Unraid Server
  • Supermicro CSE-846 4U Server Chassis
    • 24x 3.5" Hot Swap Bays
    • Raid Controller Card
  • 2x E5 2667 v2 Xeon 3.30/4.00GHz Base/Boost CPUs
    • 2x Noctua NH-U9DX i4 Narrow ILM CPU Cooler
  • NVIDIA Quadro P2000 - Transcoding
  • 8x16GB Micron PC3-14900R DDR3-1866 REG ECC Memory MT36JSF2G72PZ-1G9E1HF
  • 2x Supermicro PWS-920P-SQ 920W Platinum PSUs
  • Supermicro AOC-SLG3-2M2 PCIE card for 2x NVME SSD
    • 2x1TB Intel 660p NVME SSD - Unraid Cache Drives
  • Unraid Array Drives
    • 6x10TB Shucked WD HDDs
    • 2x8TB Shucked WD HDDs
    • 1x10TB WD Red
  • Other Drives
    • 1TB WD Blue SSD 2.5"
    • 4TB WD Red
    • 4TB WD Green
    • 1TB WD Black
    • 250GB WD Blue
  • Fans
    • All the Noctua
    • 2x 80mm Noctuas
    • 3x 140mm Noctuas
    • 1x 120mm Noctuas
  • Fancy Supermicro bearing slides (on the way. forced to get these as basic rails i have now don't work with new rack)
• Battery Backups
  • APC SMT1500RM2U 1500VA 1000W 2U UPS
  • 3x 12V DC-DC Battery Backups - still waiting for these from China. need testing
• Networking
  • Protectli Vault running pfsense
  • 1U Netgear 24-Port Gigabit unmanaged switch
  • 1U 24-Port Keystone Patch Panel
  • TP-Link Deco S4 Mesh WiFi

 

So now that we got that out of the way, where am I at with this?

Well, all of this was originally hooked up (and still mostly is) on a 25U? open frame rack. It sits next to my desk. Its loud and ugly, and with the kiddos getting bigger (1month/2.5year) i want something to protect the goods.

I saw a post on reddit with a really sexy looking rack, and after seeing the prices at sysracks, i was sold. Now my server chassis are too big for the sleek under desk rack, but i'm still very happy with my big boy rack.

 

Right now i'm just waiting on the supermicro rails so i can move everything over in one fell swoop.

 

Also really excited to hook up the 1080 radiator to the gaming pc loop. I'm a little nervous about a single D5 pump having to move all that water but we'll see how it does. I might throw another pump in series on the server rack for good measure, although i'll have to come up with a way to only run it at the same time as the gaming pc. Another option is to do dual pumps in the gaming pc and move the reservoir to the server chassis (probably a better solution).

 

I'll get more pics soon, but here's where things are at:

[mariushm]

I'd use the intel 660p nvme drives for games, and use something with more endurance (wd sn550, sn750 for example) and better nand memory for caching.

I'd throw away (or just remove) that 250 GB wd blue drive, just producing heat and wasting electricity at this point.

 

Get a 10g switch and a bunch of 10g cards and some dac cables and connect everything on 10g, then connect this switch to your netgear stuff with the 1g connection.

 

Could probably find other things to nitpick but I've gotta go to work.

 

Looks good otherwise, not a huge fan of how those tubes come out but if they work it's fine.

 

[IMI4tth3w]

11 minutes ago, mariushm said:

I'd use the intel 660p nvme drives for games, and use something with more endurance (wd sn550, sn750 for example) and better nand memory for caching.

I'd throw away (or just remove) that 250 GB wd blue drive, just producing heat and wasting electricity at this point.

 

Get a 10g switch and a bunch of 10g cards and some dac cables and connect everything on 10g, then connect this switch to your netgear stuff with the 1g connection.

 

Could probably find other things to nitpick but I've gotta go to work.

 

Looks good otherwise, not a huge fan of how those tubes come out but if they work it's fine.

 

Thanks for the feedback!

The 660p drives have so far been pretty good as they run in Raid 0. Picked them up on sale for $90 a piece. Not the fastest things ever, but they do the job. I'm not really doing many large file transfers anyways. Which brings me to 10g ethernet. I just don't have the need as i'm not moving large files. I'll re-evaluate next year.

 

i do agree on the unused drives. They definitely need to go. Since they are unmounted (and presumably discs aren't spinning) i don't suspect they are using much power. Hence, i haven't bothered to remove them yet.

 

The tubes are just temporary (should only be like that during service). They will connect to the radiator in the new chassis (which also has quick connects. i'll get pics tomorrow).

[Sophia_Borjia]

If you only have two things to connect, just connect 10g nics directly without switch, if you find need later. 

 

I would wonder if load times from games over 10g on server like that would be ssd like from similar sequential or hdd like from io bottlenecks.  

Local hdd for games is faster then gig lan, 10g lan with enough disks is faster then sata ssd in some specs, just not sure if it would show up outside of large files.

[Xplo1t]

On 7/1/2020 at 2:33 AM, Sophia_Borjia said:

If you only have two things to connect, just connect 10g nics directly without switch, if you find need later. 

 

I would wonder if load times from games over 10g on server like that would be ssd like from similar sequential or hdd like from io bottlenecks.  

Local hdd for games is faster then gig lan, 10g lan with enough disks is faster then sata ssd in some specs, just not sure if it would show up outside of large files.

Lawrence did a review of a FreeNAS mini used for this purpose and the load times and experience were equivalent of a local SSD.   However, I'd be a lore more skeptical of Unraid being able to deliver the same experience.  

[IMI4tth3w]

Okay i've got some updates!

 

Here's a couple pics of the inside of the Unraid Server. I don't think i could put another Noctua fan in there if i tried.

 

Also some progress on the new Sysracks Cabinet. Got mostly everything swapped over except for the Unraid Server, but the new rails should be here Monday for that.

 

Top exhuast. Ideally i'd like to get this on a laser cutter to expand the slots for all 9 fans. The 4 will have to do for now.

 

Cleanining up the back

 

Here's a quick peek at the Arduino. Firmware still in beta, and the loop is still not hooked up to the 1080 radiator yet (out of distilled water. need to run to the store)

 

Not 100% on the hardware layout in the rack, but this should definitely work for now. I'll be putting the Unraid server below my gaming pc. 

More updates coming soon!

 

[kkpatel87]

Neat!

 

No comments really, but i would recommend making sure you have good grounding in the rack.

[IMI4tth3w]

4 hours ago, kkpatel87 said:

Neat!

 

No comments really, but i would recommend making sure you have good grounding in the rack.

Thanks! Just out of curiosity, why in particular do you recommend that? Due to the water loop?

[Blue4130]

23 hours ago, IMI4tth3w said:

Okay i've got some updates!

 

Here's a couple pics of the inside of the Unraid Server. I don't think i could put another Noctua fan in there if i tried.

 

This fan in front of the gpu, is it actually beneficial? You have a big 140 directly behind it so doesn't the smaller one just block the 140 airflow? 

[IMI4tth3w]

49 minutes ago, Blue4130 said:

This fan in front of the gpu, is it actually beneficial? You have a big 140 directly behind it so doesn't the smaller one just block the 140 airflow? 

I just installed the two 80mm at the very back. But i've been running it open top for a while and the pcie cards needed some more direct airflow. Due to cables the main 140mm fan has to point a little bit upward and wasn't giving airflow to the pcie slots.

Once i get it in the rack with the top on i'll probably pull that 120mm. But i might just leave it there to keep more direct airflow at the pcie cards

[Blue4130]

1 minute ago, IMI4tth3w said:

I just installed the two 80mm at the very back. But i've been running it open top for a while and the pcie cards needed some more direct airflow. Due to cables the main 140mm fan has to point a little bit upward and wasn't giving airflow to the pcie slots.

Once i get it in the rack with the top on i'll probably pull that 120mm. But i might just leave it there to keep more direct airflow at the pcie cards

With the top on, I think you will see that it is redundant. Server cases are great wind tunnels when closed up. 

 

Overall very cool setup. I've been planning something similar but with all short depth cases. 

[kkpatel87]

On 7/4/2020 at 1:52 PM, IMI4tth3w said:

Thanks! Just out of curiosity, why in particular do you recommend that? Due to the water loop?

That is one reason but also the rack is on carpet plus you have some nice gear in it, it just makes sense. The idea is to make sure the rack itself is on the same ground plane as all the equipment in it. My recommendation would be to create a simple harness that bonds the chassis to your house ground. There should be grounding studs on the rack itself. If not, you can punch a hole, create a buildup with a screw and washer, and run a ground wire from there to a an outlet plug ground or to your UPS or PDU, etc.

[IMI4tth3w]

On 7/8/2020 at 6:11 AM, kkpatel87 said:

That is one reason but also the rack is on carpet plus you have some nice gear in it, it just makes sense. The idea is to make sure the rack itself is on the same ground plane as all the equipment in it. My recommendation would be to create a simple harness that bonds the chassis to your house ground. There should be grounding studs on the rack itself. If not, you can punch a hole, create a buildup with a screw and washer, and run a ground wire from there to a an outlet plug ground or to your UPS or PDU, etc.

Thanks for the info. I kind of figured the rack was already earth grounded through the several chassis that were inside. I’ll do some impedance and continuity testing and see if it’s actually necessary. It’s also pretty humid where I live so we don’t get quite as much normal static buildup. My AC condensate drip is basically a faucet lol

 

anyways I got the new supermicro rails in and of course they are shorter than the old ones... so I’ll have to take everything out and move the vertical rails closer together.. but at least after that everything will fit and be in the chassis! Hoping to knock that out today. But that will be once baby has finished eating and I get some more sleep haha