Switch Cooling

[Ray6113]

Hey guys,

 

I've recently picked up a 48 port POE switch for cheap, not knowing how loud the fans would be. I wanna build some kind of custom enclosure anyway, a small cabinet to be exact, and I had the idea to put 6 noctua fans for airflow / cooling. 

Looking at it and since it's in my room / bedroom, it shouldn't be loud so I'd go with some Noctua NF-A20's probably, 4 intake and 2 out.

 

I'd open the switch and let the 4 intake fans, blow on them from directly on top, trying to cool it down, the 2 blowing out are just so I don't have all the hot air inside it of course.

 

But I'm kinda worried it's not gonna be enough cooling so I thought about asking you guys. I'd either put the fans onto the switch fan ports or I'd get a splitter and the 5V fans, to power them via a USB wall socket.

 

Do you think it's gonna be enough cooling for the switch? 

 

It currently has 6 small (I think it was 20mm fans) inside it.

 

I'm not sure about the power draw but I think I read that max draw can  be around 600 watts(?) for this model.

 

I bet it's enough but having a few more opinions would be nice for me as I've never had a switch that big before / I've never tried cooling a switch. 

 

 

Thank you all in advance for the help and tips!

 

I'll add the exact model and max power draw in a bit, if needed. 

 

Edit: The switch is a "Baystack 5520-48T PWR"

[emosun]

If its a rack mount switch that uses those tiny vaccumm cleaner sounding fans then those are what it should be using as they move a ton of air over cheap consumer grade noctua fans

[Ray6113]

7 minutes ago, emosun said:

If its a rack mount switch that uses those tiny vaccumm cleaner sounding fans then those are what it should be using as they move a ton of air over cheap consumer grade noctua fans

Yeah it's one of those.

 

I'm worried that the air mass moved isn't enough and it's gonna get too hot that's why I'm asking. 

 

If it doesn't work like I planned, I'll have to get a rack and put it somewhere else.

 

Tho, those vacuum sounding fans are for closed case usage, no?

Shouldn't cooling be less of an issue if the top is completely open?

 

I'd go with another pair of fans too if you have a recommendation. If you think it's not gonna work good at all tho, the rack it is. 

[10leej]

5 minutes ago, Ray6113 said:

Tho, those vacuum sounding fans are for closed case usage, no?

Their specifically designed for it

 

5 minutes ago, Ray6113 said:

Shouldn't cooling be less of an issue if the top is completely open?

not always

 

6 minutes ago, Ray6113 said:

I'd go with another pair of fans too if you have a recommendation. If you think it's not gonna work good at all tho, the rack it is.

Don't need a rack I stacked servers on top of each other on the floor for years. The rack is literally just for ease of maintenance.

[Kilrah]

25 minutes ago, Ray6113 said:

Shouldn't cooling be less of an issue if the top is completely open?

It's usually the opposite, the heatsinks are designed to have the high speed airflow from those fans being channeled through the closed case, if you open the case then there's no way to get as much airflow through them anymore...

[mariushm]

The switch shouldn't consume more than maybe 30-50 watts if you just plug regular ethernet cables and don't use the power over ethernet functionality.

The excessive ventilation is for when you have lots of devices using the Power Over Ethernet feature, like imagine 48 ports x 15w per port = 720 watts....

 

But you don't say what switch it is, you don't say the model ... I / We could look for a datasheet and specifications for that switch, maybe the ASICs used, their power consumption...

Yeah, they're designed with heatsinks and everything to force airflow moving over the heatsinks and get out (or have air come in) through the small spaces in the front on the switch, around the 48 ethernet ports.

If you convert the switch from 1-2u to 3-4U you're adding some extra space for ventilation so you don't need as much high rpm to push air or suck the same amount of air but you should still channel the air flow to go through the heatsinks as if you had a lid on the switch (for example use some cardboard or plastic foil to make the air flow through heatsink fins, shrink the vertical space to switch original height where you have switches.

 

[Ray6113]

Hey all, 

Sorry for my late reply and thank you for all your messages already.

 

I'm aware that the fans built in are meant to be used. Still, due to my situation and plan, I wanted to find out if it's possible with my cooling idea / solution. 

 

As I'm moving some stuff still right now, I don't have my PC connected so sorry for formatting and lack of information / Attachments here and there, I'll add them in a few hours when I'm done moving everything.

 

Anyway, the Switch I have here is a "Baystack 5520-48t PWR" 

 

Just so I don't get into problems, should my idea be possible, I'll be using 3 Ethernet ports without POE and later, when time comes, I plan on using a few POE ports as well, tho I'm not sure how many. At Max, I think it'll be 10 so let's think 10 POE and 3 normal Ethernet, just to have some headroom.

 

I'll open the switch up to provide a good view on the heatsinks and layout of the internals, maybe that could help.

 

If you need any more information, I'd be happy to provide that.