> I'd love to just buy half a dozen used Dell PowerEdges but rack-mounted hardware is insanely loud. This is a common belief that isn’t quite correct. My 2U De

> I'd love to just buy half a dozen used Dell PowerEdges but rack-mounted hardware is insanely loud. This is a common belief that isn’t quite correct. My 2U Dell R520 is quite quiet after the initial boot (once the BMC takes over fan control), albeit I had to do some ipmitool magic to get it to not ramp them up with non-OEM PCIe cards installed. My 1U R420 and R320 boxes? Yeah, they’re a little loud, 40mm fans have to run at higher speeds to get air flowing. Ultimately my lab lives in my home office and the noise doesn’t really bother me, I wouldn’t put it in the bedroom or living room though.