Rackmount Server Chassis for Talos II

[bloudraak]

Hello,

I just purchased the Talos II board with 2xIBM POWER9 v2 CPU (8-Core) and 2U Heatsink Assemblies.  Looking for a rack mountable chassis. I had a look at https://wiki.raptorcs.com/wiki/Talos_II/Hardware_Compatibility_List, are there any other Rackmount Server Chassis folks used for Talos II?

I have been looking at variants of the Superchassis CSE-825TQ, such as:

• SuperChassis 825TQ-R740LPB
• SuperChassis 825TQ-600LPB

Has anyone tried these before? What are the power supply would you recommend for 2xIBM POWER9 v2 CPU (8-Core), with 8 SAS drives and 256GB memory? I only have an 15A/120V power outlet available.

Thanks,
Werner

[ClassicHasClass]

I should think any EATX rack case would work. For the 8-core, though, I'd wonder if the HSFs would do better than the plain heatsinks. If you're putting it into a cramped rack, these systems don't run particularly hot but heat could be an issue.

Fortunately, power is the least of your worries. 15A is plenty for that configuration.

[bloudraak]

My understanding is that the board and 2U heatsink will fit into a 2U chassis and if I had fans in the chassis to force airflow over the board and CPU, any excess heat will be disbursed and later be extracted by the rack fans.

While there is no aircon where the rack is located, the rack itself (NetShelter CX 24U) has extraction fans. The servers will also be 1U apart which should allow for more airflow and heat disbursement. 

That said, would it be better to invest in a 3U or 4U chassis? It does seem like waisted space, which could be used for a shelf (I have a ton of single board computers I need to fit in too).

[ClassicHasClass]

3U/4U seems kind of big, yes. If you have that much airflow then you might be okay.

[ullbeking]

My understanding is that the board and 2U heatsink will fit into a 2U chassis and if I had fans in the chassis to force airflow over the board and CPU, any excess heat will be disbursed and later be extracted by the rack fans.

While there is no aircon where the rack is located, the rack itself (NetShelter CX 24U) has extraction fans. The servers will also be 1U apart which should allow for more airflow and heat disbursement. 

That said, would it be better to invest in a 3U or 4U chassis? It does seem like waisted space, which could be used for a shelf (I have a ton of single board computers I need to fit in too).

I have a Talos II with dual CPU's, each CPU with a 3U HSF.  Therefore a 4U tower/workstation chassis was a natural option for me.  I'm currently in the process of replacing the PSU's, which isn't as simple as I expected.  I'm replacing the redundant pair of PWS-1K41P-SQ PSU's with a pair of PWS-1K28R-SQ PSU's.  I was expecting a simply swap-out replacement but I suspect the firmware in the machine needs updating.  I'll keep the community and HCL on the wiki updated as to my progress (I've already added a note to the HCL: https://wiki.raptorcs.com/wiki/Talos_II/Hardware_Compatibility_List#Problematic_Cases ).

Moving forward -- in addition to ensuring that firmware is not the concern -- I also intend to reproduce a few other people's research.  I'm specifically interested in recreating hardware+firmware testing environments, reproducing other tests, and interpreting the results as applied to my own Talos II.

If I were choosing to create a remote workstation or server then I would probably use one of the SC846 series and keep the 3U HSF's.  Inadequate cooling is one less issue I need to be dealing with at present.  However I would be very careful about which PSU's and PDU's I select, and I would check and do research first.  Several people Raptor and the Talos+Blackbird community have some very useful research about the characteristics of the voltage and current that various Supermicro PSU's supply.

Also the SC846 series of chassis seems to have something of a cult following and there is a lot of community knowledge about these chassis.  Topics regarding airflow, noise, modifications to the backplane, have been well studied and experimented, by many people, in various homelab communities for development servers, or for experimental servers for research projects, or ..., etc.

[ClassicHasClass]

Why do you want to use the 1K28R-SQ? I have 1K41P-SQs in my Talos II and I find that adequately quiet.

[ullbeking]

Why do you want to use the 1K28R-SQ? I have 1K41P-SQs in my Talos II and I find that adequately quiet.

The problem is that PWS-1K41P-SQ PSU's were running their fans at full speed even when the system was idling.

During discussion with Supermicro and Raptor, we determined these PSU's were not fully compatible with my particular board.  The official recommendation was to change to PWS-1K28R-SQ PSU's.  Moreover other users in the Talos user community and the Supermicro user community more generally have indicated that the PWS-1K28R-SQ PSU's are noticeably quieter.  This was a specification that I identified to Raptor pre-sale too.