Galden ZT 150
 

This may belong in the "Silence over performance" forum, but I figured it applied here as well.

I've been on a mission for some time now to build a completely silent RAID-5 server that does not have a single fan in the system. I have been pursuing watercooling with a very large passive radiator, then I came upon this thread at Tom's Hardware.http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/02/...ns/page10.html Specifically the "E-mail From Mr. Wimmer: A Special Coolant". In it, this guy casually mentions that the hard drives could also be submerged into Galden ZT 150!?! (Incidentally, it appears there are several varieties of Galden available--not sure of the differences).

I wanted to hear people's thoughts on this. If this is the case, my search is over, and the holy grail of silent computing is about to be realized. And all without using a single waterblock. I'm sure there's a catch though...

All thoughts are welcome.

Re: Galden ZT 150
 

The price itself is insane. And it seems to need to be used in a circulting loop with a heat transfer element (rad/heater core). In this case you would need some block.

It can also conduct electricity by minute amounts.

http://www.solvaysemiconductor.com/p...599-2-0,00.htm

Re: Galden ZT 150
 

The price I could handle as my current design plans were getting absurd--I actually think the Galden would be less expensive. However, the conduction of electricity...that's tough. A dielectric constant in the 3's--is it too electrically conductive? Basically, would it short everything out?

I'm imagining all of this in a tank (granted, a small one due to the cost) with an inflow and outflow to a radiator, but without any blocks. Just keep the liquid circulating. So you'd have a pump and a radiator and that's about it.

Re: Galden ZT 150
 

Is it just going to be a file server? What HDs are you going to use? Do you already have a CPU?

If the answers to the above are, "yes, I dunno, no" respectively, then just get any board that has PCI-X slots for the raid card and undervolt and underclock the processor.

Re: Galden ZT 150
 

Sorry, I see 3 responses for 2 question:) To the question of "would it short everything out" was that a yes, dunno, or no?

If this liquid is too conductive, is there anything else out there that would work for submersive cooling?

I don't want to sidetrack this thread so I won't go too into what I was going to do with this server, but basically I have 8 seagate 300gb drives, was likely going to use a Pentium M as a CPU, still need to pick up a RAID card. The gist of this project: It's a music server that's going in a dedicated listening room. Silence is therefore the highest priority (really, the only one). "Quiet" won't cut it. There will be no overclocking.

I just saw that post on Tom's Hardware and realized that by being able to submerge electrical elements (especially hard drives), my whole project just became way way easier (and more cool too:)

Re: Galden ZT 150
 

Why not do what Tom's hardware did and use Oil instead (Vegetable oil) ?

Re: Galden ZT 150
 

For all the reasons mentioned in the 10+ pages of user comments. But primarily because it will go rancid, stink, and grow bacteria. They also had to do some sealing of sorts between the CPU and socket I think.

But ideas of what liquids would work for this application are exactly what I'm looking for--in particular, liquids that will allow hard drives to be submerged (if that is even a possibility).

Re: Galden ZT 150
 

Then perhaps FluidXP or Fluorinert would be ideal.. as they cannot grow bacteria or stink. Just make sure the system is sealed. But once again the harddrive would need to be kept outside of the setup. As it would slow down the rotation of the discs and burn out the motor.

http://products3.3m.com/catalog/us/e...er/output_html

Re: Galden ZT 150
 

Uh you sure you can do that? I'm pretty sure that will destroy any harddrive. Even if the fluid being used was completely non-conductive and non-capacitive.

Even if you submerge the rest I think FluidXP turns conductive over time. Pulls ions from the metal it contacts and becomes conductive, or something like that :shrug:

I was asking what you are doing with the box because I wanted to know if the processor had to be beefy or not. If it doesn't then why going through all this cooling stuff for nothing?

I think it would be very very fun to submerge a PC just to say I did it and it actually worked. But I'd never do it with a fileserver I planned on actually using as a fileserver...

And I don't know of any P-M mobos(well mobos that can take the CT-479) that can handle 8 SATA drives let alone in RAID5 config. If you want a good RAID5 setup thats not going to be bandwidth limited you want to look for a PCI-X or PCI-Express SATA Raid card. But yeah this is derailing the thread...

Re: Galden ZT 150
 

Yeah FluidXP may be out of the question but Fluorinert is not. It's made by 3M and looks to be the best bet.

Re: Galden ZT 150
 

Hard drives have a port for equalizing air pressure (they have air inside). So, you'd have to seal that up to prevent any liquid from entering the drive. Flourinert has been used for whole computer submersion before; it works and is expensive.

Re: Galden ZT 150
 

BTW, Flourinert and Galden are just two name brands for the same kind of thing.

Re: Galden ZT 150
 

It sounds like he wanted to do a submerging project because in theory it would silence the hard drives. It would kill the harddrives so technically it would silence them :evilaugh: So the whole idea is sort of out of the question.

Fluorinert has been discussed here and else where many times before. Its just very very expensive. Unless you have a relative that owes you a favor that works at 3M, its cost eliminates it from the majority of us.

Re: Galden ZT 150
 

I've been told just sealing that port, let alone submerging the entire drive, will kill the drive.

Re: Galden ZT 150
 

Well, Fluorinert FC-77 looks perfect--but I found a price of $240/liter!!! Still, for the sake of conversation, let's assume I've lost my head and am considering this. If everything were perfectly laid out, I may be able to get away with 4 liters or so.
It would seem like it would pose no problems for any of the electronics other than the hard drives, correct? (fanless PSU's would not be in the liquid)

As far as the hard drives go, I can see how the increased resistance of liquid would dramatically shorten the life of the drive. But what if you were to seal the drive first so no liquid got in? Actually cover up that hole that says, "Do not cover".

Basically, ignoring the price for a moment, is a fully submerged computer (with the exception of PSU's) in FC-77 a possibility?

JamesAvery22, thanks for the heads up on the lack P-M support. I do not have a mobo yet, nor the raid card (though I'll probably go 3ware there). You're right though, I could just undervolt the processor to reduce heat.

Brians256, do you know of a link that has any details on computers that have used Fluorinert? I will do a search of these boards to see what I turn up.

Re: Galden ZT 150
 

Sealing up the breather hole on a HD won't immediately cause it to conk out. But it reduces its life expectancy. How much? I dunno. Dont even remember where I was reading about it. Pretty sure it was the storagereview.com forums years ago.

The breather hole is there for pressure differentials and cooling. Even if you cool the entire casing of the HD the air sealed inside it is going to get very hot.

The HDs and PSU are always exceptions when people have submerged PC's in the past. Everything else is fine if you take the proper precautions.


You sure you don't want to split this project into two? Make a good solid quiet cheap file server and have a second box to mess around with submerging? Submergion projects are usually for show or benching or just for fun. Definitely not 24/7 boxes.

Anways, google "Fluorinert PC" and you'll find a good amount of examples.

Re: Galden ZT 150
 

Let me just say -
Think outside the box!
You are approaching this in a conventional manner - which turns out to be wrong.
Look - you do not need the server to be in the listening room.
You can use one of the via epia fanless motherboard/processors, running off of say, a microdrive (or CF Flash), for your machine in the listening room. This is silent - with CF, there are no moving parts, at all.

Connect via network to fileserver that is outside of listening room.
This is inexpensive and really the best solution, imo.

Anything else is "bling" and a waste, and potentially damaging to your hardware.

Re: Galden ZT 150
 

If you could make a raid 5 silent fileserver it would be very hard to do.

submersion cooling hardrives will never work. HD was always left above the 3m flourinert.

IF you block up the breather holes > pressure and heat will build up in hardrive and it will fail. 7200-15000 rpms inside that HD.

Re: Galden ZT 150
 

Are you sure that it would never work? I suspect that the problem with pressure differential could be handled by a good seal on the port and sufficient cooling of the HD case. I searched and found few good threads on immersing hard drives and the dangers thereof.

Re: Galden ZT 150
 

I guess when he said the "Holy Grail" meant throwing out all rationality.
Never say never should be the motto of mankind.

You can immerse the HDs and seal the HDs but that will lower longevity and reliablity. Defeats the purpose of having fileserver when its meant to keep data. You are putting it into a slow RAID 5 for redundancy. dropping HD into some liquid is like opposite side of the field there.


Build a cage I guess the Hds will still be toasty because they are still surrounded by air while the cage is nice and cool.....unless

you fab up a nice 4 HD enclosure that can cool the HDs. Seal it up with silcone and all the cables. Might as well turn it into WB like mashie

Re: Galden ZT 150
 

Heres a start, try submersion cooling an old HDD before a whole fileserver.

enclosure might help
http://www.mnpctech.com/Projectbox.html

Re: Galden ZT 150
 

Thanks for all the responses--I'm pretty excited about this project. To answer some of the questions and give a little background as to why I am doing this: There is simply no other place to stick a loud server where I am currently living. I have a nice big basement---and it floods constantly and is 99% humidity when it's not flooded. There are certainly more practical approaches to this problem--I'm not really all that interested in them. This is a hobby and I'm looking for a challenge and this seems to be a match. Additionally, another hobby of mine is woodworking. For the last few years, I've actually been constructing the cases of my computers out of wood (last one has a wine holder and 15 cd holder built in) as I despise big hunks of white and black plastic laying around my house. Now I'm thinking far enough outside of the box that I want this server to be included in a functional piece of furniture (probably an endtable constructed out of cherry). The wood will further dampen any noise. Originally I was approaching this from the standard watercooling perspective and was designing waterblocks for the hdds, mosfets etc as I did not want a single fan in this system (and as this piece of furniture is not going to be designed with venting heat in mind). Then I stumbled upon this submerged cooling idea....it solves so many problems (while creating so many more:) The end goal however is a 0db RAID-5 server (or as close to 0db as I can get) enclosed in a gorgeous piece of furniture. This will not look or sound like a computer.

I've done a lot of searching on hdd submersion in Fluorinert and everyone says it can't be done, but it doesn't appear that anyone's done it. I have some old hdds about so I will definitely give this a shot. If it doesn't work, I would probably then move on to ricecrispi's suggestion and see if I can somehow seal them up, but still have them submerged. Maybe have a snorkel coming up for some breather hole??? Who knows...I do have a few questions though:

1. Came across this seller on ebay http://cgi.ebay.com/Fluorinert-Elect...QQcmdZViewItem who is selling Fluorinert FC-40 and FC-43. All mentions I've seen of people using Fluorinert in a computer application were using FC-77. Can anyone see why FC-40, 43 would not workhttp://products3.3m.com/catalog/us/e...er/output_html? At this price, the project actually becomes affordable.

2. This is the part I was really struggling with in my original design--any ideas of a radiator for complete passive cooling? There will be no overclocking and likely no video card (certainly nothing hot in any case). Maybe this part needs to wait until I see if hdds will work in this stuff as that would add a lot more heat to the system.

Thanks again for all the help and comments.

edit: Looks like FC-40 may have about 2.5x the viscosity of water, and FC-43 nearly 3x if I'm looking at this correctly. That certainly is not going to help the hard drive's chances in this....

Re: Galden ZT 150
 

I think we talked about this over e-mail, and I advised you that it was a very awkward way of trying to achieve something you could achieve with more conventional techniques (and at considerably less cost).

First, submerging a HDD would kill it pretty much instantly. Liquid entering the drive compartment would seriously alter mechanical dynamics and cause the heads to crash to the platter, like, instantly.

I would forget about fancy liquid cooling. Just get a bunch of really quiet Samsung Spinpoint drives (18dB at active read/write) and a nice passively cooled Epia mini-ITX to drive the lot. Fanless modest PSU and you're set.

If you use eight drives, the formula for calculating total noise: total dB = source dB + ( log2(no. sources) * source dB/10) reveals that you will get 23.4 dB of noise --hardly audible.

If you arrange the components right in a well-ventilated case, you can count on convection to do the rest. It may not sound as cool as submerged cooling, but an elegant and well-designed system for the job is in my opinion just as l33t. ;)

Re: Galden ZT 150
 

FC-77 is for cooling due to its properties. As a cooling fluid it is actually no where near as good as water. I had a little design check and i reckon that at best i could get storm performance out of a direct die cooling of pcs with fc77. Of course that fluid can be made to be below freazing easily but it still is alot of effort. Other stuff may work but not as well. FC 30 etc are likely to be very viscous which means that arent good for cooling

The pressure differential problem is there and will always be there. You cannot get around it. Seals etc are hugely complicated for what you are doing. It would be far easier to have a sealed case in your basement. This is doable and is done in industry.

Watercool the hds and vibrationally seal and damp them would work as well. Could be totally silent.

Re: Galden ZT 150
 

Personally, id make a heatsinked wooden case w/ vibration isolation + foam accoustic packing.

Pissing around with submersion cooling might seem fun, but personally i wouldnt call losing all of the data in a raid-5 array 'fun' - its kinda against the point of it...

Its pretty easy to make something quiet using MDF and accoustic damping; if its quiet already making it near silent should be very achievable.