I’ve watched several YT videos reviewing both cases but nothing that explicitly calls out the noise levels with several HDDs running.

I’m about to rebuild my unraid server and looking to buy the 7XL or R5, I already have 6 HDDs and will likely add some more in over time. At the moment, the server will need to be in my home office sitting 3 - 4ft away from me and I’m trying to understand how much noise isolation I can expect. Most of my drives are WD Blue 8TB but I have one Exos X16 14TB for parity. I’ve seen reviewes of the R5 that show some kind of dampening on the panels but I didn’t see that with the 7 XL.

Anyone with some experience with these cases able to comment?

  • DeathmeterBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I’m curious about this too. Also looking to get the 7XL but I don’t want to put a mini data center near my feet with 10-20 7200rpm drives. Just one drive is fairly audible with my current chassis so I was hoping there’s a way to dampen noise

  • ososobaOPBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I eded up going with the Define 7 XL with dark TG side panel because of the deal I got on it. So far I have 4 HDDs (including an X16 Exos drive) and 4 fans in it. Like u/ben7337 suggested, I put it in a closet about 15ft from me and I can’t hear anything at all so this worked out pretty well. Will be adding more exos drives now that I’m more confident in the noise isolation.