No doubt about it, the world is a noisy place. And, being surrounded by a room full of computers with their cooling fans all roaring away doesn't make it any quieter. But, what can you do about it?
At BSM Development, we've been building quiet computers for a number of years now (we don't like noise any more than you do) so, should you decide that you'd like us to assemble and deliver to you a server or other system, tested and ready to run, we can apply sound reduction techniques to it as it is built.
We are especially adept at building quiet systems that utilize low speed fans, low power mother boards and processors, disk drives with fluid dynamic bearings that run at lower RPMs, quiet power supplies, and passive cooling. As your system is built, we can install resilient mounts and sound-deadening material to quiet it down, in such a manner so as to ensure that overheating is not a problem.
It is often the case that performance inversely related to other desirable features. In the case of noise, most of which is directly attributable to cooling, a good rule of thumb is, "The higher the performance, the hotter it gets, the louder the system."
Even before the system is built and it turns out to scream like a banshee, we can assist you in making small performance trade-offs that will often lead to a much quieter system (e.g. a certain microprocessor model was fabricated in two different line widths, one of which uses substantially less power -- the low-power variation is only slightly slower than the other). The reduction in performance is often unnoticable but will lead to a system that can be built, along with other noise-deadening techniques, to yield an ultra-quiet system. As an added bonus, it will use less power and require less cooling.