ReneV

Fair enough. I am, actually But, I can't just buy everything I'm sold on. There has to be a longer-term expectation of use ...

With WOL I'll be sold.

WOL support for sleeping servers?

Just double-checked: I remember using the WedGUI password page and the root password does survive reboot, so I probably did what dgaschk says.

I believe I had the same. If I remember correctly, I added a password with passwd in a shell login.

DD-WRT has the ability to send magic packets to machines on the local network through its web interface: Administration->WOL.

I'm not convinced. I certainly have computers that wake up from S3 when I touch a USB-connected mouse or keyboard, and even when I select onto or away from them on a USB-connected KVM.

I'm running three servers off of one UPS. Two of them are unRAID; they spend most of their time in S3. The last one runs OpenSolaris and stays on 24/7. The UPS is connected to the OpenSolaris box with USB. The unRAID servers run apcupsd as network clients off of the OpenSolaris box. A few minutes into a power loss the OpenSolaris box sends magic packets to the two unRAID servers. The unRAID servers then wake up and poll the power-off state from the OpenSolaris box over the network and then proceed to shut down properly. This approach may or may not apply to your situation.

On the off-chance that this may also slip other people's mind, the first HDDs should obviously be in the bottom of the case, to get airflow over the MB.

More fans do not automatically translate to better cooling, though. Fans can very easily work against each other, and I would imagine that it would be fairly easy to create vortexes, too, or at the very least end up with parts of your case having poor airflow.

At the risk of repeating myself: the top fan is likely to be more than enough for you. 1) Remove all internal obstructions to airflow, such as the fans on the back of the drive cages. 2) Tape off all holes, except in front of HDDs and over the top fan. (I.e., back, side door, unused drive cages.) 3) Consider getting a passive CPU cooler. 4) Set the top fan to low or medium. I bet you that your case will now be cool and quiet.

As JoeL mentioned, your best bet is to think about airflow, rather than just where this or that fan is blowing. I'm using an Antec 900 case that at various time has held 15 drives in (airflow-restricting) backplanes. Using just the top fan with all holes taped up, except those in front of HDDs, temps stay below 45C, even during 30C+ ambient. Note that I'm not even using a CPU fan and that the top fan is at the lowest setting until 25C ambient and at the medium setting above that.

This is not a response to your question, but maybe you'll find it relevant anyway. I've found that ordering things into Kids, Drama, ActionThriller, Comedy, Series, etc. makes it easier to choose on any given night.