Unboxing the world’s quietest NAS with deadmau5 - 45Studio

Quick Overview

The 45Studio Dead Silent Server, a collaborative product with deadmau5, successfully initializes using the 45Drives Setup & Backup Wizard, revealing significant passive cooling via copper heat pipes and massive fins, though initial setup encountered a permissions error which was resolved by accessing the server via the initial setup wizard's manual add server feature.

Key Points: The 45Studio Dead Silent Server, designed for quiet, high-performance local networking storage, was unboxed and set up in collaboration with deadmau5 (Joel Thomas Zimmerman). The server utilizes passive cooling, featuring extensive copper heat pipes transferring heat to massive external fins, eliminating the need for noisy internal fans. Initial setup via the 45Drives Setup & Backup Wizard failed initially due to a 'WERRACCESSDENIED' error when trying to initialize the registry, requiring a manual server add using root credentials (root/45Drives). The unit supports up to 8x 2.5in SATA SSD bays (drives not included) and includes a Kingston NV3 1TB M.2 NVMe boot drive. deadmau5 noted that the server's design balances capacity, performance, and redundancy, utilizing ZFS with RAID-Z2 (2-disk redundancy) for 46.09 TB usable capacity out of 8 drives. The server includes dual 10G RJ45 ports and a dedicated IPMI LAN port for out-of-band management. The setup wizard successfully completed after troubleshooting, allowing access to the web UI where the user confirmed the storage configuration and mounted shares.

Context: This video documents the unboxing and setup of the 45Studio Dead Silent Server, a high-density storage solution developed in partnership with electronic music producer deadmau5, who emphasizes the importance of silent operation for his studio environment. The setup process involves using a dedicated 45Drives Setup & Backup Wizard on a laptop to configure the server's ZFS array and network shares.

Detailed Analysis

The video details the unboxing and setup of the 45Studio Dead Silent Server, a high-capacity, fanless NAS collaboration with deadmau5. The host, Linus Sebastian, unboxes the unit, noting its massive passive cooling system composed of copper heat pipes transferring heat to large external fins, which allows for silent operation, a key requirement for deadmau5's studio. The server comes pre-installed with a Kingston NV3 1TB M.2 NVMe boot drive and has 8 bays for 2.5-inch SATA SSDs (drives are not included in the $3499 base price). During the initial setup using the 45Drives Setup & Backup Wizard, the automatic server detection failed, and a subsequent manual attempt resulted in a 'WERRACCESSDENIED' error when trying to initialize the registry for Samba configuration. This was traced back to the use of a Cat5 cable for the 10Gb network connection, which deadmau5 admitted to stealing from a hotel phone system. After troubleshooting, the host successfully logged in as 'root' (with the default password '45Drives') and completed the setup, confirming the storage array was configured as RAIDZ2, providing 46.09 TB usable capacity while tolerating two disk failures. The host noted that while the setup process had minor hurdles (like the permissions error and the initial lack of connectivity), the final result—a silent, high-capacity server—was impressive.