Re: Cooling
There are no fans on the blades.
They have twin 5 inch units in the power supplies which draw air through from the front of the chassis and are surprisingly quiet unless things are getting _really_ hot (modulo the Supermicro habit of starting at full yakka when powered up to overcome any possible sticktion issues)
Noise levels in a server room is a particular annoyance of mine. Even with the room AC set to 24C, it's quite possible to keep room noise down below 75dBA if you don't set every fan to "warp speed" (recent experience: we dropped the room noise from 95-97dBA to that level) and with appropriate room treatment (Gikacoustics.com) you can get it even lower.
Note that using blanking panels is _not_ optional if you want to maintain temperature control of the room and the heavier ones like APC's plastic 1U clip ins have a _very_ noticeable effect on controlling room noise levels too.