SOLVED Let's talk rackmount

[aussiejuggalo]

Currently I have a little 8 bay NAS, single pool RAID-Z2 with 4TB drives but I've come to the realisation that I've kinda got no expandability aside from buying all new bigger and far more expensive drives so I'm thinking about changing to a proper rackmount set up early next year. I'll also be putting another computer, UPS & networking stuff in the rack so in the long run it'll be worth the money.

I want to keep as much of my current build as I can but I understand I'll probably need / should change the PSU and RAID / HBA Card thingy first, I'd also prefer to buy new where possible. Now what makes this a little trickier is I live in Australia so availability on server grade stuff is limited and expensive for good quality brands.

Chassis

What I'm thinking is a 20 - 24 bay rack with 3 pools (RAID-Z2 still) of 8 / 8 / 4 or 8 / 8 / 8 depending on the chassis I go. I'm currently looking at,

Supermicro CSPC-846TQ-900B $1451.75, 24 bay.

SilverStone RM420 $875, 20 bay.

Athena Power RM-4U4243HE12 $569, 24 bay. Importing is expensive.

Norco RPC-4220 $499, 20 bay. Not sure about quality of this one.

Cooling

I understand server fans are stupidly loud so I was also thinking I've got 3 options, use fan voltage reducers, use a fan controller or replace the stock fans with Noctua ones.

HBA

No clue, guessing something like the LSI 9305-24i for a single card to handle all the drives or another couple 9240-8i with 9211-8i firmware?

Server Rack

This is the only thing I'm seriously stuck on, the widths of the chassis is confusing me as to the width of the rack, I know 19" is the standard but some of the chassis say 17" wide . I must be missing something here.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks :).

 

[danb35]

What I'm thinking is a 20 - 24 bay rack with 3 pools (RAID-Z2 still) of 8 / 8 / 4 or 8 / 8 / 8 depending on the chassis I go.

Why three pools? One pool, three vdevs.

Supermicro CSPC-846TQ-900B $1451.75, 24 bay.

Good Lord, no; it's a wiring nightmare. Go for the 846A, or better yet the 846E16. Used is just fine, and can save quite a bit of money. The 846E16 includes a SAS expander backplane, which can save a bit when it comes to the HBA.

HBA

Any LSI 2008/2308/3008-based card in IT mode. If you go for the 846E16, you'll only need one, and it only needs a single SAS connector (though cards with two are more common).

I know 19" is the standard but some of the chassis say 17" wide . I must be missing something here.

It's a matter of where the measurements are taken. The width across the ears is 19", but the width of the chassis itself is closer to 17".

 

[Chris Moore]

This is the only thing I'm seriously stuck on, the widths of the chassis is confusing me as to the width of the rack, I know 19" is the standard but some of the chassis say 17" wide . I must be missing something here.

Just make sure it is a server rack, not a 'coms' rack. They make racks that are not the full depth (front to back) of a server rack that are intended to be used with other equipment like network gear and they are not able to be used for servers for a varriety of reasons. If it is an actual server rack, it will be compatible with a server. It is an industry standard. I have mounted gear from every major vendor in all sorts of combinations of racks. Sun/Oracle servers in Dell racks and Hewlet Packard (HP) servers in IBM racks. If they are the more recent 'square hole' racks, they are just about the same across the board with only a few minor variations. For example, the same fabricator makes racks for APC and Dell and you can tell because (other than the name badge) they look identical.

This is the chassis to get: http://www.ebay.com/itm/292252408126
If I were buying one today, it is what I would get. Depending on your needs, you could just add a couple parts to this and make it complete. Done deal, except you might want to change the fans.

 

[aussiejuggalo]

Why three pools? One pool, three vdevs.

Could do something like that, my main objective is fast rebuild times.

Good Lord, no; it's a wiring nightmare. Go for the 846A, or better yet the 846E16. Used is just fine, and can save quite a bit of money. The 846E16 includes a SAS expander backplane, which can save a bit when it comes to the HBA.

Cant seem to find that either of them that will ship to Aus unfortunately.

Any LSI 2008/2308/3008-based card in IT mode. If you go for the 846E16, you'll only need one, and it only needs a single SAS connector (though cards with two are more common).

Ah ok, good to know.

It's a matter of where the measurements are taken. The width across the ears is 19", but the width of the chassis itself is closer to 17

Ok, so I'll have to check for how the measurements are taken then.

Just make sure it is a server rack, not a 'coms' rack. They make racks that are not the full depth (front to back) of a server rack that are intended to be used with other equipment like network gear and they are not able to be used for servers for a varriety of reasons. If it is an actual server rack, it will be compatible with a server. It is an industry standard. I have mounted gear from every major vendor in all sorts of combinations of racks. Sun/Oracle servers in Dell racks and Hewlet Packard (HP) servers in IBM racks. If they are the more recent 'square hole' racks, they are just about the same across the board with only a few minor variations. For example, the same fabricator makes racks for APC and Dell and you can tell because (other than the name badge) they look identical.

The place I'm looking at sells server racks, its the chassis that were confusing me but I guess as danb35 said it's probably where they measure them from.

This is the chassis to get: http://www.ebay.com/itm/292252408126
If I were buying one today, it is what I would get. Depending on your needs, you could just add a couple parts to this and make it complete. Done deal, except you might want to change the fans.

Doesn't ship to Aus, I'll keep an eye out for other ones though, like I said I wont be doing anything until next year I just wanted to get everything roughly worked out.[/QUOTE]

 

[danb35]

Cant seem to find that either of them that will ship to Aus unfortunately.

There's always the possibility of using a US-based intermediary--you'd have the gear shipped there, they'd then re-ship it to you in .au. Not cheap, but for the price you quoted for the -TQ chassis, you could get a complete 36-bay server with about US$200 left over. I think @Stux has used such a service, perhaps he can offer some input.

 

[Chris Moore]

Could do something like that, my main objective is fast rebuild times.

Rebuild time is dictated by the amount of data on the disk and the speed at which the disk can write data. The rest of the pool can read faster than a single disk can write. Write speed to the disk being replaced is the speed limit.

 

[Chris Moore]

Doesn't ship to Aus, I'll keep an eye out for other ones though

If you offer them a couple hundred bucks, I bet they change their mind, but it is the kind of chassis I was pointing out. You can get it anywhere you like. That particular one is equipped with the SAS2 expander backplane that is preferable to the direct wired approach.

 

[Stux]

There's always the possibility of using a US-based intermediary--you'd have the gear shipped there, they'd then re-ship it to you in .au. Not cheap, but for the price you quoted for the -TQ chassis, you could get a complete 36-bay server with about US$200 left over. I think @Stux has used such a service, perhaps he can offer some input.

I use shipito. They have a calculator on their website so if you can get the box dimensions and weight, you can estimate the shipping. Its exxy, but the depth of the au second hand market is no where near that of the US. FWIW, I went with a Norco RPC-4224 chassis instead. Quality is okay, and the benefit is you can make them virtually silent.

https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...24-supermicro-x10-sri-f-xeon-e5-1650v4.46262/

If you skip the rails, then its fine.

With 20 bays you'd just use the Intel 24 port SAS expander with an HBA. I'd suggest the 24 bay model though. Who needs a CD drive ;)

Of course, once you add up all the fan mods, heat sinks, HBAs and expanders, things add up... and you'd probably come out way ahead with importing a US rack... but its a gamble, as if you have an issue with the US rack... you're going to have to be freighting back/forth which will be expensive.

I got my Norco from TechBuy. Price seems to have gone up... AUD has gone down...
http://www.techbuy.com.au/p/149123/CASINGS_SERVER_-_4U/Norco/RPC-4224.asp

Hey look... cheaper on Ebay... http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Norco-RP...343115?hash=item33d571e44b:g:mSIAAOSwCkZZVX2n

 

[aussiejuggalo]

There's always the possibility of using a US-based intermediary--you'd have the gear shipped there, they'd then re-ship it to you in .au. Not cheap, but for the price you quoted for the -TQ chassis, you could get a complete 36-bay server with about US$200 left over. I think @Stux has used such a service, perhaps he can offer some input.

Yeah true, I do have to stay under the $1000 AUD import limit otherwise I'll cop massive fees which is annoying.

If you offer them a couple hundred bucks, I bet they change their mind, but it is the kind of chassis I was pointing out. You can get it anywhere you like. That particular one is equipped with the SAS2 expander backplane that is preferable to the direct wired approach.

Ah ok, was gonna see if I could buy the expander backplane and man handle it into a cheaper chassis, cant find it to buy anywhere though :(.

I use shipito. They have a calculator on their website so if you can get the box dimensions and weight, you can estimate the shipping. Its exxy, but the depth of the au second hand market is no where near that of the US. FWIW, I went with a Norco RPC-4224 chassis instead. Quality is okay, and the benefit is you can make them virtually silent.

https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...24-supermicro-x10-sri-f-xeon-e5-1650v4.46262/

If you skip the rails, then its fine.

With 20 bays you'd just use the Intel 24 port SAS expander with an HBA. I'd suggest the 24 bay model though. Who needs a CD drive ;)

Of course, once you add up all the fan mods, heat sinks, HBAs and expanders, things add up... and you'd probably come out way ahead with importing a US rack... but its a gamble, as if you have an issue with the US rack... you're going to have to be freighting back/forth which will be expensive.

I got my Norco from TechBuy. Price seems to have gone up... AUD has gone down...
http://www.techbuy.com.au/p/149123/CASINGS_SERVER_-_4U/Norco/RPC-4224.asp

Hey look... cheaper on Ebay... http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Norco-RP...343115?hash=item33d571e44b:g:mSIAAOSwCkZZVX2n

I'm tempted to go the Norco just because it's cheap but I've heard a lot about the backplanes exploding which isn't very fun , kinda why I was looking at the Athena Power & Silverstone ones instead because there much cheaper than the Suprermicro one but still look pretty decent, although the Silverstone one basically has no manual but I can muddle my way though. That's a pretty good price even from TechBuy, eBay one isn't bad either.

I don't mind modding and swapping fans out etc, I'll gladly pay extra for Noctua fans and better heatsinks so that's not a problem, HBA's and things like that can be expensive but I suppose they are worth it for good quality ones so I can't really complain. The real killer for me is the insane shipping to get stuff from the USA and the shipping back if something goes wrong.

Nice build, the crap coloured Noctua fans really bring out the stock standard green of the motherboard :D.

 

[Stux]

Going to upgrade to blood and charcoal industrial Noctua soon ;)

The standard Noctua aren't enough to cool 7200rpm Ironwolfs

 

[aussiejuggalo]

Nice, I've got 2 in mine and they push heaps of air.

I'm curious, if I bought a cheaper case like the Norco one... anyway I could stuff a Supermicro backplane in it?

Edit, if I can't get a Supermicro case would the Silverstone be the next best choice?

 

[Stux]

I'm curious, if I bought a cheaper case like the Norco one... anyway I could stuff a Supermicro backplane in it?

Unlikely things would line up right. If you can't get an SM I'd recommend the Norco. It does the job. I believe they improved the backplanes.

 

[aussiejuggalo]

Unlikely things would line up right. If you can't get an SM I'd recommend the Norco. It does the job. I believe they improved the backplanes

Ok, I'll keep an eye out for Supermicro chassis but if not I might go Norco.

Edit, another question if I bought the 846TQ wouldn't I just be able to stick the backplane from the 846E16 into it? Looking at the pics of the chassis they both look identical . Not that I can even find the model number of the 846E16 backplane.

 

[Ericloewe]

Edit, another question if I bought the 846TQ wouldn't I just be able to stick the backplane from the 846E16 into it?

Yes, of course, you choose the chassis and then you have the choice of Trainwreck (TQ), direct SFF-8087, single expander and dual expander backplanes.

 

[danb35]

if I bought the 846TQ wouldn't I just be able to stick the backplane from the 846E16 into it?

Yes, you should be able to.

Not that I can even find the model number of the 846E16 backplane.

BPN-SAS2-846EL1

 

[aussiejuggalo]

Yes, of course, you choose the chassis and then you have the choice of Trainwreck (TQ), direct SFF-8087, single expander and dual expander backplanes.

Yes, you should be able to.

BPN-SAS2-846EL1

Thanks, I'll keep an eye out. Noticed TechBuy has a Supermicro CSPC-846E26-R1200B... for $2674 lol.

So if I go the Norco one what kinda stuff should I look out for in a crappy backplane?

 

[Stux]

Thanks, I'll keep an eye out. Noticed TechBuy has a Supermicro CSPC-846E26-R1200B... for $2674 lol.

So if I go the Norco one what kinda stuff should I look out for in a crappy backplane?

Norco consists of 5-6 passive backplanes. Each requires an SFF-8087 and 4pin molex connector.

I've just received an Intel 36 port SAS expander which seems like it was almost made for this case :)

 

[aussiejuggalo]

Norco consists of 5-6 passive backplanes. Each requires an SFF-8087 and 4pin molex connector.

I've just received an Intel 36 port SAS expander which seems like it was almost made for this case :)

What about problems with it? I've seen posts about people getting versions from a few years ago, bad solder joints, missing resistors etc.

I think I'll make my life easier by just stealing your build, or copying it, either one :D.

Edit, found a seller on eBay selling a Supermicro CSE-846 Chassis with SAS2-846EL1 backplane for $376.38 AUD but they don't list Australia as a postage country so I've asked if they will ship to here and for how much.

 

[aussiejuggalo]

Spent some time thinking and god knows how many hours hunting but I found a seller on eBay where I can get a CSE-846 with the BPN-SAS2-846EL1 backplane, 2 1200w PSU's and rails for around $580 AUD shipped to the Shipito warehouse :D, gonna have to use the assisted purchase though so it'll cost a little extra and shipping from the Shipito warehouse to Aus will be about $310 according to the shipping calculator. Say all up $1000 - $1100 AUD just to be safe, I think that's a hell of a deal considering what I'm getting.

I've also worked out a far cheaper way to do my backup's, I'll be using a Supermicro CSE-826 (12 bay) with the BPN-SAS2-826EL1 backplane, Supermicro CSE-PTJBOD-CB1 powerboard & Supermicro CBL-0167L SAS EL2/EL1 backplane cable which is $428 AUD all up but again I'll have to use assisted purchase through Shipito so again it'll cost more but I'll get them to consolidate it all into 1 parcel (maybe see if they'll chuck all the smaller stuff in the chassis) for me so hopefully shipping wont cost heaps.

I'm hoping to buy the CSE-846 next week providing I have enough money, don't want to pass that up at all (which is why I'm not linking it :p) then the backup stuff will be later.

 

[Chris Moore]

I've just received an Intel 36 port SAS expander which seems like it was almost made for this case :)

How is that SAS expander doing? Photos?