I'm trying to determine which way to go for a 12 bay chassis. I lean towards Supermicro, but it appears to be pretty difficult to find a new Supermicro chassis outfitted with a power supply that isn't complete overkill. For me, the most promising route is the 500W 826TQ-R500LPB, but that chassis is somewhat hard to find (is it previous gen?) and every other SM chassis seems to come with much larger power supplies.
An alternative I was considering is picking up a used 12 bay chassis on ebay and swapping in one of the smaller PS options listed in this chart. This options makes me nervous though as I don't know enough about server power supplies to figure out what is swappable with what.
I also don't know if the backplanes/cages change significantly between the older chassis on ebay and the newer models. Is that pretty much all the various chassis are: case + power supply + backplane + cages? Is there anything else to them that I should think about when looking at used vs. new?
Does anyone have any thoughts on the wisdom of buying a used chassis on ebay vs buying new? Or about swapping in a smaller power supply?
The simple alternative I've also been considering is just to go with the Fractal Define XL R2 + Seasonic Fanless Platinum 400W. It has the workstation form factor I'm more familiar with, but I would lose the backplane and the easy front-facing HD access.
An alternative I was considering is picking up a used 12 bay chassis on ebay and swapping in one of the smaller PS options listed in this chart. This options makes me nervous though as I don't know enough about server power supplies to figure out what is swappable with what.
I also don't know if the backplanes/cages change significantly between the older chassis on ebay and the newer models. Is that pretty much all the various chassis are: case + power supply + backplane + cages? Is there anything else to them that I should think about when looking at used vs. new?
Does anyone have any thoughts on the wisdom of buying a used chassis on ebay vs buying new? Or about swapping in a smaller power supply?
The simple alternative I've also been considering is just to go with the Fractal Define XL R2 + Seasonic Fanless Platinum 400W. It has the workstation form factor I'm more familiar with, but I would lose the backplane and the easy front-facing HD access.