12x6TB, 1240v5, Lian Li A76

[Chris Moore]

HBA: SAS9211-8I (undecided)

These work well, in my experience. I have five of them in the various systems I am running.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-H310-...ZFS-FreeNAS-unRAID-High-Air-Flow/162834671120

 

[joeinaz]

No reason. How many drives can fit in the R6? I'm not seeing that number on their website.

I have a Lian Li PC-A76 tower that holds 12 drives internally and also has two 5.25" front panel slots as well. I chose this case because it (as an option) has up to four 3 disk SATA backplanes that allow the removal of disks without having to unplug cabling on the other side. I can send pictures is anyone in interested. The other possibility for 12 disks would be to iStarUSA disk enclosures with a case that has lots of 5.25" front panel bays. I have an Antec 900 that has 9 bays usable. iStarUSA has enclosures that hold up to five 3.5" disks in a package the uses 3 bays. (5 in 3) Using 3 of the (4 in 3) enclosures, you could get 12 disks in the 9 bay tower. The Antec 900 has a 10" fan in the top and fan in the rear of the case as well. I have two of the (4 in 3) enclosures in my current FreeNAS build and they are quiet enough for my office at home. The only downsides to the Antec 900 compared to the A76 are interior space (the A76 is a large tower), and cable management. The bad news on the Lian-li A76 is they are hard to find.

 

[gregerg]

I have a Lian Li PC-A76 tower ...

I was just looking at this last night. The fan filters are also annoying to deal with yes? I'd be very interested to see pictures of your build.

 

[gregerg]

You didn't answer if you would consider a rack-mount case

I would consider a rack mount case, but I live in a studio, so I'd prefer the smaller footprint of a tower. If it were feasible, I'd love a 12 drive version of the storinator AV15. Seems like if they chopped off the side, it could provide a snug fit for a micro atx board and 12 drives.

 

[Stux]

I would (and have) just go with a 4U 24 bay hotswap case (Lian li pc76a is not hot swap)

And enjoy the 12 spare bays of future expansion ;)

 

[joeinaz]

I would (and have) just go with a 4U 24 bay hotswap case (Lian li pc76a is not hot swap)

And enjoy the 12 spare bays of future expansion ;)

Stux,

Check out the backplanes (part #BP3SATA) that are available for the Lian-Li A75 & A76 as they are sold as "hot swap" devices. The backplane is cabled with power and SATA connections so it is possible to remove a drive without uncabling anything. Although, it's not nearly as easy to remove disks as my iStar (4 in 3) solution, I made the choice because in several years of using FreeNAS, I have only had to replace one disk so I was willing to look at a less elegant hot swap solution.

 

[gregerg]

I would consider a rack mount case, but I live in a studio, so I'd prefer the smaller footprint of a tower. If it were feasible, I'd love a 12 drive version of the storinator AV15. Seems like if they chopped off the side, it could provide a snug fit for a micro atx board and 12 drives.

Just talked to 45 drives. They sell the AV15 case w/backplanes for $1117.33 plus shipping.

I'm now leaning towards the A76 or the A79: http://www.lian-li.com/en/dt-portfolio/pc-a79/

 

[joeinaz]

I was just looking at this last night. The fan filters are also annoying to deal with yes? I'd be very interested to see pictures of your build.

I was just looking at this last night. The fan filters are also annoying to deal with yes? I'd be very interested to see pictures of your build.

It looks like access to the fan filters will mean the removal of the entire front panel. Hopefully, the only thing hold the panel in place are 4 small screws. As for the pictures, the first one is looking in the left side of the case with 10 of 12 disks installed:

I was just looking at this last night. The fan filters are also annoying to deal with yes? I'd be very interested to see pictures of your build.

Left side (from the front) door off showing 10 of 12 disks:

 

[joeinaz]

It looks like access to the fan filters will mean the removal of the entire front panel. Hopefully, the only thing hold the panel in place are 4 small screws. As for the pictures, the first one is looking in the left side of the case with 10 of 12 disks installed.

View attachment 23382

Left side detail of the backplane; the top two connectors are open; the bottom connector has a disk,

 

[joeinaz]

Left side detail of the backplane; the top two connectors are open; the bottom connector has a disk,

View attachment 23383

Front of the case with the door open; the 12 disks are behind the 3 fans; the two 5.25" bays are available for things like SSDs and tape drives.

 

[joeinaz]

Right side door removed for a shot of the wiring of the backplane; in this configuration, the disk (which have little "rollers" attached) can slide out from the backplane by opening only the left side door and without touching the cabling. 2 of the 4 backplanes are visible.

 

[Chris Moore]

I found it much less expensive to buy a used server from eBay and stand it on it's side like a tower.
You can pickup a good used one for about $150.
If you would consider it, I can suggest some for you.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk

 

[joeinaz]

I found it much less expensive to buy a used server from eBay and stand it on it's side like a tower.
You can pickup a good used one for about $150.
If you would consider it, I can suggest some for you.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk

Please do share your thoughts on some of the server cases out there. As for turning them into a "tower" solution, there are many 3rd party kits that will provide vertical support for the external deployment of a 1 or 2U server to help with aesthetics and safety.

On of the things I was looking for was a system with some sort of backplane to allow the easy removal of disks. The backplane requirement and 12 disks may the choices for a system limited and expensive. My original thought was to use the iStar 4 in 3 solution in a case that could support nine or more external 5.25" devices, I use the iStar containers in my current deployment and they are wonderful. 3 of those enclosures and a case is about $400. When the Lian-Li case was on sale for less than $120 that was too good to resist. The 4 backplanes were around $80 total. For about $200, I got a case than can handle 12 disks, an E-ATX motherboard, my SSDs and tape drive. It does cable management well and when the door is closed, it looks more like a piece of furniture than a computer case! Right now, my biggest complaint is I haven't figured out how to keep it clean. There are hand prints everywhere and I want to get a cleaner that won't hurt the finish.

 

[Chris Moore]

Please do share your thoughts on some of the server cases out there. As for turning them into a "tower" solution, there are many 3rd party kits that will provide vertical support for the external deployment of a 1 or 2U server to help with aesthetics and safety.

Did you take the thread over from @gregerg ? I am confused. Are we talking about what he needs or about what you need?

When the Lian-Li case was on sale for less than $120 that was too good to resist. The 4 backplanes were around $80 total. For about $200, I got a case than can handle 12 disks, an E-ATX motherboard, my SSDs and tape drive. It does cable management well and when the door is closed, it looks more like a piece of furniture than a computer case! Right now, my biggest complaint is I haven't figured out how to keep it clean. There are hand prints everywhere and I want to get a cleaner that won't hurt the finish.

If it was me, I would go with this, even though it is a little more than I anticipated because it includes a SAS2 expander backplane. That means, all the drives run from that single blue SAS cable that is coming from the drive bays toward where the system board would be.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/3U-Supermi...w-x2-PSU-Great-working-condition/232529672155

If you need to keep the price a bit lower, this is an interesting option:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/QUANTUM-DX...SAS-STORAGE-ARRAY-CHASSIS-JBPWR2/292274761367

That is a SAS attached external drive enclosure. It never had a system board in it, but it could be adapted to accept one, or you could connect it externally and keep the compute portion of your system in another chassis.

This one is a regular 12 bay, 2U server chassis that someone pulled the system board out of:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Supermicro...-Server-Chassis-3x-Fans-800W-P-S/263447883353
It should be as simple as changing the standoffs around and you might need to discard the air shroud.
It is an idea, but not the only way to go.
The $200 price limit is tough to beat, even in a used server chassis and you are certainly not going to find a server chassis that looks like furniture. They are meant to be in a data-center, not in the living-room.

 

[Chris Moore]

PS. The used server chassis comes with a redundant power supply, so you can subtract the purchase of a power supply from the list of cost. I factored that in when I figured it was less expensive to buy a server chassis instead of buying a tower PC and adding hot-swap bays and adding a power supply and cable management is really easy when you have one SAS cable running to a SAS expander backplane instead of separate cables to each drive.

 

[gregerg]

I found it much less expensive to buy a used server from eBay and stand it on it's side like a tower.
You can pickup a good used one for about $150.
If you would consider it, I can suggest some for you.

I'm a bit concerned about noise levels that may come from a rack mount case. As I mentioned earlier, I live in a studio, so low noise and physical footprint are important to me. I'm starting to consider some caselabs cases.

 

[Chris Moore]

I'm starting to consider some caselabs cases.

Those are very expensive.

 

[Stux]

Stux,

Check out the backplanes (part #BP3SATA) that are available for the Lian-Li A75 & A76 as they are sold as "hot swap" devices. The backplane is cabled with power and SATA connections so it is possible to remove a drive without uncabling anything. Although, it's not nearly as easy to remove disks as my iStar (4 in 3) solution, I made the choice because in several years of using FreeNAS, I have only had to replace one disk so I was willing to look at a less elegant hot swap solution.

They’re not actually hot swap though, they’re Just back planes. They have no capacitors (you can see where Lian Li cheaped out and didn't place the caps)

When hot swapping you run the risk of voltage drops and dropping other drives out of your array. You should power down before swapping drives with these back planes.

 

[Chris Moore]

They’re not actually hot swap though, they’re Just back planes. They have no capacitors (you can see where Lian Li cheaped out and didn't place the caps)

When hot swapping you run the risk of voltage drops and dropping other drives out of your array. You should power down before swapping drives with these back planes.

@joeinaz these cables from Silverstone:
http://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=304
have integrated capacitors to help with the problem that @Stux pointed out.

 

[joeinaz]

[
Stux and Chris, this is GREAT information! Thanks for sharing.