Cooling question

[jgreco]

Seriously, for drive density, the Backblaze stuff is nice, but for cooling it is less than optimal, plus bonus points for the agony of SATA port multipliers.

I know that the Norco cases are popular (hi cyberjock) and also relatively inexpensive ... $400 for RPC-4224 and that they're definitely a contender for home users. But please do factor in to the equation the cost of a power supply, and the possible cost of retrofitting in different fans, brings it up to at least $500. Also, the Norco uses six SFF-8087's (one per row) which is kinda awesome from a ZFS point of view, except that needing something like 3 M1015's adds costs, or an SAS expander also adds costs to the build.

An option like the CSE-846BE16-R920B is extremely expensive in comparison, but comes with dual redundant power supplies WITH PMBus and I2C, plus two different options for mounting a pair of 2.5" drives (and you can even use both together, giving 2 internal 2.5 and 2 external 2.5). Based on an SAS expander, you get a single SFF-8087 to the system, which means less controller cost, but possible contention as the system approaches 24Gbps of traffic to the storage subsystem.

Both the Norco (appropriately fanned) and the Supermicro are going to give much better cooling effects than the Backblaze, which involves running heat from one drive past the other drives.

 

[KMR]

Good to know. I am considering buying a 4224 case now but we shall see how the current configuration plays out. I am at maximum capacity right now in terms of drives and want to be able to upgrade later. With a pair of M1015's and my motherboard I can handle a maximum of 22 drives and 26TB of storage (max 32GB of RAM). Just looking to keep the options open I suppose.

 

[cyberjock]

Since jgreco called me out, I guess I'll chime in.

As I have found, the cooling is "adequate" with the default fans. However they aren't high quality and I'm not sure if they'd provide adequate cooling if you choose to not use low RPM "green" drives. Some people have had the fans go bad very shortly after bringing their servers online.

The case doesn't include a power supply either, so it turns into choice of how you want to proceed with your build. Personally, if I had to do all my Norco mods all over again versus buy a Supermicro, from a cost analysis, the Supermicro cases(although they appear to be very expensive on the surface), are only about $100 more than all of the "other" stuff you have to buy to get the Norco to actually provide all 24 drives to your controller. The Supermicro cases are also far more well built than the Norco cases. I'd go Supermicro again today if I had to make the choice. It's a large initial investment(which is why I thought I could save alot of money with the Norco) but long term the Norco comes out to end up costing you about the same. You just get nickled and dimed with the Norco.

So take jgreco's(and my) experience and seriously consider if the Norco is for you. If you already have a 24 port controller that is compatible with FreeNAS, already have a spare Gold rated PSU, and don't want to use SSDs/laptop drives(which I do want now after having my Norco for 2 years...) then you might save money with the Norco. If you don't have all of those things, you will have to consider them in your price. And nothing can beat dual redundant PSUs as are in the Supermicro case.

 

[KMR]

I currently have 1 M1015 and a 430W gold rated Seasonic PSU. While that may not support the total 24 drives, it will support a good amount of equipment. Adding drives would be easy because I still have 1 port free on the current M1015 and adding more just means another M1015. Where I currently have a functioning server do you think the Supermicro case would be beneficial? The cost is a big pill to swallow.