I think my RPC-4224 is killing my drives, looking for alternatives

[taylorjonl]

For those with short attention spans I am looking for alternatives to a RPC-4224 which I believe is killing my drives. Preferably I would go from one 24 bay chassis to one or more 12 bay chassis so I can keep NAS/Plex running while I use the other chassis(maybe two 6 bay chassis, not sure) for fun but these secondary chassis are not important ATM.

Here is the story for people that want to read on.

I currently have a RPC-4224. I bought it in September 2010, originally it had a dual Xeon Tyan motherboard with 144gb of RAM, 3xM1015s and 16(12+4 spares) 2tb Seagate Barracuda LP drives. It consumed 350 watts at idle and would randomly restart, I thought it was overheating because the drive bay area was warm to the touch. I never really set it up, mostly experimented with SmartOS and then lost interest because I had just purchased a new house.

In the mean time I had bought a Dell C2100 that I threw 8 drives into and was using that for my NAS and Plex and it has been running like a champ but I am in the process of trying to increase my storage capacity and reduce my power footprint(the rack consumes around 600 watts). So I decided to move back to the RPC-4224 with a lower power motherboard.

I ordered the 3x120mm wall bracket along with 3x221cfm fans to try to keep the drives cooler, which works great, that area is now basically room temperature. I also bought a low power A1SRM-2558F board and installed it with an Intel RES2CV360 expander. I did this about a month ago, then I ran it for a couple days and got a drive failure. I thought it was related to the expander so I put the original Tyan board back in with the 3xM1015s but the drive was still dead and all of a sudden a second drive was dead. I then walked away for a couple weeks.

Luckily I had some spare drives so I installed the A1SRM-2558F along with the Intel expander back into the RPC-4224 again yesterday. I now found that one of the slots on the 3rd backplane was dead, no drives worked in it. I used a different slot and setup a storage pool then restored from backup. Things appeared fine until I started transfering a lot of files around and wake up this morning and the server had rebooted again and I had another failed disk.

I have seen other stories on the internet where RPC-4224s was killing others drives and it seems like the most likely suspect in my situation. I am afraid because I just bought some Seagate 8tb Archive drives to act as my backup and I don't want these expensive disks to fry.

Throughout this whole thing my roommates are going to kill me, the Plex server is always up and down so I would like to split this back up into two or more chassis, one for NAS/Plex, the other for my toy(SmartOS). I would like to find a 12 bay chassis where I will put my 12 2tb drives for NAS/Plex.

 

[jgreco]

The Supermicros are the go-to chassis for a bunch of good reasons, but they're often noisy because the business of cooling 12 drives in 2U (or 24 in 4U) involves significant air pressure differentials, which are generated by fans. If you are interested in something quieter, you may actually be better off without the rack mount chassis, since most RMC's are now space-optimized for drive density.

 

[taylorjonl]

The Supermicros are the go-to chassis for a bunch of good reasons, but they're often noisy because the business of cooling 12 drives in 2U (or 24 in 4U) involves significant air pressure differentials, which are generated by fans. If you are interested in something quieter, you may actually be better off without the rack mount chassis, since most RMC's are now space-optimized for drive density.

I for sure want rack hardware, this is going in a 48U rack that will sooner or later go in a closet. I don't really care about noise as long as it isn't crazy, e.g. currently I have a Dell C2100, Dell R710 plus this RPC-4224 with high CFM fans. All these servers start out loud but quiet down to a reasonable level after a period of time.

Any suggestion on a specific chassis or which to avoid? Was eyeballing this one but it comes with a motherboard which I don't need.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/2U-Supermic...282391?hash=item2361e57297:g:kPMAAOSwLN5WlvvC

Also wondering if there is a community favorite chassis or if I have both a Supermicro chassis and motherboard does it unlock some magical features? I also don't mind spending a little more for a good chassis, if I could find one for <$1k that will last and be rock solid I would be willing to invest in that, already got tons more than that invested in the rest of my stuff in the rack, I just want something that will work and not give me issues.

 

[jgreco]

With a supported power supply and motherboard, the IPMI on the motherboard will be able to give you things like temperature, voltage, and current readings from the power supply.

The SC826A-R800LPB is a nice chassis which will bring out three SFF8087 connectors for attaching drives. You'll need a gameplan to attach those to your system; usually that's a reverse breakout cable for four of the mainboard SATA ports, an HBA, and two SFF8087 cables. It isn't clear that you would want to use that mainboard that's included, it'll be a power hungry pig compared to a reasonable single CPU board.

 

[taylorjonl]

With a supported power supply and motherboard, the IPMI on the motherboard will be able to give you things like temperature, voltage, and current readings from the power supply.

The SC826A-R800LPB is a nice chassis which will bring out three SFF8087 connectors for attaching drives. You'll need a gameplan to attach those to your system; usually that's a reverse breakout cable for four of the mainboard SATA ports, an HBA, and two SFF8087 cables. It isn't clear that you would want to use that mainboard that's included, it'll be a power hungry pig compared to a reasonable single CPU board.

I for sure don't want to use that motherboard, no need for a dual Xeon setup, that is probably 150-200 watts alone for a server that will act as a NAS/Plex box. I want to put my Supermicro A1SRM-2558F in there, this includes IPMI which I use today. I am not sure this is the Chassis I want if it uses the ports on my motherboard(this is how the C2100 works), my preference is to use a single M1015 and that the backplane has an expander with the potential to cascade, so I will just have to do my reading I guess.

Thinking of this one:

https://www.supermicro.com/products/chassis/2U/826/SC826TQ-R500LP.cfm

or this one:

https://www.supermicro.com/products/chassis/2U/826/SC826E16-R500LP.cfm

I think 500 watts is plenty, at this moment it is running at around 175 watts with 12 disks according to my kill-a-watt.

Not sure what these features are:

SAS/SATA 6Gb/s HDD backplane with SESII

Mini-i-pass (SFF 8087) connectivity (multi lane)

I can't find used ones on eBay for cheap but honestly, I just want this to work so I don't mind spending a bit more. I just want to make the right choice so I can finally get this setup and move on to funner things.

 

[jgreco]

The "A" model does not have an expander but has a SFF8087 channel per drive. The "TQ" model breaks things out to individual SAS connectors, which I think you do not want. See the SAS primer sticky for information on what SFF8087 is.

The SC826E16 or SC826BE16 are nice chassis with an expander, so cabling is greatly simplified.

https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...-sas-sy-a-primer-on-basic-sas-and-sata.26145/

I think 500 watts is plenty, at this moment it is running at around 175 watts with 12 disks according to my kill-a-watt.

The number of new users who wander on and describe their build as "I think X watts is plenty"... geez.

https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/proper-power-supply-sizing-guidance.38811/

So here's what'll happen. The "R500" means redundant 500 watt PSU. That means 1000 watt PSU, more or less. That'll work swimmingly well, up to the point where one PSU fails and suddenly you're back to a 500W PSU.

At that point, when you power off the NAS and power it back on, you stand a good chance of being right near the bleedy edge of fail. That's something you need to understand. It can potentially be mitigated. For example, if a PSU fails, you can find a way to deal with the fact that you should not restart the NAS without mitigating the spinup current issue. Or you can make sure all your drives are carefully set to do PUIS and have the HBA spin them staggered.

 

[Mirfster]

In the mean time I had bought a Dell C2100 that I threw 8 drives into and was using that for my NAS and Plex and it has been running like a champ but I am in the process of trying to increase my storage capacity and reduce my power footprint(the rack consumes around 600 watts)

Love the C2100/FS12-TY Servers. Keep the BMC firmware at 1.70 and it will be super quite. This Server has 12 bays (unless you got the 2.5" model), so you still can add 4 more drives. Also, you could always replace drives in your vdev(s); resilver and once all drives are replaced you will get the size increase. Lastly, you can also opt for lower power CPU(s) which will reduce it a bit.

/Me just praising my love of this model. :p

 

[Mirfster]

BTW, I recalled seeing some YouTube video on RPC-4224 killing drives a while back. Quick search found it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5QqZUcSgSA

Not saying anything on the validity or not, but figured I would link it.

 

[taylorjonl]

Love the C2100/FS12-TY Servers. Keep the BMC firmware at 1.70 and it will be super quite. This Server has 12 bays (unless you got the 2.5" model), so you still can add 4 more drives. Also, you could always replace drives in your vdev(s); resilver and once all drives are replaced you will get the size increase. Lastly, you can also opt for lower power CPU(s) which will reduce it a bit.

/Me just praising my love of this model. :p

That is an interesting idea. I didn't like this server because 8 drives are driven by the SAS 6ir and the final 4 are driven off the motherboards SATA. This caused issues when I tried to setup a zpool because even though they are the same disks it thinks they were of different sizes. Buy if I buy one of these:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Dell-Po...667307?hash=item2ee16f5c2b:g:KPkAAOSwBahVVkuP

It might suit my needs or at least get me by so I can do more research before I make a larger investment.

 

[Mirfster]

Better yet, you may be able to get a barebones C2100/FS12TY which has the proper backplane already for about the same price. That way you have extra parts as well in case any other components have issues.

Here is an example (but I would suggest you check with the Seller to make sure it has the correct backplane):
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-PowerE...509387?hash=item58c80e680b:g:rqcAAOSwI-BWOPPJ

Wondering why the 4 drives driven off of the SATA connectors on the MB showing a different size? Are they the same make/model?

Also, you can make a vdev with different sized drives, but you will be limited to the smallest drive capacity. Like if you have a vdev of 6 drives (5 x 1.5 TB and 1 x 1 TB) your vdev will only allocate/use 1 TB from each of the drives (basically wasting 2.5 TB of drives). Of course, should you later replace, resilver the 1 TB with a 1.5 TB; then it will automatically expand to use the full 1.5 TB off of all 6 drives.

 

[taylorjonl]

Better yet, you may be able to get a barebones C2100/FS12TY which has the proper backplane already for about the same price. That way you have extra parts as well in case any other components have issues.

Here is an example (but I would suggest you check with the Seller to make sure it has the correct backplane):
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-PowerE...509387?hash=item58c80e680b:g:rqcAAOSwI-BWOPPJ

Quoted from the description of the auction.

This system does not include a RAID controller and has the 3 wide sas backplane NOT the 2 mini sas backplane!

Wondering why the 4 drives driven off of the SATA connectors on the MB showing a different size? Are they the same make/model?

They are the exact same model bought at exactly the same time years ago.

Also, you can make a vdev with different sized drives, but you will be limited to the smallest drive capacity. Like if you have a vdev of 6 drives (5 x 1.5 TB and 1 x 1 TB) your vdev will only allocate/use 1 TB from each of the drives (basically wasting 2.5 TB of drives). Of course, should you later replace, resilver the 1 TB with a 1.5 TB; then it will automatically expand to use the full 1.5 TB off of all 6 drives.

I know I can force it but it made me wonder why since they are the exact same disks. I guess I can force it and just hope it works out.

 

[Mirfster]

Ahh, that is a bummer that it doesn't have the 2 mini sas backplane. Sorry, I didn't catch that earlier.

Well, since you already have 3 M1015s, what about slapping two of them in the C2100 and grabbing some SFF-8087 to SFF-8484 cables? Of course that would take up both of the PCI slots on the C2100, but if you are not using them it would be a cheaper route for a short term solution.

Of course, there is nothing wrong at all with you wanting to just buy the backplane you saw that would work just fine as well. Especially, since it would save you from having to use two M1015s...