Moving to a new case and I bought the wrong cables and learnt a lesson in the process

[craigdt]

So recently I decided its time to get rid of my 12 bay tower case that is sitting at the bottom of my server rack and complete my setup to all rack based cases.

So I bought the TGC-4824 24 bay rack mount case:
http://www.anyware.com.au/tgc-4824.html

Not a bad case, definetly on the cheap side, and from what my friend described of his norco 4224 its comparable in quality. So in other words it's crap when compared to the really old supermicro chassis's I have already But hey in today's economy who can afford supermicro cases in Australia, especially since the old ones I have were free to begin with

So I've transfered my supermicro X10SL7-F motherboard from the tower case to the 24 bay TGC case. Confirmed the fans are working, and then I go to test the SFF-8087 to Sata cables I bought, could not get the hdd's recognised in the bays.

The cables I bought were the silvestone CPS03, got them for what I thought was a good price, only to learn after I opened all 3 packages and hence can no longer return for a refund. That what I shoud have bought was the CPS03-RE, yes thats right, RE for Reverse Breakout. Who would have thought that such a simple oversight can cause soo much pain and cost me $75 in the process :(

 

[SweetAndLow]

So recently I decided its time to get rid of my 12 bay tower case that is sitting at the bottom of my server rack and complete my setup to all rack based cases.

So I bought the TGC-4824 24 bay rack mount case:
http://www.anyware.com.au/tgc-4824.html

Not a bad case, definetly on the cheap side, and from what my friend described of his norco 4224 its comparable in quality. So in other words it's crap when compared to the really old supermicro chassis's I have already But hey in today's economy who can afford supermicro cases in Australia, especially since the old ones I have were free to begin with

So I've transfered my supermicro X10SL7-F motherboard from the tower case to the 24 bay TGC case. Confirmed the fans are working, and then I go to test the SFF-8087 to Sata cables I bought, could not get the hdd's recognised in the bays.

The cables I bought were the silvestone CPS03, got them for what I thought was a good price, only to learn after I opened all 3 packages and hence can no longer return for a refund. That what I shoud have bought was the CPS03-RE, yes thats right, RE for Reverse Breakout. Who would have thought that such a simple oversight can cause soo much pain and cost me $75 in the process :(

Return them! Open or not they will take them back.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

 

[melloa]

Don't beat yourself too much ... I've done the same, and returned.

 

[wraith]

Hi craigdt,

I'm also based in Australia [the western half] and have been looking at moving by server innards to a rack mount.

The west coast is similar as you describe; The availability and/or cost of Supermicro parts is wanting. As such, I have been looking at Silverstone and TGC chassis' [including the TGC-4824]. Would appreciate your thoughts on the TGC chassis, especially as you appear to have had it running for around six months now [based on the original post date].

Thanks in advance!

 

[craigdt]

Hi wraith,

Sorry for not getting back to you sooner, been flat out busy lately with real life and its challenges.

In regards to the case I bought, its not bad, but the build quality is quite poor considering the price. Here is some of the things I've discovered:

• Case is slightly warped, you notice it when you put the lid on.
• Lid uses tiny screws on the side, I imagine if you were opening up often, the screw holes will get threaded eventually.
• The 3x 120mm mid wall hot swap fans that the case come with, they only have 2 connectors, 2 of the fans share a connector and being PWM fans, this doesn't work to well as you get dual signals coming in and it causes confusing for the motherboard as the RPM's are all over the place. I ended up not having one of the fan connector using the hot swap plug and instead connecting it up directly to the mother board, its still fairly easy to replace though as I used an extension cable to do this.
• The drive bay caddies don't have any method of blocking the air flow for empty slots, however the dive temps are pretty good, except when the days get over 30 degrees and the garage heats up but then one should use air conditioning for server equipment. I just turn the equipment off for the moment.
• I did do some work on the mid fan wall by close all the gaps so the air flow cant cycle back around, that way the fans will only suck through the drive bays, even though I think you will find most server cases suffer this problem.
• The rails I had to order for it especially, took ages for them to come in, these were the rails that were designed for heavier load. However looking at them all they are is just the same kind of rails you can by for draws at Bunnings with just some connectors bolted on the end. I had a look at the standard rails that everyone has in stock for this case and they are very short. I had to extend mine to 800mm for the server rack I have and glad I at least specially ordered the ones in that were longer and designed for the heavier load. They are still pretty poor design compared to the supermicro rails.

Some of the nice things with the case are:

• Lots of space, especially between the mid wall fans and the back plane
• Fans are quite quiet, they go to a max of 3800rpm
• Backplane works fine
• Drive bay caddies also take 2.5 drives
• Case is quite light in weight compared to the bulkier but sturdier supermicro cases
• 24 drives

To be honest, the case isn't worth the price paid for it for its quality. It's a bit of a rip off and the importers/retailers who set the price should be ashamed of themselves for charging such a price for it, especially after reading this review of the similar priced silvestone case: http://computingondemand.com/silverstone-rm420-review/

After reading the review of the silverstone case, it has all the good features of the supermicros I have, the rails are good and easy to use, the lid closures are good, the drive caddies have much better air flow compared to the TGC, I'll have to take a photo of the caddies to show you what I mean.
Lots of goodies, the only thing is the Silverstone will be louder due to the 4x smaller mid wall fans and its only got 20 bays instead of 24, and the bays cant take 2.5 drives without some sort of adapter

Eventually I will have to replace the backup supermicro servers I have because its only 8 bays (only 6 connected) as sooner or later I'm going to run out of space and will need to add another 6x hdd's (which I have but cant use due to lack of bays) If I do, I will most likely buy the silverstone case for a backup case or maybe the main case and put the TGC case as the backup.

I would like to say you get what you pay for, but in Australia that is not always the case, you get what the retailers offer you and usually they charge too much for the crap they offer. In hind sight, I think the silverstone 20 bay case would have been plenty of drive bays and a better quality case compared to the TGC and Norco...

Hi craigdt,

I'm also based in Australia [the western half] and have been looking at moving by server innards to a rack mount.

The west coast is similar as you describe; The availability and/or cost of Supermicro parts is wanting. As such, I have been looking at Silverstone and TGC chassis' [including the TGC-4824]. Would appreciate your thoughts on the TGC chassis, especially as you appear to have had it running for around six months now [based on the original post date].

Thanks in advance!

 

[wraith]

Hi wraith,

Sorry for not getting back to you sooner, been flat out busy lately with real life and its challenges.

In regards to the case I bought, its not bad, but the build quality is quite poor considering the price. Here is some of the things I've discovered:

• Case is slightly warped, you notice it when you put the lid on.
• Lid uses tiny screws on the side, I imagine if you were opening up often, the screw holes will get threaded eventually.
• The 3x 120mm mid wall hot swap fans that the case come with, they only have 2 connectors, 2 of the fans share a connector and being PWM fans, this doesn't work to well as you get dual signals coming in and it causes confusing for the motherboard as the RPM's are all over the place. I ended up not having one of the fan connector using the hot swap plug and instead connecting it up directly to the mother board, its still fairly easy to replace though as I used an extension cable to do this.
• The drive bay caddies don't have any method of blocking the air flow for empty slots, however the dive temps are pretty good, except when the days get over 30 degrees and the garage heats up but then one should use air conditioning for server equipment. I just turn the equipment off for the moment.
• I did do some work on the mid fan wall by close all the gaps so the air flow cant cycle back around, that way the fans will only suck through the drive bays, even though I think you will find most server cases suffer this problem.
• The rails I had to order for it especially, took ages for them to come in, these were the rails that were designed for heavier load. However looking at them all they are is just the same kind of rails you can by for draws at Bunnings with just some connectors bolted on the end. I had a look at the standard rails that everyone has in stock for this case and they are very short. I had to extend mine to 800mm for the server rack I have and glad I at least specially ordered the ones in that were longer and designed for the heavier load. They are still pretty poor design compared to the supermicro rails.

Some of the nice things with the case are:

• Lots of space, especially between the mid wall fans and the back plane
• Fans are quite quiet, they go to a max of 3800rpm
• Backplane works fine
• Drive bay caddies also take 2.5 drives
• Case is quite light in weight compared to the bulkier but sturdier supermicro cases
• 24 drives

To be honest, the case isn't worth the price paid for it for its quality. It's a bit of a rip off and the importers/retailers who set the price should be ashamed of themselves for charging such a price for it, especially after reading this review of the similar priced silvestone case: http://computingondemand.com/silverstone-rm420-review/

After reading the review of the silverstone case, it has all the good features of the supermicros I have, the rails are good and easy to use, the lid closures are good, the drive caddies have much better air flow compared to the TGC, I'll have to take a photo of the caddies to show you what I mean.
Lots of goodies, the only thing is the Silverstone will be louder due to the 4x smaller mid wall fans and its only got 20 bays instead of 24, and the bays cant take 2.5 drives without some sort of adapter

Eventually I will have to replace the backup supermicro servers I have because its only 8 bays (only 6 connected) as sooner or later I'm going to run out of space and will need to add another 6x hdd's (which I have but cant use due to lack of bays) If I do, I will most likely buy the silverstone case for a backup case or maybe the main case and put the TGC case as the backup.

I would like to say you get what you pay for, but in Australia that is not always the case, you get what the retailers offer you and usually they charge too much for the crap they offer. In hind sight, I think the silverstone 20 bay case would have been plenty of drive bays and a better quality case compared to the TGC and Norco...

Hi Craigdt,

Thanks for your feedback, appreciated! There's some real value in your response.

Sometimes with the resources section recommendations are made. Although this is valuable of itself, what would provide more value to the section is why other's weren't recommended. IMO, there is value in placing a copy of your review in the Resources section.

For your consideration! :)