SM 24-Bay Chassis Choices

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DataKeeper

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Hello,

I'm looking at the Supermicro 24 bay chassis for a FreeNAS build. I plan to start with a 10 or 12 x 4TB WD RED disk raidz2 setup but nothing is in stone yet. This is for a home setup to house a large media collection, personal & business documents and photos. The server will stream music to different locations of the house pretty much 24/7, plex server to stream video to as many as 5 TVs as well as to my personal home theater, act as a personal cloud for 6 users, provide iscsi shares to half a dozen computers/laptops (both Microsoft and Debian based) in the house and act as a backup for 2 home systems. The kids will also more than likely stream via plex to their iPhones or iPads while on the go.

All that aside for now.. Looking at the SM 24-bay chassis I see there are differences. While choices are great it makes decisions more difficult to those new to the hardware.

  1. I'm seeing some listed at various sites as CSE-846E16-R1200B and others as CS-846E16-R1200B. Is it a misprint or are these two different versions of the chassis and/or hardware configuration?
  2. Backplanes.. I'm looking at some with BPN-SAS2-846EL1 backplanes. Reading THIS link shows it is 6Gb/s SAS2 expander backplane. Is there anything I should be worried about in regards to this backplane? I'm assuming this should support all modern day and hopefully future hard drive storage for many years to come.
  3. I'm planning to use a SM X10 or X9 mainboard. Am I correct in that if I use an X10 I should be able to plug the backplane directly into the mainboard where as the X9 boards would require something like the M1015 crossflashed?
  4. I've read the 1200 watt PSUs are quite a bit quieter then the 900 watt PSUs. Not that it really matters but is this correct?

Forgive me if these are dumb questions however I'd rather ask and confirm before dumping a ton of cash on a mistake and this is all new hardware to me. I've read enough right now to make me dangerous to my pocketbook. :D

I was ALMOST set to order a Norco RPC-4224 as its an easy and ready to go case with easy SFF-8087 wiring management, from what I've read. I'd just rather a more robust and quality setup like the SM chassis.

I'm dedicating a new room in our unfinished basement as a 10'x10' server room where the temps remain about 58 degrees year round. With a 24-bay FreeNAS and a few other network servers and associated hardware like switches and routers I hope things remain decently chilled and fan/drive noise separated from the rest of the house. I'm getting ready to run Cat6a Shielded SSTP/SFTP ethernet from the server room location throughout the house and yard (detached garage, pool area and the kids 'shed') for future expandability. Running at least 2 drops per room with some such as my office, theater, and family room receiving upwards of 8.

I'm spending some serious coin over the next year updating our entire network but I still don't wish to spend 4 figures on a server case.. hence the reason I was looking at the Norco. However, I just know I wouldn't be happy with it over the long run.

Thanks,
Rob
 

Ericloewe

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Hello,

I'm looking at the Supermicro 24 bay chassis for a FreeNAS build. I plan to start with a 10 or 12 x 4TB WD RED disk raidz2 setup but nothing is in stone yet. This is for a home setup to house a large media collection, personal & business documents and photos. The server will stream music to different locations of the house pretty much 24/7, plex server to stream video to as many as 5 TVs as well as to my personal home theater, act as a personal cloud for 6 users, provide iscsi shares to half a dozen computers/laptops (both Microsoft and Debian based) in the house and act as a backup for 2 home systems. The kids will also more than likely stream via plex to their iPhones or iPads while on the go.

All that aside for now.. Looking at the SM 24-bay chassis I see there are differences. While choices are great it makes decisions more difficult to those new to the hardware.

  1. I'm seeing some listed at various sites as CSE-846E16-R1200B and others as CS-846E16-R1200B. Is it a misprint or are these two different versions of the chassis and/or hardware configuration?
  2. Backplanes.. I'm looking at some with BPN-SAS2-846EL1 backplanes. Reading THIS link shows it is 6Gb/s SAS2 expander backplane. Is there anything I should be worried about in regards to this backplane? I'm assuming this should support all modern day and hopefully future hard drive storage for many years to come.
  3. I'm planning to use a SM X10 or X9 mainboard. Am I correct in that if I use an X10 I should be able to plug the backplane directly into the mainboard where as the X9 boards would require something like the M1015 crossflashed?
  4. I've read the 1200 watt PSUs are quite a bit quieter then the 900 watt PSUs. Not that it really matters but is this correct?

Forgive me if these are dumb questions however I'd rather ask and confirm before dumping a ton of cash on a mistake and this is all new hardware to me. I've read enough right now to make me dangerous to my pocketbook. :D

I was ALMOST set to order a Norco RPC-4224 as its an easy and ready to go case with easy SFF-8087 wiring management, from what I've read. I'd just rather a more robust and quality setup like the SM chassis.

I'm dedicating a new room in our unfinished basement as a 10'x10' server room where the temps remain about 58 degrees year round. With a 24-bay FreeNAS and a few other network servers and associated hardware like switches and routers I hope things remain decently chilled and fan/drive noise separated from the rest of the house. I'm getting ready to run Cat6a Shielded SSTP/SFTP ethernet from the server room location throughout the house and yard (detached garage, pool area and the kids 'shed') for future expandability. Running at least 2 drops per room with some such as my office, theater, and family room receiving upwards of 8.

I'm spending some serious coin over the next year updating our entire network but I still don't wish to spend 4 figures on a server case.. hence the reason I was looking at the Norco. However, I just know I wouldn't be happy with it over the long run.

Thanks,
Rob

Re 3. : Not exactly. Only if the motherboard has an SAS controller. This goes for X9 and X10, LGA 1155/1150 or LGA2011 (-3). The X10SL7-F does, but is limited to 32GB of RAM. For more than that, you're looking at a Xeon E5.
 

DataKeeper

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Thanks that makes sense. I'm overbuilding as I want to build this once and not have to deal with hardware upgrades for some time so had been looking at the E5 already.

I used to maintain Linux and BSDi servers and I've built dozens of PCs however its likely been 7-8 years since I last built anything. Our entire network and hardware is being replaced and updated this year with new equipment. I'm finding coming into things now, after not following along for close to a decade, to be quite confusing. :confused: I am looking forward to the server build and learning FreeNAS. It was a long decision as I've been involved with Debian systems since 1993 and not going with OMV was a hard choice.
 

marbus90

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Supermicro X8 generation Dualsocket is sufficient as well.

1.) likely to be a typo.
2.) single SFF-8087 is enough for that, an LSI 9207-4i4e (for X9/X10 generation) or 9211-4i4e (for X8 generation) is a nice choice for that. The external port would provide you expansion with other JBOD chassis, the 2nd internal port wouldn't be used.
3.) the X10 would have optionally SAS 12Gbps onboard which aren't working well with the older 3/6Gbps backplanes, hence I'd use a dedicated controller still. Especially since that dedicated controller is usually cheaper than the price increase for an onboard SAS controller.
4.) if you want a really quiet chassis, there are some PSUs with -SQ (SuperQuiet) model numbers around... altough you'll probably not find them on ebay for cheaps.
 

cyberjock

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Used Supermicro Chassis can be found for very good prices. I got mine for $325 or so shipped!
 
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vikingboy

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Sounds like a lot of simultaneous things being potentially handled at once, will ten disc plus raidz2, i.e single drive IOPS handle that load? Im genuinely interested and not criticising as I'm starting to move more functions like backup to mine and wondering if I should start to split my workload over two arrays, a smaller z2 for media streaming and another striped volume for cloud/user storage etc.
 
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Sounds like a lot of simultaneous things being potentially handled at once, will ten disc plus raidz2, i.e single drive IOPS handle that load? Im genuinely interested and not criticising as I'm starting to move more functions like backup to mine and wondering if I should start to split my workload over two arrays, a smaller z2 for media streaming and another striped volume for cloud/user storage etc.
Well.....i will know soon enough, at the moment i'm doing burn in, after that moving 8TB of data will commence, then after that migrate my VM's from Hyper-V to ESXi, and then connect my newly migrated VM's over to the FreeNAS server for there data...soooooo like 2-3 weeks lol
 

DataKeeper

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Well I ordered & received the SC846E16-R1200B off eBay through Certified Servers for 320.00 and I have to say WOW! I knew what the chassis was however I wasn't expecting its condition. Opening the shipping box I was greeted to 2 new power cords, included rails and the chassis well packed in expanded soft foam. Removing and examining the chassis one would barely know it was used. There were NO scratches or marks anywhere on the exterior. Internally you could eat from it was so clean. All 5 fans look to be brand new. The cables, while quite stiff, were also like new and well secured. There are 2 cables labeled CBL-0108L-02 coming off the SAS2 expander which also appeared to be new. The air shroud was clean and scratch free. I removed the fans, shroud, power modules, power distribution cover and everything was spotless. My almost 5 year old son had a blast opening and removing each drive tray and like everything else, all were perfect and in new condition.

If you're on the hook looking at one of these from this eBay seller I can say I'm 100% happy with the chassis they provided me.

I'm looking at newer hardware for inside and hope to post a hardware list later today for folks to rip apart. :) I am looking at an X10 based mainboard (with an E5-1650V3) but still expecting to use a M1015. Will the 2 CBL-0108L-02 cables simply plug into the M1015 or will I need to replace them with an SFF-8087 cable?

I'm also still 'in the air' on the IOPS issue and not sure how I want to setup the drives. I guess my choices are 6, 8 or 12 drive configurations. I was thinking of starting with 12x4TB raidz2. If I'm having issues I can add smaller raidz2 configurations. I am definitely open to suggestions in this area!
 

Ericloewe

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Internally you could eat from it was so clean. All 5 fans look to be brand new.

Don't. God knows what kind of stuff they use to produce those things. Not to mention clean them.

Will the 2 CBL-0108L-02 cables simply plug into the M1015 or will I need to replace them with an SFF-8087 cable?

They look like standard SFF-8087 to SFF-8087 cables to me, which is exactly what I'd expect the backplanes to require.

If you need IOPS, tons of mirrored vdevs are the way to go.
 
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The cables werent long enough for me to use that came with the supermicro chassis, so i had to order the 79cm long cables, i picked up these http://www.ebay.com/itm/Supermicro-...002?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item35d0e33d62 but havent had a chance to install them. Also!!! If you see in the manual you have 3 SAS connectors on the backplane, even though in the manual it states one SAS goes to the HBA and the other 2 are for expansion chassis....But the truth is, you can use both SAS connectors on the backplane to a M1015, so once i crack open my case im going to be cabling up my second SAS connection to my M1015.

Please see this thread i started on [h]ardforums after i read a different post suggestions that its possible to use 2 or all 3 SAS cables to the backplane. http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1041507646#post1041507646
 

DataKeeper

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Eric.. Ha! Chassis full of pancakes at IOPS! lol sorry.. :D

I'm honestly not sure if I need to worry or not in regards to IOPS.

Darren.. thanks for the heads up on the wires. Just looked and guessing the M1015 placement the included cables look to be about 4-5 inches short. Also yes to the 2 SAS connections running from PRI_J1 & PRI_J2 both going to the M1015 correct.
 
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Yea mine were short too, the original raid cards that came with those chassis were longer cards (obviously), so the longer cables above SHOULD be long enough i havent gotten a chance to get into mine yet.
 

DataKeeper

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Going to order 2 of those cables tonight and thanks for the link. Cant beat that price! I hope to order the hardware this week. I'm pretty sure its an overkill machine hardware wise but it's something I wanna setup and not have to upgrade for sometime.
 
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Lol, nothing is overkill :P, i loaded dual CPU's and 48GB of ram + 21 hdds and a 10GB fiber connection JUST for my servers lol. Maybe ill connect up my one desktop to 10GB too eventually.
 

SweetAndLow

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Well I ordered & received the SC846E16-R1200B off eBay through Certified Servers for 320.00 and I have to say WOW! I knew what the chassis was however I wasn't expecting its condition. Opening the shipping box I was greeted to 2 new power cords, included rails and the chassis well packed in expanded soft foam. Removing and examining the chassis one would barely know it was used. There were NO scratches or marks anywhere on the exterior. Internally you could eat from it was so clean. All 5 fans look to be brand new. The cables, while quite stiff, were also like new and well secured. There are 2 cables labeled CBL-0108L-02 coming off the SAS2 expander which also appeared to be new. The air shroud was clean and scratch free. I removed the fans, shroud, power modules, power distribution cover and everything was spotless. My almost 5 year old son had a blast opening and removing each drive tray and like everything else, all were perfect and in new condition.

If you're on the hook looking at one of these from this eBay seller I can say I'm 100% happy with the chassis they provided me.

I'm looking at newer hardware for inside and hope to post a hardware list later today for folks to rip apart. :) I am looking at an X10 based mainboard (with an E5-1650V3) but still expecting to use a M1015. Will the 2 CBL-0108L-02 cables simply plug into the M1015 or will I need to replace them with an SFF-8087 cable?

I'm also still 'in the air' on the IOPS issue and not sure how I want to setup the drives. I guess my choices are 6, 8 or 12 drive configurations. I was thinking of starting with 12x4TB raidz2. If I'm having issues I can add smaller raidz2 configurations. I am definitely open to suggestions in this area!
I had similar experience but looks like mine has way more scratches than yours. The outside of my case is all scratched up but other than that cosmetic damage everything looks brand new.
 

DataKeeper

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Really.. Guess I lucked out. Not that some scratches matter as it'll be hidden in the basement but I did expect to find scratches, dings, etc if from anything, simply being pallet stacked and being moved around. I was amazed at how new mine looked.

Now, just need to get some hardware to fill it up! :)
 
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I guess i lucked out too, mine had minor scuffs on the front top but it sits in a rack so not like i really stare at it.
 

DataKeeper

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Darren.. thanks for that link.. Ordered 2 of those Mini-SAS cables from the eBay seller. Sent them a Make an Offer for $15 shipped and it was accepted! Shipped out today :D


Edit.. Also posted my hardware selection in this thread.
 
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Niceeee, i'll be ripping into my servers on Wednesday to recable, add cable, and stuffs like that so i'll be plugging in my second SAS for that case, and the 6th SAS in another case
 
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