UK builders, 24x bay Supermicro SC846 for ~ £375 from boston.co.uk

[UK_Dave]

Not sure if this is the right place, maybe people already know or mybe there's some gotcha that I've yet to realise or maybe it's not actually that great a deal but boston.co.uk is currently selling the CSE-846BE26-R290B for £305 + VAT with £7.50 delivery... Everywhere else I've seen these (or in the same 846 range) are around £1000-1200.

Anyway very pleased to say it arrived today (next day delivery), is the genuine article, brand new including all the hot swap caddies, rack rails and the 2x redundant PSU's, nothing but praise for this company.

https://www.boston.co.uk/products/cse-846be26-r920b.aspx

6x left in stock last time I checked.

Might be of use to some people here. They also list on Amazon if people would prefer to have a middleman!

Ta

 

[Ericloewe]

What backplane does it come with?

 

[UK_Dave]

To be perfectly honest I'm not sure (it's probably something I should have researched more thoroughly before pulling the trigger!) Judging by the positions of the capacitors in the manual and the board I'd say it's the SAS2-846EL backplane. There's a fairly crappy photo below so if you have a better idea what to look for the please let me know and I'll see what I can tell you.

I've not hooked it up to my server board yet so can't probe it until I get some cables!

EDIT: Looking at Supermicro's website it says SAS2 expander so I think that's the right backplane:

 

[Ericloewe]

I'm tempted, even though I don't need one of these yet...

 

[UK_Dave]

similar boat to me I guess - I need to upgrade storage soon (6x 6TB in RAIDZ2 at the moment).. not worth it to change out for 8's and 12's are very expensive... This gives me a path to add drives as I need them with whats best for me now rather than having to try and future proof my storage capacity by over provisioning now.

The 920W redundant PSU's are surprisingly quiet for industrial kit but I'll probably change out the 80 mm case fans for something like Noctua's if I decide to keep it in my study.

Looking at price spy they seem to have had them this price for the last 6 months so I don't expect they'll sell out immediately... the lure of all that potential capacity was too great for me!

 

[Ericloewe]

The 920W redundant PSU's are surprisingly quiet for industrial kit but I'll probably change out the 80 mm case fans for something like Noctua's if I decide to keep it in my study.

Don't. They're there for a reason. You really need high static pressure in these chassis.

 

[UK_Dave]

Don't. They're there for a reason. You really need high static pressure in these chassis.

Thanks for the tip... guess that means I'm going to have to make a better data cabinet