What's your case & cabinet?

[Nindustries]

I bought this case: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147165
I wanted something with good air flow and hot swappable drives, and below $250. I don't plan on hot-swapping drives, but I like the idea of not having to open the case to pull drives out.

I had that case on my wanted list for a long time, sadly the 25inch depth would only allow one inch on the backside for all cables :/
And I don't know how the front handles would work out with my cabinet.. but it's still a nice case tough.

 

[raidflex]

I would like to go with a Supermicro case but really don't want to spend more then $300 with the hot swap bays.

What do you guys think about this Norco case: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811219021

I have heard about heat issues with these cases, although the case will be in my basement were the temp is about 65F all the time.

 

[Z300M]

Antec 900 with additional drive cage for a total of 9 drives. Only Using 4 ATM.

The Antec 1200 I mentioned above is more or less a taller version of the 900, thus allowing for even more drives, especially with the 5-drives-in-the-space-of-3 iStarUSA hot-swappable drive cages:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816215001

 

[raidflex]

The Antec 1200 I mentioned above is more or less a taller version of the 900, thus allowing for even more drives, especially with the 5-drives-in-the-space-of-3 iStarUSA hot-swappable drive cages:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816215001

The prob with that setup is it would be over $500, at which point I would just get a super micro case.

 

[raidflex]

I ended up purchasing the Norco case. I am also replacing the 80mm fans with 120mm, hopefully to help with better airflow and also lower noise.

Next I will need to get more hard drives, I am already at 85% full of 12TB. :D

 

[cyberjock]

I ended up purchasing the Norco case. I am also replacing the 80mm fans with 120mm, hopefully to help with better airflow and also lower noise.

Think again...

http://forums.freenas.org/threads/norco-rpc-4224-and-hard-drives-that-are-too-hot.13022/

 

[raidflex]

Think again...

http://forums.freenas.org/threads/norco-rpc-4224-and-hard-drives-that-are-too-hot.13022/

I will have to do some testing, but the case I purchase only has 20 bays instead of 24, which will reduce some heat. Also you were using a 1366 part and I am using a Haswell part which should run considerably cooler at idle, which means less heat dumped into the case. The 80mm fans look to be a better option though , but I also don't want the system to sound like a server room even though it is in a basement.

 

[cyberjock]

I will have to do some testing, but the case I purchase only has 20 bays instead of 24, which will reduce some heat. Also you were using a 1366 part and I am using a Haswell part which should run considerably cooler at idle, which means less heat dumped into the case. The 80mm fans look to be a better option though , but I also don't want the system to sound like a server room even though it is in a basement.

You didn't read what I wrote and understood it then.

-20 instead of 24 bays doesn't make "that" much of a difference.
-120mm fans will have less d/p across them because they are bigger. So getting bigger fans is NOT going to help temps, quite the opposite.
-The intake for the air is through the hard drives first. The CPU is not going to affect hard drives temperatures. At all. And the extra 10w idle that my 1366 used is NOT going to impact CPU temps significantly. This is thermodymanics at the simplest.

 

[raidflex]

You didn't read what I wrote and understood it then.

-20 instead of 24 bays doesn't make "that" much of a difference.
-120mm fans will have less d/p across them because they are bigger. So getting bigger fans is NOT going to help temps, quite the opposite.
-The intake for the air is through the hard drives first. The CPU is not going to affect hard drives temperatures. At all. And the extra 10w idle that my 1366 used is NOT going to impact CPU temps significantly. This is thermodymanics at the simplest.

No I understood the issue with DP and the 120mm fans, but every environment is different. I may also not even add 20HDDs, I may stick to only 16 even, these factors can make a difference. I also am trying to find a good balance between noise and cooling efficiency. I know I can slap in high flow 80mm fans and they will work fine, but it would sound like a hair dryer.

Cable engagement can make a difference, I will be trying to setup a very clean cable setup for best air flow. Less drives = less cables also.

Edit: Can you also link where you purchased those 80mm Supermicro fans. Thanks.

 

[raidflex]

I found the Ebay link for the fans in the post you linked previously, they are only $8 which is a great price.

What do you find you need to run them at for a good balance between noise and cooling? Or even if you can give me an approximate dB.

 

[jyavenard]

Received all my gears today, in the process of building it.

The supermicro SC826TQ isn't the most user friendly of all. There's very little space to route the SATA cables through :(

Do you guys connect the SGPIO headers on the SAS/SATA backplane? and can FreeNAS even properly be configured to use it? (so I would have the LED for each drive working and showing their current state)
The motherboard (X10SL7-F) has SGPIO connectors for each of the 14 SATA ports...

so would be nice to use it...

 

[Nindustries]

If you have those headers, use them! They're a great accessory. Any chance we could see some pictures?

- Sent from mobile.

 

[jyavenard]

I need the cables first... will go back to supermicro distributor tomorrow; i don't have anything that look like this here...

Haven't booted yet.. but damn that thing is noisy, I feel like I'm right next to a jet engine about to takeoff... I hadn't connected the secondary power supply and first thing it did when I turned it on was make the buzzer scream... that and the fans... boy... Hopefully they will seriously lower their speed by the time it boots.

So FreeNAS can make use of the SGPIO ?

 

[cyberjock]

I need the cables first... will go back to supermicro distributor tomorrow; i don't have anything that look like this here...

Haven't booted yet.. but damn that thing is noisy, I feel like I'm right next to a jet engine about to takeoff... I hadn't connected the secondary power supply and first thing it did when I turned it on was make the buzzer scream... that and the fans... boy... Hopefully they will seriously lower their speed by the time it boots.

So FreeNAS can make use of the SGPIO ?

Oh, those fans are pretty loud. Don't try to live in the same room as that thing. I have those fans in my case and its in my basement vice my rack for good reason. :)

 

[Nomad]

Just an FYI, The Antec I have runs Silent :)

 

[JohnK]

My first case is a Black Fractal Design Arc Mini just I just bought cause the price was right and I wanted to start with 6 drives.
After testing my new drives and finding one WD 3TB Red with errors and going through the pain of removing a drive I decided I need easier access. So this current setup is going to become my backup solution and I'm now looking at a 8-12 drive case. I don't have space for a full blown rack so I need to go tower, but noise/cooling is not a problem.
I am looking at:
Supermicro CSE-743T-500B 500W
Does anyone have any experience with this case? I will be adding a Supermicro X10SL7-f

 

[Mguilicutty]

Just an idea for those looking for cases, Ebay can be a good source. I found my Supermicro case for $150 and it had a dual Opteron setup w/ an old 8 port adaptec sata controller and a 4x 100Mb NIC (PCI-X) that I took out and sold for $50. Pretty good deal I think. It took a little massaging to get things to fit (some mobo mounting points had to be relocated and they were welded) but it's backplane does sata3 so I'm loading up some SSDs as we speak.

It's not quiet at all and this is due to the motherboard only supporting PWM control of fans and the case fans are 3 pins so they spin full speed all the time. The fans themselves are mounted in little hot swap boxes and the connections there are only 3 wires so I'm looking for either a 4 pin version of the connections or more likely I'll just bypass the connectors and wire straight to the mobo.

You won't find much "server grade" equipment out there where quiet was ever a design consideration though recently I've seen it mentioned at least. In my case it lives in a dedicated network closet inside of a larger storage closet in the utility area of the basement amongst a bunch of other noisy equipment. It's pretty well sealed off down there so you can't hear a thing anywhere you'd spend any time.

 

[Durandal]

Just wanted to say that I found THE perfect case for me; 12 drives, rackmount and rather short depth!
It's from a Norco importer: Ri-Vier. (located in the Netherlands.)
https://ri-vier.eu/rivier-2u-12bay-chassis-with-sas-backplane-s206a-p-323.html?cPath=1_3_5

Greetings

Nindustries, did you get your Ri-vier RVS2-06A? I'm just going to buy that case for a small home NAS but i can't find reviews of the specific case anywhere. Can you give some thoughts about the case in general?

 

[Nindustries]

Nindustries, did you get your Ri-vier RVS2-06A? I'm just going to buy that case for a small home NAS but i can't find reviews of the specific case anywhere. Can you give some thoughts about the case in general?

Due to re-consideration of my build (ESXi or not), I have not ordered something yet. I will wait and research some more.
I can't find reviews for it at the moment (Altough I read some positive ones in the past), but I omly noticed one point of attention; the fans will be loud.
Greetings!

 

[Durandal]

Due to re-consideration of my build (ESXi or not), I have not ordered something yet. I will wait and research some more.
I can't find reviews for it at the moment (Altough I read some positive ones in the past), but I omly noticed one point of attention; the fans will be loud.
Greetings!

I've ordered the case yesterday, can give you an update when it arrives :)