Need advice on 24+ bay chassis solution

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pythonjosh

New Member
May 23, 2017
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My current setup:
Rosewill 4U chassis (yes I learned my lesson, will never do again)
SuperMicro 2011 mobo, dual E-2670, 32gb (specs not important for this thread)
Hard drives: 14x6tb Seagate 7200rpm in a Raid6 (mdadm)
The hard drives are in 4 water cooling blocks (server is in my garage, it gets pretty warm)
I'm thinking about the future and I'm seeing BackupPods and 45Drives insane HDD farms and I think I really do like the vertically seated hard drives rather than horizontal, however these 2 companies are the only ones I've seen with vertically seated drives.
I've seen the cheaper SuperMicro and Norco 24/36 bay servers and think they may suffice for the next 5 years or so. And I'm looking for a dedicated linux/raid box and keeping my current server to act as the application server.
The prebuilt SuperMicro's I'm seeing on ebay for almost $1200 and it's probably a good deal. I'm on the lookout for options.
 

DaSaint

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Oct 3, 2015
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I have a Norco 4224 thats pretty rock solid... I liked the concept of the HGST 4U enclosure above however i just couldn't bite due to the power requirements.. . Says it does 110v but it doesn't and i'm not wired for 208/240v
 
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pythonjosh

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May 23, 2017
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So i checked out that HGST 4U and i found one on ebay for US280$. I looked further and found that it requires 220v.
I have an LSI card already that looks like it'll be great for it. Problem is I already ran wires to my garage for 110v and I'm not too into doing it again. But these SAS enclosures are the ultimate scalability factor.
 

CyberSkulls

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Apr 14, 2016
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Could I swap in 110v PSU's?
Unlikely unless the manufacturer also sells a 110 power supply which I have never seen.

Also that listing on eBay at the end says "cable". So that auction is just for a cable, not a chassis.

I even looked up the part number out of curiosity and it relates to 2M mini sas to qsfp+ cable.


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foxhunt

New Member
Jun 28, 2017
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My current setup:
Rosewill 4U chassis (yes I learned my lesson, will never do again)
SuperMicro 2011 mobo, dual E-2670, 32gb (specs not important for this thread)
Hard drives: 14x6tb Seagate 7200rpm in a Raid6 (mdadm)
The hard drives are in 4 water cooling blocks (server is in my garage, it gets pretty warm)
I'm thinking about the future and I'm seeing BackupPods and 45Drives insane HDD farms and I think I really do like the vertically seated hard drives rather than horizontal, however these 2 companies are the only ones I've seen with vertically seated drives.
I've seen the cheaper SuperMicro and Norco 24/36 bay servers and think they may suffice for the next 5 years or so. And I'm looking for a dedicated linux/raid box and keeping my current server to act as the application server.
The prebuilt SuperMicro's I'm seeing on ebay for almost $1200 and it's probably a good deal. I'm on the lookout for options.
As someone who was looking at the 4U Rosewill, what lessons did you learn? I'm now looking at a 3U 16bay Supermicro case. I'm just looking to upgrade from my tower with 5 HDs and move to something I can put more drives in and a LSI card flashed to IT for FreeNas.
 

pythonjosh

New Member
May 23, 2017
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As someone who was looking at the 4U Rosewill, what lessons did you learn? I'm now looking at a 3U 16bay Supermicro case. I'm just looking to upgrade from my tower with 5 HDs and move to something I can put more drives in and a LSI card flashed to IT for FreeNas.
If you're gonna put it in a rack, the holes predrilled into it for the rails will not fit a 6/32 screw. I called Rosewill about it, they said they didn't know (the rails were Rosewill also). So I had to get a 6/32 tap and drill new holes and tap them myself in order to get the rails to mount. On the upside, now I have a 6/32 tap lol
 
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CyberSkulls

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Apr 14, 2016
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One point I can offer on the Rosewill chassis is they are not good for vibration. In my specific use case I wanted to test a Rosewill L4500 against my 2U Chenbro 12 bay hot swap chassis. Just wanted the same drive count but a much quieter chassis.

I had read about the Rosewill chassis not being kind to vibrations but I needed to see it for myself. I use 8TB Reds which have higher vibration than say 2/4/6TB Reds. When I put 12 of them into the Rosewill, holy hell is all I can say. I could have mixed a milk shake on top of the chassis. I knew the Rosewill hard drive cages were sloppy/low quality but I never expected the vibration to be that bad.

As a comparison, with the same exact drives in the Chenbro chassis, you can't tell if they are even running by placing your hand on the chassis.

I still think the Rosewill chassis are a great value for the money, so I will use them as my unRAID host machines as they have a ton of airflow to cool my SAS cards. I bought my Rosewill L4500's for $101 on Amazon so I really can't complain about the price. Just the vibration these chassis allow just isn't acceptable and would likely allow the drives to kill themselves.


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