24x 2.5 600GB sas drives in 5.25 bays CMStormTrooper

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dude05

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Hi All, I am looking at building a new rig with 24x sas drives 2.5" 15mm 600GB drives inside a CMStormtrooper case. I already know of the Icydock 4x2.5 bay for 15mm drives to slot into the 5.25 bays. Thats 80-100$ a cage.

I was wondering if there is any known cheaper alternative that works in the same manner? I am ok to change case and hold 24x of em internally. What would be the cheaper alternative?

My target is i9 7900X on X299 Gaming 9 Board with dual TitanXp(or a Quadro P6000 if i can afford), 1882ix-24 and an Ajakona3G along with the 24x sas drives. What PSU would you recommend?

thanks for your inputs and suggestions
 
K D

K D

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If you are OK with a rackmount then you can find supermicro SC216 chassis for around 250-300 shipped on eBay.
 
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dude05

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sorry. forgot to mention, i need to keep it all within the case. so external cage is not an ideal solution. planning to move this around a bit.
 
T_Minus

T_Minus

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Have you ever moved a 24x SAS HDD chassis? It's nothing you move around a bit, especially if you're going to put in mobo+2x video cards+ power supplies, etc...

The SC216 gets my vote for the 24xSAS drives go with an expander backplane, and you can easily connect to your main system.
 
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Tom5051

Tom5051

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Icy make an 8x2.5" cage and the quality is very good. I have one myself.
3 of those would take the entire 24 drives. With so many drives in an array, I wouldn't skimp on the enclosures or you will have a bad time.
 
A

Aestr

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Oct 22, 2014
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Something worth considering is your cabling. Getting cages or backplanes that either have an expander or at least use sff-8087 will avoid 24 SATA cables which will quickly get unwieldy.
 
Necrotyr

Necrotyr

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Tom5051 said:
Icy make an 8x2.5" cage and the quality is very good. I have one myself.
3 of those would take the entire 24 drives. With so many drives in an array, I wouldn't skimp on the enclosures or you will have a bad time.
Click to expand...
It's a nice cage and all, but they'll only take 7mm drives, OP's drives are 15mm, hence his own reference to icyboxs 4x2.5" cage.
 
Tom5051

Tom5051

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Ah right, sorry I didn't realise the 8x only took 7mm drives. you are quite right. Cheers for pointing that out.
 
sfbayzfs

sfbayzfs

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If you really want it in a tower case, I like these Supermicro 2x 5.25" -> 8x 2.5" adapters, and the trays are the same as in a SC216 case:
Supermicro | Products | Accessories | Mobile Racks | CSE-M28SAB-OEM

There is a non-OEM version with a fan cage on the back as well.

The only mod you'll potentially need is to smash down every other set of 5.25" supports like I do with 2/3 of them for 3x5.25" -> 5x 3.5" adapters

They made a SAS expander version, but it was SAS1, so bandwidth limited, and no >2TB drives, stick with the direct connect, or run your own SAS expander.
 
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dude05

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T_Minus said:
Have you ever moved a 24x SAS HDD chassis? It's nothing you move around a bit, especially if you're going to put in mobo+2x video cards+ power supplies, etc...

The SC216 gets my vote for the 24xSAS drives go with an expander backplane, and you can easily connect to your main system.
Click to expand...
nope. only had the 24bay supermicro chasis for 3.5 drives. how heavy can it be? i see ~20kg in ebay listings
 
T_Minus

T_Minus

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Well... each drive weighs 1.5lbs * 24 = 36lbs in HDD alone.

SC216BA-R920LPB | 2U | Chassis | Products | Super Micro Computer, Inc.

Specs state it weighs 53lbs.

So, yes, I think 53lbs + 36lbs + cables/adapters/etc (likely 2-5lbs more) + rail weight.
So lets just say the 2U, tiny case with power supplies, drives, cables, and jbod board will weigh in around 95lbs. Now, with a motherboard + video cards + ssd for boot/os you're EASILY at 100lbs+

That's not portable :) at all by any stretch of imagination ;)
 
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dude05

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sfbayzfs

sfbayzfs

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Yes, all Supermicro 2.5" bays I have ever seen are definitely compatible with 15mm thick drives since most SAS 2.5" spinners are 15mm thick.

If you shop around, you can get the CSE-M28SAB 8-drive adapter for about $150+shipping from a number of resellers.

BTW, I do have a 1x 5.25" to 4x 2.5" IcyDock bay adapter - the construction is fairly solid, and it does at least 12.5mm drives if not 15mm, I will check when I find it next. I will probably never use it though since I want to stay compatible with my Supermicro trays...
 
sfbayzfs

sfbayzfs

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Yes, it looks like it is only meant for proprietary mounting in Intel 2U servers. but I took a look at the spec sheet, and it seems to be a direct connect model from 2014 meant for use the the Intel SAS2 expanders if you want expander instead of direct.

I checked because the Intel 4x and 6x 3.5" bay adapters often seem to contain older SAS1 expander backplanes, some models of which seem to use only 2 SATA cables to attach their 3G expander back to the controller, although I haven't used them myself to confirm. Those models often have 3GEXP in their model numbers, but perhaps not always, and I expect they would be to be avoided for potential large drive compatibility and bandwidth reasons.
 
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