Bulk storage for home - help me make a decision

[j_h_o]

FWIW, I really don't think there's a grave. The SC846 is definitely versatile -- I have one -- but it's also a lot to deal with. 26" deep and 75 lbs before drives. If you have a rack at home (as I said, I have a small one) then the SC846 is a great option.

Otherwise, I think the SE3016 is a good step up, solving your need for more drives, without requiring a rack. (Or a really deep shelf. And I didn't really see that in the post you referenced.) And the cost of the SC846 + PS adds up, and it really works best with a Supermicro board, which you don't have.

Sorry if I somehow misled you

 

[T_Minus]

Sorry, I didn't think you lead him down the wrong road. I don't think it was a bad choice per-SE but I didn't want him to get it and be like "WOAH" this is not quiet at all, because it's not and would be rather unexpected based on his choice for quiet and picking it over the 846 for seemingly that reason.

Weight: Unloaded or with <8 drives it's not bad for 1 person to manage but anything more needs 2 people. Obviosly racking it should have two people, but I've done it myself it's an itneresting balancing act I twouldn't keep me from buying more and more thoug h

 

[herby]

I got a Rackable SE-3016 a few months ago for a few reasons:

• I wanted room for more disks, obviously.
  
• I want to keep all my gear half-depth.
• I wanted to get all the spinning rust I had out of my little 2U NAS to improve airflow.

I've had a few hickups in trying to silence it. Having 120 mm fans out the back helped a lot but my girlfriend hated the whiny 40 mm PWM fan in the PSU. I swapped the fan with some generic one I had around, and the PSU died. So I got another Rackable's PSU and swapped a 6500 RPM 24 dBA San Ace, but a high pitched 24 dBA is still pretty annoying for a living room. Finally, I just took a 3" hole saw and have a 80mm fan pulling air out the top.



Been going strong with this setup for about a month now.

 

[j_h_o]

Weight: Unloaded or with <8 drives it's not bad for 1 person to manage but anything more needs 2 people. Obviosly racking it should have two people, but I've done it myself it's an itneresting balancing act I twouldn't keep me from buying more and more thoug h

Yeah... I got mine and racked it myself. Interesting is not the word I'd use

 

[rubylaser]

FWIW, I really don't think there's a grave. The SC846 is definitely versatile -- I have one -- but it's also a lot to deal with. 26" deep and 75 lbs before drives. If you have a rack at home (as I said, I have a small one) then the SC846 is a great option.

Otherwise, I think the SE3016 is a good step up, solving your need for more drives, without requiring a rack. (Or a really deep shelf. And I didn't really see that in the post you referenced.) And the cost of the SC846 + PS adds up, and it really works best with a Supermicro board, which you don't have.

Sorry if I somehow misled you

You didn't mislead me at all. My SE3016 showed up yesterday. I plugged it in expecting 1U 40mm fan level decibels and was happily surprised that it was very manageable even with no modifications. This goes in my basement on a shelf I built in the utility room. As long as it doesn't scream through the floor upstairs or the basement walls, I'm happy (it doesn't do that, and it seems to work great). I also appreciated how small and lightweight it is. I carried downstairs under one arm very easily vs. other 4U chassis I've hefted in the past that are huge.

I've already evacuated all of the SnapRAID disks out of my Coolermaster HAF912 case and have the 3016 completely loaded with drives (11 x 4TB + 5 x 2TB = 56TB usable). The other nice benefit is that by removing the Intel SAS expander, and the Norco 5x3 from my case, the power draw has actually went down a few watts when the disks are in standby.

Now, I just need to downsize the PSU for the hardware left in my HAF case (I may even go with a smaller case). I have the same i5-4590 CPU, 32GB of DDR3 RAM, (1) IBM m1015, (4) 240GB Intel 730's, and (1) Hitachi 2TB Coolspin still in the HAF912 case. I'm thinking it would make sense to reduce the 600 watt PSU down to something more inline with the power draw in this case (I'm wondering if I could even get away with a 160 watt PicoPSU). If anyone has any ideas for this, I'm open to them.

Finally, I'll eventually pickup another SE3016 to add my remaining disks too. Thank you all for your ideas, and input. I think for my use case (bulk media using SnapRAID and disk pooling), with a very strapped budget, this was a great solution. Here's a picture of the new setup (with the drives spun down in the 3016). Notice my UPS next to it showing the power consumption (78 watts). This number includes my cable modem (Motorola Surfboard SB6121), Celeron 847 system (IPFire firewall), and 24 port gigabit dumb switch (TRENDnet TEG-S24DG).

 

[rubylaser]

I got a Rackable SE-3016 a few months ago for a few reasons:

• I wanted room for more disks, obviously.
  
• I want to keep all my gear half-depth.
• I wanted to get all the spinning rust I had out of my little 2U NAS to improve airflow.

I've had a few hickups in trying to silence it. Having 120 mm fans out the back helped a lot but my girlfriend hated the whiny 40 mm PWM fan in the PSU. I swapped the fan with some generic one I had around, and the PSU died. So I got another Rackable's PSU and swapped a 6500 RPM 24 dBA San Ace, but a high pitched 24 dBA is still pretty annoying for a living room. Finally, I just took a 3" hole saw and have a 80mm fan pulling air out the top.



Been going strong with this setup for about a month now.

Thanks for the idea! Luckily, this is in my basement in the utility room and the sound this unit produces isn't strong enough to reach upstairs or out into the finished portion of our basement. I will definitely keep this in mind as the location you cut with the hole saw on your PSU makes the most sense of the few modified versions I have seen through Google.

 

[j_h_o]

Glad it worked out!

I know I said this earlier, but I'll reiterate... if you end up picking up another SE3016 and end up having 2 in service, I'd strongly consider picking up a 3rd one as a cold spare. I've had fan failures -- and it was fantastic to be able to swap drives into a "fresh" chassis, then deal with the failure later.

 

[T_Minus]

is your SE3016 working good with drives 3TB+ ? Just curious as they were listed as "max 2TB".

 

[j_h_o]

Some may have older firmware?

Mine are all full of HGST 4TB Coolspins. No issues.

 

[j_h_o]

Oh... I also have some WD Se 4TBs, WD Red 3TBs and also some HGST SAS 3TB (7K4000) drives in another unit. Working fine there too.

Status OK
Vendor RACKABLE
Product ID SE3016-SAS
Revision 0227

 

[rubylaser]

Glad it worked out!

I know I said this earlier, but I'll reiterate... if you end up picking up another SE3016 and end up having 2 in service, I'd strongly consider picking up a 3rd one as a cold spare. I've had fan failures -- and it was fantastic to be able to swap drives into a "fresh" chassis, then deal with the failure later.

Thanks! I already picked up some 120mm fans and new 40x40x20mm fan for the PSU fan. When I buy another, I'll probably set that up with the new fans, swap my disks over, then upgrade all the fans in my current case so that everything is shiny and new

 

[rubylaser]

is your SE3016 working good with drives 3TB+ ? Just curious as they were listed as "max 2TB".

I have (1) WD 6TB red in this now, (11) 4TB disks from Hitachi, HGST, Seagate, and WD, and (4) 2TB WD RE drives. All of them are recognized and working great. I also see scrub speeds in SnapRAID of over 950MB/s, so it's not quite saturating one of the uplinks from my m1015, but it's close enough for my bulk media needs.

I'm going to pick up another one as soon as the budget allows as I've still got (8) 2TB WD RE's sitting on a shelf, so I might as well use them if they are going to be spun down anyways.

 

[Diavuno]

I also thought the rackable system box had a 2tb limit...

if not I should go buy some! no shipping for me!!

 

[T_Minus]

I also thought the rackable system box had a 2tb limit...

if not I should go buy some! no shipping for me!!

FOR SURE!

That's awesome they work for >2TB w/out issue really makes them more versatile now.

 

[rubylaser]

Noise could be the only issue with these with the stock setup unless you replace the fans. It is fine in my basement and it certainly isn't anywhere close in noise to a 1U server, but it's not quiet either if that's a requirement for the user.

I had read from some people that the cooling wasn't great, but my drives are all in the low to mid 20'sC, so that is great.

 

[BackupProphet]

Do anyone have any details about the SAS expander in Rackable SE-3016, is it LSI? (I already know its SAS1)

 

[canta]

Oh... I also have some WD Se 4TBs, WD Red 3TBs and also some HGST SAS 3TB (7K4000) drives in another unit. Working fine there too.

Status OK
Vendor RACKABLE
Product ID SE3016-SAS
Revision 0227

The real adventure is 12 drives or more of 3t to up size....

If you are having an issue on random discovery. Blame yourself ... Ha....

I have one se3016. Modded 120mm fans .
I hate original psu.. Power hunger..
Eff roughly 65 to 70% as I measure manually

 

[canta]

Do anyone have any details about the SAS expander in Rackable SE-3016, is it LSI? (I already know its SAS1)

Pmc-sierra sas1

 

[canta]

FOR SURE!

That's awesome they work for >2TB w/out issue really makes them more versatile now.

I would say... Works as is...

You would see issues when many drives are installed.
Mostly some drives are randomly not recognized.

 

[rubylaser]

I would say... Works as is...

You would see issues when many drives are installed.
Mostly some drives are randomly not recognized.

I don't see that happening at all on my SE3016. I had it loaded with (12) 4-6TB disks and (4) 2TB disks. I swapped the 2TB disks out for more 4TB disks last weekend, so it's completely full of disks 4TB+ without an issue in Ubuntu 14.04 Server connected to an m1015. Were your random appearances after a reboot or while the disks were active in the OS?