Low noise low power storage enclosure

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Hi, just found this forum while searching for equipment.

I am planning on upgrading my current 12-bay Synology DS2411+ NAS to a custom built storage server.
I need more flexibility and more storage, and I don't want to be tied to a single vendor.

I am looking for a 2U or 3U rack mount storage enclosure that can take 12 or more 3.5" drives.
If only 12 drives I will use two enclosures.
The external connector must be 6Gb/s SAS, one in and one out for expansion.
The drive connector must be 6Gb/s SATA, preferably trayless and hot swap.
The internal backplane must connect the 6Gb/s SATA drives to a single 6Gb/s SAS connector.

The enclosure must be low power, low heat, and low noise (large fans).
The fans must automatically adjust speed based on heat.

The PSU must be high efficiency, low heat, low noise.
There is no need for a redundant PSU, a single PSU is all that is needed (rest of system is not redundant).

I have no need to fit a mobo in the storage case, as such the case should be as short as possible.
I will use a 1U Xeon E3 v2 server, and these come in short versions.
OS and storage server is still TBD, possibly OpenFiler.

Any suggestions for a storage enclosure?

Oh, and I'm busy building a new house, and will install a server rack in the garage.
Any suggestions for a 24U+ racks that is sealed, filtered inlets, noise dampening, and can be configured to vent heat to the outside?

P.
 

sotech

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Jul 13, 2011
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One question - why a 1U motherboard chassis and a 2/3U disk chassis? Why not combine with something like a Norco 4224? Just how short do you need it to be?

Replace the 80mm fan wall in a 4224 with 120mm fans, add in some quality fans (Noctua etc.) and you have a very, very quiet enclosure. We even have a Corsair H100 hanging from our fan wall and the whole system is still pleasingly quiet.

All of the file severs we build for customers have Seasonic X-560s or higher; Gold rated, low heat output, inaudible and with a very long warranty. If you can stretch the budget far enough also consider their Platinum models - they sit around 93% efficiency for ~400W load, and that's what's in our own server. Very impressive PSUs.
 
2U is large enough for 12 drives, and 3U large enough for 16 drives, anything larger hosts more drives than I need, and wastes space.

I change servers more frequently than I change drives, and by using SAS I can connect the storage to whichever server needs it.

I also run a few Hyper-V servers, and I currently use small form factor desktops, but will switch to 1U rackmount and the new Xeon E3 v2 processors.

As a power baseline, a 24 port HP gigabit switch, two DELL OptiPlex 990's (Core-i7-2600 16GB), and the Synology DS2411+ (12 x 3TB Hitachi Ultrastar) run at less than 40W idle.
So whatever I replace that with, needs to be in the same ballpark when idle.

P.
 

Patrick

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Staff member
Dec 21, 2010
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40w on all of that seems crazy. Two i7-2600 boxes should be pretty close to that at idle alone, if configured for low idle power consumption (e.g. fan settings aligned as one example.)
 

sotech

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Jul 13, 2011
305
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Australia
I can find some reviews which give 21W as the idle usage of each of the 990s here, but the 2411+ gets pegged at around 60W idle with 8 Cav Blue drives here. I don't recall offhand what a fanless Procurve pulls but I can't imagine it would be a great deal compared to the other devices. Synology itself claims 39W idle consumption when the machine goes into deep sleep/hibernation.

Maybe double check your power measurement device? I don't think it's giving you numbers which are achievable to match with the setup you're after...
 

Patrick

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I can find some reviews which give 21W as the idle usage of each of the 990s here, but the 2411+ gets pegged at around 60W idle with 8 Cav Blue drives here. I don't recall offhand what a fanless Procurve pulls but I can't imagine it would be a great deal compared to the other devices. Synology itself claims 39W idle consumption when the machine goes into deep sleep/hibernation.

Maybe double check your power measurement device? I don't think it's giving you numbers which are achievable to match with the setup you're after...
Yea, getting sub 20w at the outlet on a quad core Sandy Bridge platform is not super easy. If you can consolidate, I bet you could bring that usage down.

Look for Sotech's Norco RPC-4224 on these forums. One big advantage with the 4U is you can use 120mm fans which will move air but remain relatively quiet. That will help a lot with the noise.
 
Power utilization is as reported by the UPS.
All idle is reported as 21W.
With 990's idle and DS2411 spinning, usage is reported as 120W.
With 990's under load and DS241 spinning, usage is reported as 210W.

A 4U seems like such a waste of space :(

Does a normal ATX PSU fit in a 4U, 2U PSU's seem to be a bit noisy, and there are tons of quite ATX PSU options?

P.
 

sotech

Member
Jul 13, 2011
305
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Australia
Power utilization is as reported by the UPS.
All idle is reported as 21W.
With 990's idle and DS2411 spinning, usage is reported as 120W.
With 990's under load and DS241 spinning, usage is reported as 210W.

A 4U seems like such a waste of space :(

Does a normal ATX PSU fit in a 4U, 2U PSU's seem to be a bit noisy, and there are tons of quite ATX PSU options?

P.
Well, as it stands you'd be looking at 4U of total space with a 3U enclosure and a 1U Xeon enclosure...

4U fits a normal ATX PSU fine. We're using Seasonic ATX PSUs in ours.

There are some shorter Norco 2U/4U chassis which consist of just the hot-swap drives and SFF-8088 ports at the back, which may also interest you, e.g.:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816133044

or larger:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816133046&Tpk=ds-24d

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816133047&Tpk=ds-24e

One of the biggest issues you'll hit with your low noise specification - and one of the reasons I suggest 4U - is that you're only going to get small, noisy fans in the 2U chassis if you want any kind of heat moving ability. 4U means you can use 120mm fans, which if you choose the right fans are powerful and have good static pressure ratings even when moving slowly. 2U means either slow, small and quiet fans with low air-moving ability or, well, noise.
 
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sotech

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Jul 13, 2011
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For the price of a lot of those options you could buy a 4224 and fill it with a server motherboard, Xeon CPU, ECC RAM, several HBAs and even a few disks.

Those EliteSTOR chassis look beautiful, though - really nice industrial design.
 

Patrick

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Dec 21, 2010
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Does a normal ATX PSU fit in a 4U, 2U PSU's seem to be a bit noisy, and there are tons of quite ATX PSU options?
Most 4U enclosures can fit either ATX or redundant PSUs. A lot of us use the Seasonic 80 PLUS Gold PSUs and those are really quiet. If you ever did get to 40W on one of these things, a 750w or 850w Seasonic unit will run silent with no fan movement.
 
I sent SansDigital sales an email last week to find out the difference between AccuStor and EliteStor, no reply.

Looking at prices online, AccuStor seems more expensive.
Looking at specs, they seem about the same.

Does anybody know the difference between SansDigital AccuStor and EliteStor range of devices (exclusing looks)?

P.
 

lenard

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May 27, 2012
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Hi There,

One of the things I noticed was that the EliteStor supports either 2.5 or 2.5+3.5 drives and the AccuStor only supports 3.5 drives.

--Lenard