Nocro backplane upgrade?

[gardar]

So I've been thinking about upgrading my fileserver. I currently have a CM stacker that is abut as full of disks as they can be.

I was just about to purchase a Norco 4224 when I decided to hit them up on google and oh boy oh boy a lot of negative reviews on their backplanes.
Here's one where the backplanes fried 3tb drives: wsyntax :: How a Norco case killed 13TB of our data

Has anyone here gotten a taste of that backplane issue?
Most of the reviews I found are from back in 2010/2011. Are the backplanes still as bad or have the been upgraded?

And last but not least, has anyone upgraded their backplanes? I am interested if backplanes from other manufacturers would fit.


Oh and if anyone knows of a reasonable alternative to the case I'd like to hear about it, I don't need the fancy extra features of the supermicro cases and those cases are harder to keep silent so I can't justice paying 100-200% more for such a case than a norco.

 

[Jeggs101]

What about these? http://forums.servethehome.com/great-deals/828-rackable-16bay-jobd-sas-sata-enclosures.html

 

[PigLover]

...Here's one where the backplanes fried 3tb drives: wsyntax :: How a Norco case killed 13TB of our data...

If you follow the thread on [H] related to this guys blog post you will discover that he eventually figured out that he had a faulty power supply situation that was the root cause of his "killed" disk drives. There are hundreds of people using the 4224 with 3 and 4 TB drives with no such problems.

I am not suggesting Norco's backplanes are top quality. Not even close. But they are perfectly serviceable for home NAS system.

 

[Toddh]

I bought one of these and I have mixed feeling about it. New out of the box 2 of the 5 backplains(that I tried so far) were bad. Took me a while to figure out because when i swapped them around I was till having problems. Finally found good ones to run my 12 hds. I still need to test the last backplane.

The case is solid and the hd cages are good. But the fan system, imoa, sucks. They give you 5x 80mm dumb fans that connect to molex power on the ps, no RPM or speed control. 3 pin fans are not that much more expensive so I have no idea why Norco did this. Also for $400 I think Norco really should include a power supply. Lastly be aware it does not come with any type of rack mount rails.

By the time you put in a good ps, fix the fans, and buy rails you are the ballpark of a Supermicro case, which is superior in every way.



.

 

[gardar]

What about these? http://forums.servethehome.com/great-deals/828-rackable-16bay-jobd-sas-sata-enclosures.html

Those are indeed interesting for the price, but I'd need two of those for all my disks and a server with a external SAS connector to manage them, so that might not be the best option. I'll definately keep it in mind though

If you follow the thread on [H] related to this guys blog post you will discover that he eventually figured out that he had a faulty power supply situation that was the root cause of his "killed" disk drives. There are hundreds of people using the 4224 with 3 and 4 TB drives with no such problems.

I am not suggesting Norco's backplanes are top quality. Not even close. But they are perfectly serviceable for home NAS system.

Oh allright that's a relief. I've been thinking about upgrading to 4tb disks soon so I almost had put norco out of the table.

I bought one of these and I have mixed feeling about it. New out of the box 2 of the 5 backplains(that I tried so far) were bad. Took me a while to figure out because when i swapped them around I was till having problems. Finally found good ones to run my 12 hds. I still need to test the last backplane.

The case is solid and the hd cages are good. But the fan system, imoa, sucks. They give you 5x 80mm dumb fans that connect to molex power on the ps, no RPM or speed control. 3 pin fans are not that much more expensive so I have no idea why Norco did this. Also for $400 I think Norco really should include a power supply. Lastly be aware it does not come with any type of rack mount rails.

By the time you put in a good ps, fix the fans, and buy rails you are the ballpark of a Supermicro case, which is superior in every way.
.

Yeah that's what I'm thinking, the rails, possibly a ps (not that I see the need for a upgrade right now) and if I am going to replace the backplanes with ones from another vendor. I would be better off with a supermicro or something else.

Are the norco backplanes failing immediately or can they fail at any time? If they are failing immediately I could just get norco to replace them and then all would be good.

I looked at the norco and chenbro backplanes and they look pretty similar to me. Might be worth a shot trying them out if I run into troubles with norco.


The Backblaze storage pod is also an interesting option, it would definately take me some time to fill it up with drives 45 Drives - Open Designs, Highest Density, Lowest Cost 872$ for the chassis and 540$ for the backplanes since I have everything else.
I don't really need the hotswap since this is for my home, so I don't see the downside of using the storagepod.

 

[nitrobass24]

I don't understand how rails or lack there of are a factor? Since when does any server ship w/ rails?

 

[cactus]

I don't understand how rails or lack there of are a factor? Since when does any server ship w/ rails?

SM 2u barebone I installed recently came with them. SM SC743 chassis didn't come with them.

OP, how many drives? Is this going in your living room? Is this going in a rack? Maybe look at ebay for Supermicro or chenbro chassis. [URL="http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Chenbro-RM41416M2-No-Power-Supply-4U-Rackmount-Server-Chassis-w-backplane-/321010307968]Ex.[/URL]

 

[gardar]

I currently have 18 drives and growing, to begin with it would be in my living room but hopefully soon to a rack in my garage.

Supermicro or chenbro sure would be sweet but they cost ~2000$ are noisy and afaik not that easy to make silent.

 

[Lost-Benji]

I guess I would be qualified to respond and answer many of the questions here.

If you follow the thread on [H] related to this guys blog post you will discover that he eventually figured out that he had a faulty power supply situation that was the root cause of his "killed" disk drives. There are hundreds of people using the 4224 with 3 and 4 TB drives with no such problems.

Having a faulty PSU is one thing, shitty quality is another. See below for more on why!

I bought one of these and I have mixed feeling about it. New out of the box 2 of the 5 backplains(that I tried so far) were bad. Took me a while to figure out because when i swapped them around I was till having problems. Finally found good ones to run my 12 hds. I still need to test the last backplane.

The case is solid and the hd cages are good. But the fan system, imoa, sucks. They give you 5x 80mm dumb fans that connect to molex power on the ps, no RPM or speed control. 3 pin fans are not that much more expensive so I have no idea why Norco did this. Also for $400 I think Norco really should include a power supply. Lastly be aware it does not come with any type of rack mount rails.

By the time you put in a good ps, fix the fans, and buy rails you are the ballpark of a Supermicro case, which is superior in every way.

Not sure what case you are referring to or the generation but there are 4x 80mm 3-pin fans in the mid and another 2 in the rear of the case.
https://www.google.com.au/search?nu...g&biw=1920&bih=971&sei=mrovUeCGHcqviQf85oCoCg

OK, Back-planes:
There are two generations, Green and Yellow. The green's are the ones to avoid if possible. There are plenty that have badly soldered components that have gone from simple things like non-detecting HDD's and bad LED indicators through to nearly killing some of my drives. As mentioned above, some claim to have debunked the big drives dying and suggested it was PSU but as I have seen it myself and can assure you, PSU was/is not the fault.

If you have green Back-planes, pull each one and pay attention to components that have either shitty soldering (lead-free is shit) or components missing or soldered to wrong pads.
http://forums.overclockers.com.au/showthread.php?p=13814226

If it looks suss or different to the others, get it fixed ASAP. I re-worked all my Back-planes and re-soldered the whole lot.



As for the 4224, would I buy another? Probably not, next case is likely a 4116 to allow a DVD and SATA hot-swap cage. The 4224 does hold 24 drives but I don't see this as being efficient on space, when you are getting to use a lot of drives, there is too much wasted space in the rear when you start using them as DAS and/or with expanders from other host systems.

Cooling, with 24 drives in the front, you simply cannot expect to run a decent sized system in the rear with the stock fans. There airflow into the rear suffers a lot once full of drives and also keep in mind, most ATX PSU's these days use useless 120 or 140mm fans that are too slow and have way to little static pressure to fight against the rear 80mm fans. The rear pair in my case are/were rated higher grunt that the 4x in the mid-plate. there is the option of 120mm mid-plates but these won't help unless you aim for extremely ballsy fans with huge static pressure, simple physics is that there is not enough airflow to keep the fans working properly.

If you want a high quality case with PSU's (yes, redundant) then look at the Chenbro options.