recommendations for quiet rack mount NAS case?

[BLinux]

I'm considering building a new NAS server and was wondering if you guys can help with some suggestions for a case. My requirements are:

Rack mount
Quiet fans and PSU, willing to sacrifice rack space for this, so 4U or 6U or larger is OK
Can hold 12-16 3.5" drives. I'm OK with using the 5.25" bay backplane converters like a 3-5 .
I want the HDD to be hot swap capable
I don't necessarily require redundant PSU, but don't mind as long as it can be quiet.
Would like it to be able to hold wide selection of standard mobo sizes.

Thanks for any thoughts.

 

[sullivan]

I think there are 3 common options you can consider, all 4U ~26 in. deep:

Norco RPC-4224:
http://www.norcotek.com/product/rpc-4224/
24 hot-swap bays, about $400 new
Lots of examples of RPC-4224 builds on the web
You will want to get the 120mm fan wall and replace the fans

Rosewill RSV-L4500:
https://www.amazon.com/Rosewill-Server-Chassis-Rackmount-Metal/dp/B0091IZ1ZG
15 internal bays, about $100 new
Very simple case, but lots of room and easy to work with
Can be extremely quiet if you are careful with fans

Supermicro SC-846 family:
Tower / 4U Chassis | Chassis | Products - Super Micro Computer, Inc.
24 hot-swap bays, enterprise class hardware
comes in a wide variety of configurations
can be had *very* cheaply on eBay, but you may end up swapping lots
of parts to get a quiet config that works for you

 

[whitey]

Vote for a SC846. I have a norco 4224 and WISH I had a SC846. Nothing wrong w/ the norco but I'm a SM man these days.

 

[T_Minus]

The Rosewill 12 bay hot-swap is dead silent since it uses large fans, and consumer/desktop grade power supply. I use one for my 'backup' always-on NAS. The problem I ran into is that some of the bays just stopped working randomly, no idea why. I'm only using 3 so I just shuffled to working ones, I have no idea why they just stopped. I use the same adapters in some other tower builds (5.25 to 3.5") and they haven't had such glitches/issues.I also use many supermicro 846 but even though they're not 'loud' they're not nearly as silent as the Rosewill. If you want to modify them / replace fans, maybe add some internal fans to things like HBAs and PCIE slots to help keep things cooler with quieter fans I'm sure you could get it quieter but more $/time for sure.

The only NORCO chassis I had I think I actually chucked it in the trash after using supermicro and even the rosewill the norco was that bad IMHO.

 

[BLinux]

thanks for the recommendations guys!

The rosewill doesn't look like it can do hotswap, is that right? pictures make it look like it has permanent HDD mounting between the two rows of fans.

a large chassis with large quiet fans is exactly what i'm going for, but i need the hot-swap capability.

 

[BLinux]

The SM SC846 looks interesting, but those slim PSUs look like they could be very loud. Anyone have a dB number they can share 1-ft in front and in back of the chassis?

 

[BLinux]

looking on ebay for the SC-846, and see one vendor mention:

BPN-SAS-846EL1 SAS Expander (24x 3.5" SAS/SATA Hot-swappable Drive Bays)
***3TB and 4TB Hard Drive may not be recognized by the backplane if fully populated.

what is that about?

 

[sullivan]

The rosewill doesn't look like it can do hotswap, is that right? pictures make it look like it has permanent HDD mounting between the two rows of fans.

A nice feature of that RSV-L4500 case is that if you pull all of the HDD cages out then you get 9x 5.25" bays. So you can put any kind of drive cage you want into it. Rosewill has another model of the same base chassis with 3x 4-drive hotswap bays (12 total) called the RSV-L4412 for about $230:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00N9CXGSO/ref=twister_B010WS7U7A

You just have to decide if spending $120 for Rosewill hotswap bays is worthwhile compared to some other model you might like better such as the Supermicro CSE-M35T-1B:

SUPERMICRO CSE-M35T-1B 3 x 5.25" to 5 x 3.5" Hot-swap SATA HDD Trays-Newegg.com

The Supermicro cages are about $99 each, so 3x plus the chassis puts you around $400 for 15 hot-swap bays. The Rosewill cages are probably fine (I've never tried them.) It looks like the Rosewill cages might use 120mm fans while the Supermicro ones use 92mm fans. You'll probably end up replacing them either way if you want the case to be as quiet as possible.

If you look around on the web you should be able to find all sorts of examples with the above parts.

 

[Blinky 42]

looking on ebay for the SC-846, and see one vendor mention:

BPN-SAS-846EL1 SAS Expander (24x 3.5" SAS/SATA Hot-swappable Drive Bays)
***3TB and 4TB Hard Drive may not be recognized by the backplane if fully populated.

what is that about?

As I recall it is a limitation of the SAS expander in use for that backplane. I have seen it happen, on of my 846's is full of 2T drives but when I put in a 3T or 4T in place of the hot spare to see if it worked, it wasn't even found. I didn't experiment with firmware or anything to see if it was correctable or not however.

 

[T_Minus]

thanks for the recommendations guys!

The rosewill doesn't look like it can do hotswap, is that right? pictures make it look like it has permanent HDD mounting between the two rows of fans.

a large chassis with large quiet fans is exactly what i'm going for, but i need the hot-swap capability.

The one I mentioned does hot-swap the other one (internal) does not.

 

[zhoulander]

Has anyone successfully used 3rd party rails on the Rosewill RSC-L4500? It seems the original R26LX version is EOL and the 27 is OOS and rubbish.

Someone tried Norco rails but was off by a fraction of a U.

I have shelves but want them racked properly. Might just buy a smattering of universal rails to experiment and drill/tap if necessary.

 

[wiretap]

Has anyone successfully used 3rd party rails on the Rosewill RSC-L4500? It seems the original R26LX version is EOL and the 27 is OOS and rubbish.

Someone tried Norco rails but was off by a fraction of a U.

I have shelves but want them racked properly. Might just buy a smattering of universal rails to experiment and drill/tap if necessary.

I could never find _any_ rails to fit my EIA standard 19" rack with either the Rosewill or Norco case. All of them sit too wide by about 1/4", not allowing the case to slide into the rack, binding up about halfway inserted. I resorted to using rack shelves.

 

[BackupProphet]

I have removed the regular 901-R PSU's from a Supermicro 846 and replaced them with a single ATX powersupply, the whole thing is super quiet now.

 

[binarypatrick]

How did you replace the PSU? Is there a special bracket? I would love to get a supermicro 3U, but the PSU noise is making me hesitate.

 

[i386]

I would love to get a supermicro 3U, but the PSU noise is making me hesitate.

Unless you get a chassis with an ancient psu all the "newer" ones* are pretty quiet compared to hdds & cpu/midwall fan noises...

*I have the 920w sq, 1280w sq and 1k23a psus and they are quieter than the other stuff inside of 836, 846 or 745 chassis