Supermicro SC216 24x 2.5" 2U Chassis with Redundant PSUs

Notice: Page may contain affiliate links for which we may earn a small commission through services like Amazon Affiliates or Skimlinks.

Patrick

Administrator
Staff member
Dec 21, 2010
12,511
5,792
113
Feel free to discuss the Supermicro SC216E1-R900LPB review found here in this thread.

Next week I should have a review of a 3U storage chassis so please feel free to provide any suggestions.

Also, I have changed the human verification options to register in the forums. The answer to the question is: revres

If you have any issues, please feel free to use the contact form on the main site.
 
Last edited:

Jeggs101

Well-Known Member
Dec 29, 2010
1,529
241
63
Great read. Install pics would be good. At $1,100- $1,200 that is some serious hardware.
 

nitrobass24

Moderator
Dec 26, 2010
1,087
131
63
TX
Yea the SM cases are expensive but you get what you pay for.

Take the Norco 4224 for example. After i swap in a new fan board 120mm fans, SAS expander and a redundant PSU I am at or over $1200.
The SMs come with built-in expanders and redundant PSUs.

So depending on what you are looking for a Norco is not necessarily cheaper. The Norco is great for the DIY build that uses an ATX PSU and consumer parts.
 

odditory

Moderator
Dec 23, 2010
381
59
28
Nice review Patrick. Always been intrigued by the little 2.5" form factor of those particular Supermicro cases, and having that many disks in a 2U, but never had a need for it. With 1TB 2.5" drives continuing to get cheaper it only becomes more attractive. Ultimately it remains a box for medium to large business rather than SOHO, as you know.

Great read. Install pics would be good. At $1,100- $1,200 that is some serious hardware.
$1100-$1200 isn't really that serious considering the alternatives. Norco cases have just spoiled newcomers into assuming large multidrive hotswap cases above $350 are outrageously priced.
 
Last edited:

Patrick

Administrator
Staff member
Dec 21, 2010
12,511
5,792
113
Too true odditory. For non-redundant PSU servers, and for quiet servers, Norco really has a great niche.

If you think about it:
$400 for chassis
$300 for SAS expander
$400 for redundant PSU
Basically that gets you in the ballpark of the SC216's.

Believe it or not, the 2.5" sleds are filled with all kinds of drives. SAS drives, notebook drives, 10+ SSDs. I had a bunch lying around and needed a home... albeit a loud home.

I have one OpenSolaris VM right now that uses the SSDs as cache and then I have a JBOD 3.5" enclosure attached (right now using a Supermicro SC933T-R760B but that will get converted soon). I have been playing a LOT with the thought of virtual desktops lately and using SSD caching is just awesome there. Admittedly, I also have more hardware than I need.
 

odditory

Moderator
Dec 23, 2010
381
59
28
If you think about it:
$400 for chassis
$300 for SAS expander
$400 for redundant PSU
Basically that gets you in the ballpark of the SC216's.
oh yeah, trust me, if the PSU fans in the Supermicro cases could be tamed without surgery I probably wouldn't even own any Norco's. whats also kept me on Norco's is the fact there have historically been headaches with the expanders on SM backplanes, they use LSI's chips but apparently there are issues with SM tweaking the firmware. I've read about various headaches where a controller wouldn't work right with the expander because SM tweaked something above and beyond the base firmware they were supplied by LSI. Granted I think that was mostly an issue with SM backplanes chipped with a SAS-1 gen LSI expander, I'd assume that interoperability has only improved with SAS-2 chipped backplanes, for various reasons.
 
Last edited: