[USA] [WTB] Supermicro CSE-M35 5x3.5" Hot Swap SATA CSE-M35T-1B
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I moved on from SM cages to trayless iStarUSA BPN-DE350SS, a variety of colours readily available via Amazon. The Icy Dock FlexCage MB975SP-B R1 appears to be functionally identical, a bit more expensive and also readily available. There are quire a few other bargain 5 in 3 cage options besides SM floating about out there.
If you're dead set on a kicking bargain, good luck keeping your eyes peeled. These aren't common enterprise surplus any more and the sort of folk that have them, myself included, usually want more and would kick Kondo in the teeth for trying to get rid of them.
If you're dead set on a kicking bargain, good luck keeping your eyes peeled. These aren't common enterprise surplus any more and the sort of folk that have them, myself included, usually want more and would kick Kondo in the teeth for trying to get rid of them.
That's good advice, thank you. I have used IcyDocks in the past and liked them just fine. It's just not clear to me yet if my chassis is universally compatible with these drive cages. It would seem that way - if the Supermicro one fits?
I could see a bargain basement chassis having some alignment provision that might not accommodate a multi 5.25" foot print. My first and still in service 3U 9x 5.25" SM chassis has some spring loaded "wings" that would provide alignment for a disc dupe rig but they're low enough profile to be pushed out of the way with the cages. Provided there's no obvious impediment you're typically good to go since each 5.25" has nominally 4 screw holes per side, there are plenty of options to get a few retention points if your chassis mounting holes don't align perfectly.
For roughly 20 years I've had a 3RU Supermicro chassis with a completely open face of 9x 5.25" bays that holds three of these and another 4RU chassis that Intel was using back then that similarly accommodates 9x 5.25" in addition to a single 3.5" bay.
What are the pros / cons of a setup like that (i.e. server chasis with lots of 5.25" bays + CSE-M35T) compared to a chasis with integrated hot swap bays? I can see how it helps with repairs (e.g. if a drive bay / backplane fails, then there's just one CSE-M35T to replace). Are there others? I was thinking of buying something like this: 4U Server Case w/ 16 x 3.5" Hot-Swappable SATA/SAS Drive Bays, 12Gb/s HD MiniSAS + 2 x 5.25" Bays ... but now I'm wondering whether there's a better solution for my needs (want to run a NAS + a few VMs, including a Windows VM with an optical drive attached)
The pros of the case you shared in particular are that each row of disks is a separate backplane and they are horizontal, in line with the flow of air. This presents less obstruction to airflow and means you can run slower fans with less noise. Interesting to me is that it's the same design as one of Norco in the US, which went defunct.
For me specifically a pro was evolution, these cases started our with 5 in 3 bays that held PATA drives, then moved to Supermicro SATA 5 in 3s. I only upgraded those to the Icy Dock tray-less versions because I got a ridiculous deal on them. The evolution continued more recently when I picked up a pair of 8 (2.5") in 2 (5.25") bay backplanes that work with SAS or NVME as well as some 1x5.25" bay cages that allow me tray less hot swap of various drive types that I use for recovery, backups, bulk transfers etc.
The problem with stuffing a case full of these drive cages is that it costs far more than just buying a used server chassis. The cheapest I've seen for these is $130 used for an M35. That puts you at $390 for 15 drives. Meanwhile if you wait for a decent deal you can get an entire used 847 for that price (36 bays).
Then, there's management. If a drive needs to be replaced, you don't want to be guessing which drive bay it is and risk pulling the wrong drive. Nor can you just inspect drive serial numbers like you can with loose drives in a PC case. Thus, you need management. The M35 "B" models support sideband management, but the problem is that each sideband signal is intended to manage four drives. Thus, you need two sidebands (typically that would mean two HBA ports) to manage five drives. This means you'd need more HBAs or expander ports. Meanwhile, if you use a backplane with a multiple of four drives, you avoid this issue. Or, if you use a backplane with a built-in SAS expander, then the backplane itself handles the management. The one you linked seems to be unmanaged (or at least I can't find any information about it).
As for replacing single backplanes, backplanes don't tend to fail that often, especially if they don't have an integrated fan. Server backplanes on the secondhand market really aren't that expensive - a 12-port SAS3 backplane with 4 slots that also support NVMe is down to $120.
I've spent a decent amount of money on these mobile racks/drive cages over the years, and it almost never ends up being the best option in hindsight.
Now, the requirement of an optical drive is somewhat of an issue, but if a slim optical drive would work (or even a USB), that opens more possibilities.
Also, worth nothing that a solid server chassis is an investment - pay a little more up front, but you'll be able to re-use it for many builds to come, and you won't get nickle-and-dimed over things like drive cages.
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