Guide To Building A Media Storage Server - Page 103

I'm a big fan of the WD1001FALS (WD Black 1TB) - 5 yr warranty and only three platters. I'm buying more as we speak. I haven't bought any 1.5TB WD's, kinda staying away from that form factor until everyone pulls their heads out to resolve firmware issues on array cards and/or drives. I have 1.5Tb Seagates working on an Adaptec 5805 (8 port card) in RAID6, but that's the highest port count card they'll work with.

I have two sets of 24 x WD1001FALS drives connected to ARC1680ix-24's, so consider yourself good there. Just make sure you enable TLER.

I think we need another few months before any size above 1Tb stabilizes and isn't so bleeding edge, at least for arrays. I realize some people have 3Ware high port count cards working with the Seagate 1.5's, but still seems a bit sketchy.

Quick update- I talked to Mike at Norco today, he confirmed that a 24-bay chassis *is* still in the works but apparently hasn't been finalized yet. He noted its been a challenge stuffing 24 bays into 4U, and I pointed out Supermicro's already done it and quite beautifully, so its NOT impossible and many people would be interested since the higher count multiport SATA cards tend to come in multiples of 8, meaning 4 ports on a card can go to waste in a 20-bay case unless you want loose drives sitting inside the case. I may start a separate thread to solicit design feedback and feature requests since Norco is open to it.

I also noted many people would be interested in an expander, basically a drive cage - for people that just want to add lots of drives to an existing system. Example take a full length server case like a Norco 4220, cut it in half and leave leave the front half (drive bays, backplane and fans), and leave just enough room in the back to add a power supply. Add a couple SFF-8088 connectors on the back and it's heaven.

Hmm.. 4U is kind of a sweet spot form factor though - 5U makes it a bit too big, at least in my mind. I've dealt with 5U servers and they're one step over the line into "bulky" territory. These days most people only need the optical drive once to set up the O/S (and usually I just use an external/USB DVD drive anyway for initial O/S setup), and floppy is legacy/irrelevant. Worst case then rear-mount the slim optical if people absolutely want one.

To me the perfect form factor of chassis already exists, the Supermicro 24 bay, we just need a cheaper and quieter version, meaning the ability to add our own power supply, etc.

sounded like it wasn't set in stone yet, but if the Norco 4220 is any indication, it'd probably be SFF-8087 (miniSAS) connectors, which I'd prefer for sake of simplicity (plugging in 5 or 6 miniSAS to the backplane is a lot easier than plugging in 20-24 SATA cables- which you also have to make sure are in right order, etc).

I agree that design/quality is at least $200 better than Norco- everything aligns perfectly, fits like a glove. However you forgot to mention the jet engine noise of the PSU fans, which can't be tuned down without opening them up and doing soldering/surgery and adding voltage regs (assuming slowing the fans down is even safe to begin with and that the PSU's wouldn't overheat).

I have 2 of the Supermicro 900W 24bay cases, and my plan is to dump them for Norco's (or any other alternative) as soon as a 24-bay box comes out, and STRICTLY for noise reasons. My SM's are in my garage and yet I can hear them in other rooms in the house, so these days i'm actually just leaving them off most of the time and having them serve as backup storage, waking up every week or so to replicate.

As for PSU issues, proprietary always makes me nervous so I actually prefer the add-your-own method. If I still have the box in 5 years and one of the PSU's blows up in the SM, I have no clue if SM will still have a replacement to sell me. I much rather an off the shelf PSU - if it blows up I just replace it quickly. Since the scope of these servers are for media storage, not business continuity, I think a single off-the-shelf PSU has the advantage.

I don't have an SPL meter. Again I mean they're loud in a home environment. They're fine for a data center or server room obviously. They're a tad louder than when you first turn on an HP DL380 for example.

To be fair, SM built these for business purposes, as an alternative to the HP's and Dell's of the world. In that respect they deliver. Home media enthusiasts have cannibalized them for the high number of hot swap drive bays, so really I have no right to complain about server class equipment behaving like server class equipment, except to warn others that's what you're getting, lest anyone gets the idea to put one next to the TV in the entertainment rack.

kapone: *PANT* awesome pic.

On a sidenote, I've started a separate thread based on a recent conversation with Norco about the 24-bay chassis they're trying to finalize (and have asked AVS for input on), so please submit your server case design wishlist in the following thread, in which we'll also discuss the possibility of 16 and 24-bay expanders.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1154444