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BIg case to build File server

M

Minotaar

Weaksauce
Joined
Mar 21, 2004
Messages
97
Hi, I was wondering if you guys could help me find a large case to build a file server in. Im looking for one of those "double wide" cases that has the motherboard in one half, and nothing but drivespace in the other half. I want to build a server starting with 12 3.5" disks, with room to upgrade to 24 3.5" disks, and still enough space for adequate cooling (at least 3-4 120mm fans) and system disks (1-2 raptors)

I've found this one:

Codegen Black ATX Full Server Case

And of course mountain mods has one:

U2-UFO (Optimax)

And SuperMicro has this gigantic overpriced beast:

Supermicro Pedestal Case

As well as these overpriced rackmount disk-arrays (still only 15 bays):

SuperMicro 3U 15-drive SATA Arrays

And Lian-Li has a single-wide with a lot of densely packed bays:

Lian-Li PC-V200A

But the problem is that most of these chassis dont have enough bays, even though theres plenty of space inside the case (except the Lian-Li, which is totally packed, to the point where I dont think it can actually support 12 heavy-use drives in its lower compartment) mostly because they dont have enough mounting rails.

Questions:

A) Do you know of a case, preferrably double-wide, that supports something like 25 5.25" disks (I dont like putting 3.5"s in densely packed 3.5" arrays, where I think airflow gets annihilated).

B) Is there an easy way to rip out a tower-sized drive-rack from an existing case, and mount it inside an existing case? Can you recommend a case where the case-rack could easily be removed for this purpose (i.e. a case where the drive-rack is not integrated into the chasis itself)?

C) Is there a way to mount fans in front of driveracks, much like Antec did in this case, so that I can deliberately push air between each pair of disks?

Thank you for all your assistance.
 
That would be huge. Thinking about it though, I don't think I've ever run across a case bigger than those cube cases that you've already found.
 
They dont actually need to be any bigger; most of those cases are large enough. They just dont have any density whatsoever. Like the mountainmods cases - they're all empty space! Sure, its perfect for your watercooling-with-a-car-radiator-INSIDE-the-case mod, but they could easily be used for serious fileservers. All they need is driveracks.

Mountain mods rocks. They offer custom mods, and right now Im talking with them to see what we can work out. but its going to be expensive and i was hoping there might be an off the shelf solution I missed...

What Im dreaming of is a double wide with floor-to-cieling racks of drives fronted by 120s, 3 columns of that from front to back, with 4 120s exhausting air out the back. That would rock.

EDIT:
I have zero experience working with racked boxes. How does external storage work? Like if you have a second chassis on the rack just filled with drives and a PS, with no computer, and just wire everything back up to your first box? Is this possible? I know you cant power otehr drives off a different PS... the mobo gets mad. Dunno why. Anyone have experience with racked external storage boxes?
 
If you're not afraid to cut up an expensive case like that, you could always canibalize drive bays from some other old cases you have laying around. Since there's plenty of free space in that case, you can fill it with some extra chopped up drive bays. :D
 
absolutely not afrid to cut it up. If you consider the costs of rack mounted boxes, even buying new crap cases to cut up and weld into the big case is cheaper. But what to cut? I need a nice 12-bay rack... seen a case that has one?
 
I have one of the Supermicro SC830s. You won't get more than 12 discs in it (15 at a real squeeze, but I'm not sure about those 5-disc enclosures) although it is a very, very nice cabinet. The only real negatives I can think of are: no filters, so if it's in even a slightly dusty place the innards get filthy; it's VERY noisy; and it's pretty expensive. On the other hand, it has loads of space, it's really nice to work on, it will never overheat and it's really solid. Personally I'd probably opt for one of them and get extra rackmount enclosures as expansion needs dictate.

Make sure they meet your power-supply requirements, though, as I think they're all ATX and replacing their hot-swap system could prove expensive (even if you can find a suitable alternative).

Regarding wiring up external boxes, if you opt for SCSI you can get quite long cable lengths, and even standard ATX power-supplies can be "persuaded" to power-up without a motherboard present.
 
What about a pair of CMStackers with 4 in 3 drive racks all the way up? That would be a fun mod if you are up to it, and it would be cheaper than most of those solutions.
 
idk their all huge! but you should go with the Codegen. its the easiest one to mod i think. but like they all say...to each his own.
 
A total of 22 5-1/4" bays:
http://www.servercase.com/miva/miva?/Merchant2/merchant.mv+Screen=PROD&Store_Code=SC&Product_Code=AL1000C&Category_Code=Adv+Server

It's tough to beat that, especially when paired with these:
http://www.servercase.com/miva/miva?/Merchant2/merchant.mv+Screen=PROD&Store_Code=SC&Product_Code=BR2U18&Category_Code=Acce.
or
http://www.servercase.com/miva/miva?/Merchant2/merchant.mv+Screen=PROD&Store_Code=SC&Product_Code=BR2U19&Category_Code=Acce.

Theorhetically, a capacity to hold 36 hard drives (11 5-1/4" bays on each side, so 6 adapters that convert 3 5-1/4" bays to 5 3-1/2" bays and 2 adapters that convert 2 5-1/4" bays to 3 3-1/2" bays). You could use the additional space to reduce the density, improving airflow and lowering temps.
 
This is an oldie but a goodie...I'd try to find an Everex Step Cube to mod. This does everything you need, but you'll need to fit a new ATX PSU, and maybe a little modding for the mainboard rear panel (the Step Cube was designed in the days of the 486). Man, I had one of these, and tossed it because it wasn't working. I so with I'd kept it for modding purposes...*sigh*. I'd post pictures, but could only find one, and it was horrible (http://www.kasimir.org/misc/mvc00394_everex.jpg) doesn't even come close to doing justice. The drives were on the right in racks that would slide out from the front when you undid their thumbscrews, and the mainboard (which was 486 EISA back then and cool for its day) was on the left half. It had some decent sized fans, and a pretty cool one line dot-matrix LED display on the front.
 
get one of the huge cases then to add the HDD rails you need use two strips of Aluminium drilled to take HDDs mount them in the box and there you go... I have done this and apart from getting the holes in the right place its a doddle. And even thats not hard if u have a ruler unlike me.

IL
 
How about buying a stacker and filling that up with the system drives (raptors you said) and a few of the drives to keep airflow good. Then find a used dell poweredge san/storage array cabinet without all the goodies in it. Should be plenty of room for what your talking about plus expansion ...I have a feeling you could buy a rma'd one from dell or on ebay.

Just a thougtht, especially if you go scsi with the drive array(s) then you could just use the xternal connector to the array. Or go to your local electronics store and find some 5-6 bay external enclosures ... then daisy chain to your hearts content.

Sean
 
Multilane SerialATA is starting to make its way around too. Multilane=1cable for 4 drives (it attaches to a backplane). 3ware has some seriously sweet hardware raid SATA cards with multilane capabilities. There are a few case manufacturers working with them to support the standard along with multilane external SATA (I think).

Threads like this appeal to me on a basic packrat level. 15 drives hanging on my network for my storage needs is a wet dream. However, it's not something I'd want in my home unless I was very wealthy. Several key turn offs have become evident to me from working with multi-terabyte storage arrays at work.

1) They use alot of power. ALOT OF POWER. For instance, I have a cluster of two netapp filers at work (2 400mhz powerpc g3 processors and a ton of fiber channel cards per filer..so not much power usage) sharing 12 shelves of disks. The cluster requires 4 650watt redundant PDUs to run...at 220. Spinning alot of disks requires alot of power.

2) 7200rpm and greater disks produce alot of heat and noise. Again, at work, I have a conditioned, insulated space to keep my storage array. This is not something you'll want running in your room, or any room you want to be in regularly.

3) Many disks in one box=many pounds in one spot. You're going to end up with something that steel assuredly. 15-25 drives on top of that is alot of weight. Something with casters will help, but I wouldn't stack 4 of these beasts in the corner of your second floor office. That's alot of psi and most structures are built on the cheap these days.

As cool as it is to have a TBs of space available, it makes more sense to calculate the amount of space you really need and build around that. If this is a work project or you're going to use it for something critical, don't bother rolling your own. I've built my own NAS filer and I've used off the shelf equipment. Go with off the shelf and get a service agreement. It makes the PHBs happy.

/rant
 
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