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Follow along and subscribe to see how this project unfolds over months of work 
. Scroll past the journal to see my current configuration plan.
March 6, 2014
Configuration
To start off with, a single chassis with twelve drive bays configured in RAID 60 as shown.
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. Scroll past the journal to see my current configuration plan.March 6, 2014
- Ordered 12 x HGST/Hitachi (HUA723020ALA641) Ultrastar 7K3000 2TB 64MB 7200RPM 3.5" (Enterprise Grade) SATA III 6.0Gb/s Hard Drive
Finding a drive under $100 and not having to settle for the Western Digital Greens was amazing! On top of that, it's enterprise rated, so there's that. I might have been able to find a drive for even less, but honestly I don't think I would have found one for this capacity with the enterprise rated property this one has. I spent a long time looking for a good drive to the point that it was making me nauseous! To top all of this off, the seller goHardDrive was EXCELLENT to work with. I HIGHLY recommend you use that buyer when you're on Amazon or at least keep them on a favorites list and check in every once in a while. They where pinging me back and forth with answers about how things are packaged, etc. just about as fast as I get responses on this forum (which is fast by the way).
- Ordered 1 x Rosewill 1.0 mm Thickness 4U Rackmount, Black Metal/Steel RSV-L4411
I really didn't want to go this route (that is, build out a server and have to build a second server box afterwards) at first. In fact, I still plan on building a "modular" storage solution with JBOD type enclosures. At least that's the goal. But, right now, it's just not practical, to say nothing of too expensive! This case was on Newegg (which is where I started looking for cases) in the featured section of the page when you drill down to server chassis or server cases. Generally, I do NOT look at featured pages just because that's the place where items are trying to be moved out of the "system" so-to-speak and really not the ideal place to start your search. The reason I even looked at it was because I wanted to get an idea of what a chassis of that size looked like and understand how these things are put together. Well, after I had a look for a few minutes, I closed out that tab and began looking using the filters. Well, a few hours later, I started to realize that this was the ONLY case that was at this price and had so many of the features of the more expensive cases, without being those expensive prices! So, there you have it! This review on YouTube was quite helpful as well. In fact, I will be doing a video review of my own when the case comes in and I have had a chance to play with the various features it has. Look out for that on this thread.
- Notice from Amazon: Hey dummy, try entering the correct payment information in. That way you'll actually receive your stuff. Click here to solve the problem or it's no goodies for you! Oops!
- Shipped 12 x HGST/Hitachi (HUA723020ALA641) Ultrastar 7K3000 2TB 64MB 7200RPM 3.5" (Enterprise Grade) SATA III 6.0Gb/s Hard Drive
About an hour after ordering, these beauties are on their way!
- Shipped 1 x Rosewill 1.0 mm Thickness 4U Rackmount, Black Metal/Steel RSV-L4411
A little less than five hours after ordering, this monster is also on it's way!
Configuration
To start off with, a single chassis with twelve drive bays configured in RAID 60 as shown.
- Planning on modifying this to be resilient to ports going bad on the HBA (which I'm currently deciding on).
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- The case arrived with the packaging in perfect condition. In fact this chassis is actually doubled packaged, which I appreciated because that way the outside box can take all the punishment of shipping and not at all damage or scratch the nice finish on this case. I was particularly impressed with the thickness of the packaging. Now, this is the first server case I've worked with (not the first case by ANY means!) and I have seen some terrible packaging before, so it was nice to see some attention to detail here. I had to use a pretty good blade to get this guy open. Not much else to say, it's packaging, but I was delighted to open it up and have a look inside so I could get the ball rolling on this project.
- For someone who's worked with small, mid and full tower cases, this thing is enormous in size. Here's a shot of this beast standing up (normal position is obviously laying down with the handles facing forward). You will appreciate this case if you have a large room full of cases because it has a barcode on the side (bottom right on this photo). Now, I have to admit, I haven't checked out whether this tag is unique to this case, but I still like the idea of being able to use it for asset management and such.
- Here's a look at the left side of the case (front handles facing you). I am not quite sure if these holes are designed for some type of airflow, but there are some on both sides. Having a 4U case verses a smaller form factor makes it more difficult to properly push air through and pass fresh air over components. I don't know how effective these holes really are for that purpose, but they're here. I might over them up, but we'll see what the consensus is.
- Here's a shot of the right side of the case. You'll notice there are a good number of holes here as well as an identical set of ventilation grill on the bottom (just like the oppose side). I'm really not sure if these small holes are designed for mounting additional items, but they really do bother me. If I find no purpose for them, I will probably seal all of them. There is no reason (that I can think of) to have a bunch of punctures in the side of your case. If you can find a good reason, let me know.
- I am pleasantly surprised with the quality of these handles. They are SOLID and on top of that - removable! There are a few screws to remove and you now have a nice flush look. You can EASILY and confidently move this entire case with these handles. I'll discuss one nitpick I have with these handles later on.
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- As I noted before, the handles on this case are solid. It was VERY easy to move this unit and the grooves on the handles are properly designed so you can get a good grip while moving the case. There is a caveat to this design. The wavy front cover makes it very uncomfortable to grip the handles at the top of the handle. Take a look at the image. I first tried moving the case with my hand near the top of the handles and my knuckles hurt pretty bad. Especially if this case had all the components in it -- you might drop it because of the sudden pain in your fingers. It's a nitpick, but seriously, you want to move the case with your hand near the bottom of the handle.
- Move the case by placing your hand near the bottom of the handles like shown in the photo and you will have NO problem.
- Here's a closeup of the bulge and wavy nature of the front cover so you can see why you would not want to place your hand near the top of the case.
- The front of the case looks very professional. One of the things that drew me to this case was the nice design. I appreciate a good functional case, but it's nice to have a little professionalism as well. Not much else to say here, she's looking good!
- Didn't realize my camera could actually take good closeups. Beyond this, you'll notice the filter material peering through the holes which will definitely help keep those pesky dust particles out. Moving along ...
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- If you took a look at the parts list, you would already know that this case holds 12 hard drives and here are those bays that will achieve that for you. I'm impressed by the design because I really didn't expect to get much for the price, but Rosewill really delivers here. There are two mechanical moving parts to each tray. We'll look at those in a second.
- Here's another quick look at the front cover (which pulls out and down). You will notice the filter material we saw previously. No word on how you would clean that out. I haven't tried yet. There is no obvious that I can see to remove that filter material.
- A front facing view of the bays again. As you can see there is a spring loaded armature that allows you to release the drive from it's resting position. I tested a sample drive to see how the fit was for the connectors - superb! You will have no problems as far as that goes.
- Here's a quick look at a single drive tray. I didn't realize how much dust I had in my basement.
- Take a look at this closeup of the front of a drive tray. Notice the rectangular latch in the middle. Don't make the mistake of pulling towards yourself. It's designed to be pushed downward. Pulling the latch towards you only puts pressure on the plastic and accomplishes nothing. Don't worry! - That piece doesn't bend!
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- This view of the bottom of a single drive tray shows the plastic "nub" that does not allow you to jam the tray into the chassis without FIRST pulling the armature towards you (thus, providing clearance for the tray to slide into place). These "nubs" provide a locking mechanism for each tray. If this piece was not present, the only force holding the drive into place would be the SATA and power connector on the backplane. So, there is a purpose here to this design.
- Included in the case is a box with accessories to outfit the system. You have 3 bags of SATA cables (I haven't checked whether they're 6GB/s or 3GB/s rated). If someone can come up with a quick way to find out what grade of cables these are, I would appreciate it. Then you have 4 bags of screws, 3 of what appear to be hard drive mounting screws and 1 being for the motherboard and any other internal components. You also have a small bag of backplates in case you need them. Lastly, you have a basic (and I mean basic) user manual (not pictures) that runs over a few things. Honestly, they could have saved some paper and not included it, but hey, I'm not complaining.
- A redundant shot of the bags of screws, just because.
- The front cover of this case has a slight air gap. I noticed it when I tried wedging my finger in between the cover and the case itself. There's a very slight (and I mean very slight) bit of play there. Ideally I like a clean seal. If you have a touch of O.C.D. like me, you'll seal that thing up with something. I'll probably forget about it after I finish typing this post - hopefully.
- It's the small things that count for me like the design element I'm about to talk about. The top cover of the case is held in place by 4 phillips screws. Once removed, you simply push the cover forward, and as if by magic, the man behind the curtain appears! There are no extra obstructions int he way, no fancy tamper locks, or poor cases designs to stop the case from just sliding right off.
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- As I mentioned, the top cover slides right off. In addition to this, the top cover is extremely solid and it's thick shell provides a very rugged design.
- A strengthening bar sits about half way between the front cover and the back of the chassis. On the back you have your two 120 mm fans with their accompanying molex connectors. On the floor of the case, you'll notice the standoffs for your motherboard. If I'm not mistaken, this case has standoffs for various form factors of motherboards already built in to the case (probably most cases are like this now-a-days, the last time I built a serious rig, they were not!).
- And finally we have the backplane with 12 SATA connectors and molex power. I'm assuming these molex are converted into SATA power (obviously). Hopefully these 120 mm fans last for a while. Only time will tell if they're sleeve-bearing or ball.
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- When the package arrived at my doorstep, I completely ignored the writing pictures here. Guess which side I opened (hint: you're looking at it). One negative of ordering from goHardDrive was I did not have the option of using FedEx (which I prefer). When the shipping lady dropped off the package, I don't think she even had any clue of what was in the package (not that they should). There was NO marking on the package that indicated this was to be handled with care. The last I would have expected would have been a label indicating force or shock was damaging to the contents. On top of that, when the shipping person set the package down (as a result of no sticker or label indicating handling), I heard a slight "thud" which made my stomach turn. You need to understand who this is coming from. I am overzealous when it comes to small details like this. I can't fault UPS for their handling of my order because there was no indication to them as to how to handle things. So far, I see no sign of damage to anything, so I am not going to pass judgement yet. These first two photos are upside down. That will be fixed later when I get around to it.
- Here is the correct side to open.
- Notice the 24 drive packaging carton. Take a look at the horizontal space between the top set of drives and the bottom. If you open a set of drives and you see this, you opened the wrong side. I just set this shot up so you could see how NOT to open a set of drives.
- This is the view you should see if you open this package up correctly. This one-piece top cover completes the two-piece hard drive carton packaging. The design of this packaging system for hard rives looks pretty good. I really wished the size of the packaging was much larger to provide much more flex and a buffer for abrupt movement. But, again, I can't fault UPS or goHardDrive for this. This container appears to be a standard way to ship things. This is more a commentary on the designers of this packaging system.
- Here's a top-down view of the hard drive packaging system. Notice it consist of two pieces, a bottom portion which contains three contact sides for each drive. Each groove seats a standard 3.5" drive very comfortably and there is almost no play in the design - very good. The top cove completes the fourth contact side and fits in perfectly like a puzzle piece. Once put together, you can easily and safely store 24 drives.
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- And, the money shot! ~$1,000 worth of drives all in one place. Most of the more seasoned storage veterans on this forum will most likely not get anything from this shot, but this is a first for me to acquire 12 of the same kind of drive all in one location.
- I find it interesting that Hitachi or goHardDrive is using Western Digital packaging for their drives. Not sure who is responsible for packaging the bare drive. But, interesting, right?
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