Need help picking a 5x3 hard drive cage.

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Egomaniacal1

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I'm trying to finish up buying parts for my server and i see there are as few options for the hard drive enclosure.

I found a decent review of 4 different cages(The Icy Dock MB455SFP-B, the Norco SS-500, the SuperMicro CSE-M35T-1 and the iStarUSA BPU-350) here:

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=12405.0



I have a Supermicro board so was leaning to go with the CSE-M35T-1 but figured i'd ask around here first since i'm sure some of you all have personal experience with these things.

The cages will be going into a Lian Li cube case 343b.

Oh and also a sidenote, where should i buy WHS for a good price?
 
I pretty much did the exact same thing you're doing, same case and everything, I wasn't too impressed with the istars when I was doing my research so I went with the supermicro cages. There's 2 versions a SAS and a SATA version, I got the SAS.

Only thing with the SM cages is the fans are really deep really high RPM 92mm fans and really noisy, I took them out and replaced them with some high efficiency low noise scythe s-flexes, drives still stay pleanty cool, barely above ambient, and they're like 20dB quieter.

As a note to that review, while the SM cage doesn't have a power on LED, it does have a red failure LED that you may see flicker once or twice while you're booting up
 
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Sounds good! Does the SAS version of the supermicro cage have one SAS port and one Sata port? Also what didn't u like about the iStar cage(s)?
 
I have 2 SS-500s, so far I've installed one in a Rosewill RSV-L4000. I think I ended up flipping the guts of the enclosure upside down within the aluminum housing. To make it so that when the guts were right side up, the enclosure matched the location of the screw-less rails of the Rosewill case. The enclosure seemed well built, both inside and out.

I think I paid $75-80 each for them. I purchased them mainly because they use the same trays as the Norco rackmount cases(RPC-4220/4224/etc). The idea is to have servers in the Norco cases, and workstations in the Rosewill cases. With the ability to easily swap disks between all of them.

The default fan was fast/loud/whiney. I replaced it with a quiet(Nexus?) fan. As I recall swapping the fans was painless, undo a few screws from the back, unplug the old fan from a 3 pin header, plug in the new one, and reassemble.

It did come with a bag of screws suitable for mounting 3.5" drives in the trays. If you need to mount any 2.5" drives, you'll need some M3 screws with thin heads. Supermicro Part # MCP-410-00006-0N works well.


I also have a Lian Li EX-34H, which I've had no trouble with. It's less dense, but it mounts the drives in their "normal" orientation, in desktop cases. Though supposedly orientation hasn't mattered for drives manufactured in the last 10-15 years.
 
Thanks for the info, i'm curious do u have a worklog for the setup u used? I'm wondering how you installed the OS drive if i assume u populated all the bays with data drives.... or maybe u didn't.
 
I stuck two of these on the right side in the back above the PSU. Gives a total of 36 total drive slots, and with a 8 channel raid card and a 32 channel HP expander it's about perfect.
 
-Dragon- said:
I pretty much did the exact same thing you're doing, same case and everything, I wasn't too impressed with the istars when I was doing my research so I went with the supermicro cages. There's 2 versions a SAS and a SATA version, I got the SAS.

Only thing with the SM cages is the fans are really deep really high RPM 92mm fans and really noisy, I took them out and replaced them with some high efficiency low noise scythe s-flexes, drives still stay pleanty cool, barely above ambient, and they're like 20dB quieter.

As a note to that review, while the SM cage doesn't have a power on LED, it does have a red failure LED that you may see flicker once or twice while you're booting up
Click to expand...

So those iStars... if you are talking about the trayless ones (see here) then I would pass. That tray-less model is basically rebranded sometimes with different color doors but the fans are the same. I have two that fail to power on drives and one where a fan died. They are also fairly loud.
 
I recommend Supermicro, but if you go this route consider swapping out the stock 92mm fan for something quieter that still pulls a lot of air (Scythe products work well).

I would also recommend not going with ICY Dock. I'm not sure if they changed their design in the past 2 years, but I'm doubtful. Fans on their older units could only be replaced with ICY Dock replacement fans (forces you to use ICY Dock replacements) and I also found that the ICY Dock 5x3 units exhibited much hotter temperatures on the left two bays that were not directly in front of the fan. This is a real problem if your drives run hot and your server does not receive adequate ventilation.
 
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They're all close enough in price that you shouldn't even be looking at that really. Just read that original article and the guys opinion on build quality for the supermicro: "It is a server class unit and you can tell."

Personally I feel I fell into a trap that a lot of first time "home server" builders seem to fall into around here, the belief that since it's "just" a home server, you can cobble it together with spare parts or some cheap consumer or even enthusiast parts, no need to spend a couple bucks extra for real server parts. That is until that box that you haven't physically touched or even remoted into for 6 months goes down one friday night and you realize just how much you actually use it and you're stuck until the next tuesday or wedensday waiting for parts to arive. Then you're wishing you had shelled out a few more bucks for serious server parts because your home server was actually running your home.

TL;DR you'll do it right eventually, better the first time than the second or third.
 
I think i will go with the Supermicro cage then....still not sure what the physical difference is between the SAS and SATA version. I have very limited knowledge on SAS other than it puts 4 channels into one, or needs breakout cable reverse and forward depending on which way the cabling and ports are oriented.

I have the Supermicro board with 2 SAS ports on it and 6 SATA. Thats 8 via SAS plus 6 SATA to make 14 drives out the board and then i need a raid card or HP expander to get to 30+ drives right? Which is recommeneded?

Thanks for the Scythe recommendation 1010! Read alot of good things online about them so still trying to narrow down between the various Scythe models.

This server is strictly going to be for video, music, ebooks/comics and pictures...so i think i'll go Raid 6. Still curious as to where to buy WHS? I see the old version is still preferred over the new?
 
Egomaniacal1 said:
I think i will go with the Supermicro cage then....still not sure what the physical difference is between the SAS and SATA version. I have very limited knowledge on SAS other than it puts 4 channels into one, or needs breakout cable reverse and forward depending on which way the cabling and ports are oriented.

I have the Supermicro board with 2 SAS ports on it and 6 SATA. Thats 8 via SAS plus 6 SATA to make 14 drives out the board and then i need a raid card or HP expander to get to 30+ drives right? Which is recommeneded?

Thanks for the Scythe recommendation 1010! Read alot of good things online about them so still trying to narrow down between the various Scythe models.

This server is strictly going to be for video, music, ebooks/comics and pictures...so i think i'll go Raid 6. Still curious as to where to buy WHS? I see the old version is still preferred over the new?
Click to expand...

Sorry, I should have listed the Supermicro unit uses 92mm (x25mm) fans.

The Scythe model I purchased is listed below ( low RPM = low noise, but the fan design pulls plenty of air 29.7CFM, it's been working great the past couple of years). Scythe might have discontinued this model (Petra's and Newegg are out of stock). I chose You also need to make sure the fan you purchase has the same pinout used by the stock supermicro fans. I grabbed mine from Petra's Tech Shop.



92mm Sythe KAMA-FLEX SA0925FDB12L (1600RPM, 29.7CFM, 19.7 dBA)
http://www.petrastechshop.com/sckasafan2cf.html
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835185066


You might still be able to buy this fan from Jab-Tech or directly from Scythe
http://www.jab-tech.com/Scythe-KAMA-FLEX-92-mm-Silent-Case-Fan-Low-Speed-SA0925FDB12L-pr-4106.html
http://www.scythe-usa.com/product/acc/031/sa0925fdb12_detail.html


Petra's has other 92x25mm fans listed here.
http://www.petrastechshop.com/92x25mmfans.html
 
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