*Official* Norco data storage products thread

Hi guys... My Google-fu is failing me here - I'm swapping our home server across to a 4224 and am trying to buy a rack cabinet to fit it... I can see that the 4224 is 650mm long by the spec sheet but I can't find out whether that includes the handles at the front - will the 4224 fit in a 600mm deep rack cabinet? Space-wise I'd really like to avoid having to go an 800mm rack if possible.
 
brutalizer said:
I think the RM424 is the same Norco 4224, just using another name? Is this true?
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Pretty sure you are right. The video is from last year..

*edit*
Oh, sorry, the page wasn't loading for me at first, and I found an old xCase youtube video from last year. The "mini review" is from a couple of weeks ago. It does look a little different. Looks like it has the 3x 120mm by default and the hotswap cages look a little different.

*edit2* While the previous video seems very similar to the Norco rpc-4224 (and the new video, also looks similar) I am left wondering if it's a slightly customized version built for xCase. Nowhere in either video is it referred to as a Norco case. The URL does include the string "norco-rpc-4224-p". I also found this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0V4QIB4iBd8&feature=player_embedded, which appears similar to the rpc-4220, but this video was made in June. It would appear that it might be a version of the rpc-4220 made for xCase, though it would be nice to see these improvements on the Norco products.
 
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I emailed them and asked what are the differences between RM424 and Norco 4224 today.
Answer:
It is the same chassis, but 120mm fans.
 
Oh well that's lovely, I recently posted about the RPC-4224 being out of stock EVERYWHERE right? Well I finally got the funds together for my 2011 build and I wanted one as soon as possible, so I went with IPC Direct and ordered it and some accessories this past Wednesday.

Well, it's Friday and I still hadn't received my shipping information so I email Mike at IPC/Norco about my status and get this message back:

Hello,

RPC-4224 is temporarily out of stock, ETA is Oct 19. We'll ship your order once it is available. Sorry for the delay.
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Understandably, I'm pretty pissed! Not only do they not have ANY mention of them being out of stock on their website or product page, but they also charged my credit card for the full amount and never bothered to email me or call me.
 
Does anyone know where one could find some screws for 2.5" ssd, for a rpc-4224 drive caddy?
They seem to be the finer threaded ones...:confused:
 
Are there any new norco chassis models for 2012? No 36 disk chassi? Just like the 4224, but the server mobo is 2U, and under the mobo are 12 disk on the back of the chassi?
 
dave99 said:
Are the old rails any shorter than the new ones? I've figured out that the new rails won't fit in my rack, being a bit too deep front to back to bolt onto the vertical rails of the rack.
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No, the old rails are longer by at least an inch or two. The old rails also appear to extend further. I have side by side comparison pictures on my phone I'll try to get those uploaded

2011-10-02_17-42-40_177.jpg

2011-10-02_17-43-02_376.jpg
 
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nowwhatnapster said:
The old rails also appear to extend further.
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I've got two Norcos in my rack at home [one with the old rails, and one with the new], and that is exactly what pisses me off MOST about the new rails.

A few weeks ago I needed to add a second SAS card into the box, and the damn things don't extend far enough to actually let you get inside the chassis properly.

They're completely useless as "rails", the box might as well be bolted directly into the rack ...
 
I have a RPC-4224, could someone give me some advice/point me in the right direction, on how to mount this thing?
The lack of any sort of documentation for the included hardware really throws me off...:confused:
Im sure this is a pretty straight forward thing for most of you guys, but this is my first rackmount case... :(

I want to bolt mine directly to the rack...
 
The Norco 4224 backplanes are 6gbit/sec.

Next year there will be a new standard: 12gbit/sec. Can I change the backplanes on the 4224, to newer 12gbit/sec backplanes? Do I need to do that? I heard the backplanes are just pass-through, which means it doesnt matter if it is 6gbit disks or 12 gbit disks? So, what is the deal? Pass through, or not? Do I need to upgrade the backplanes to 12gbit/sec next year? Or no need to upgrade?
 
Are you already planning on upgrading your raid card and hard drives to 12gbit sas once they're available? What sort of usage are you using your NAS for that requires such bandwidth?
 
Neb said:
Are you already planning on upgrading your raid card and hard drives to 12gbit sas once they're available? What sort of usage are you using your NAS for that requires such bandwidth?
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No, I am just wondering. Can you upgrade the norco 4224 to 12gbit/sec? Or is it pass through so no upgrade is needed?
 
I read this pass through from an norco employee. Maybe he was a sales person and did not know.

Good to know about different backplanes though. So 3gbit has different back planes from 6gbit has different back planes from 12 gbit?

What do you mean with "SFF-8680 vs the current SFF-8482"? I thought the Norco 4224 back planes were SFF 8087??
 
young_einstein said:
A few weeks ago I needed to add a second SAS card into the box, and the damn things don't extend far enough to actually let you get inside the chassis properly.

They're completely useless as "rails", the box might as well be bolted directly into the rack ...
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Thanks for the clarification. When I ranted to Mike @ norco I did not mention the new rails didn't extend as far. I will send him a follow up email that he can forward to their brain dead product designers.
 
Can you guys post pics on where you have your servers racked? I'm interested in the residential applications and how well they look in a home office setting. I'm debating whether I should go the LackRack route, or get something like Norco's 4 post open rack.
 
Philmatic said:
Can you guys post pics on where you have your servers racked? I'm interested in the residential applications and how well they look in a home office setting. I'm debating whether I should go the LackRack route, or get something like Norco's 4 post open rack.
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http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1558382

I went for the fully enclosed route. 12u cabinet w/ sound dampening XRackPro2. Bought it on craigslist from a photography company that outgrew it. I have a RPC-4220 and a RPC-470 mounted in it. No complaints with the cabinet. Using it in my home office.
 
I went with a Skeletek rack. 12u of 4 post rack for servers, and 8 (iirc) of 2 post for smaller stuff. Can still expand if needed, but so far it fits my everyday + lab gear.

http://www.dantraknet.com/item/132

ETA: and doesn't work with 4220 +RL26, but works great with my Supermicro cases. My 4220 is sitting on the free shelf brackets from Skeletek (320lb capacity)
 
I ended up just putting my 4216 on a heavy duty shelf I already had in my rack. I should have sent the rails back since they suck so bad, but I'm not going to bother at this point.

I stuffed 3 of these panaflos in there in the 120mm fan plate:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835705004
That extra 18mm depth makes cabling pretty tight if you are using a full size E-ATX board like I am. I probably wouldn't recommend that unless you really need the extra airflow over the 25mm depth, or use right angle 8087 cables.

Surprisingly they weren't much louder than the 4 stock fans, but moved a ton more air. Dropped drive temps by 6C roughly on average.
 
Has anyone had any success in replacing the 80mm fans in the ss-500 enclosures? Looking for something quieter but similar flow, or cutting the backplate to fit a 92mm, or relocating the connectors and fitting a 120mm?

Dont want to cook the drives but I need a quieter solution.

Cheers
Paul
 
Everyone,

I would like for you guys to know that the RL-26 ball bearing rails will be one sale again (around 30 days from now). I wrote a nice letter to Mike over at Norco a couple of days ago and I guess somehow they were convinced that these new rails are a problem.

Here is what he wrote back (I am not going to show what I wrote):

Hi William,

We’re going to continue carrying ball bearing rails. It would be in stock 30 days later. You can pre-order at http://www.ipcdirect.net/servlet/Detail?no=314

Thanks and Regards,
Mike Wang
 
barbz said:
Has anyone had any success in replacing the 80mm fans in the ss-500 enclosures? Looking for something quieter but similar flow, or cutting the backplate to fit a 92mm, or relocating the connectors and fitting a 120mm?
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I installed a quiet 80mm fan in an SS-500 about 6-10 months ago. It currently only houses 2 7200RPM Samsung drives in a raid-1 array. I haven't paid a lot of attention to it, but so far, no issues with those disks. It's the newer style SS-500, where the fan is inside the aluminum housing, instead of hanging off the back.

I'm pretty sure I used a Nexus SP802512L-03. There's a slight chance that it was a Scythe S-FLEX SFF80C. I'd guess most quiet 80mm fans would work, as long as you aren't trying to cool a full set of 15k SAS drives.
 
Does anybody have a 4224 that they want to offload? Norco is still OOS and they won't replenish their stock until next weekend (Halloween). Shipping would be kill, but I still may be interested. I can also do a local pick up anywhere in the Northern California area (San Fransisco, Stockton, Sacramento).

EDIT: Nevermind, Norco finally shipped my RPC-4224.
 
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EnderW said:
anyone know if you can fit a 5 in 3 x 5.25 hard drive cage like this one in a 470/450?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817121405
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I do know that will not fit unless the drives are vertical, and that it does in fact take a little more room than some cases provide. Some towers have protruding mounting brackets between each of the three drive slots.
see grooves here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816215309

In my experience my antec p182 (using screw on drive rails) was able to fit one of these whether or not the bay had the grooves in the side.

If the case you speak of has these protrusions then they must be bent/cut, or else only use a 4 bay notched version.
 
EnderW said:
anyone know if you can fit a 5 in 3 x 5.25 hard drive cage like this one in a 470/450?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817121405
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I used this 4 in 1 hot swap unit in my RPC-470 until I could afford a RPC-4220. Its a tight fit, but it does fit and doesn't interfere with anything. I wasn't able to mount it using all the little metal mounting strips that the RPC-470 uses to mount the cages/drives, but 1 or two is enough to hold it in place.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816701005
 
I just got my 4216 today and it is awesome. What would make it significantly more awesome is if there were general mounting brackets for the 5.25 bays. It seems as they come by default you can only place CD/DVD drives in them. I would like a general bracket that just has a 5.25 size hole so I can put in things like a fan controller.
 
I've looked at these guys a few times (NewEgg likes to send me 'loyal customer' emails that knock these things down 10-20% all the time), so I'm familiar with at least the NewEgg line-up of JBOD chassis from Norco. In looking over this thread, I see the word "ZFS" mentioned more than a couple of times, so I wanted to interject something real fast.

You are setting yourself up for a very bad failure mode if you purchase ANY JBOD array from ANY vendor that utilizes SAS expanders and then put a SAS HBA in it to connect to the disks and then populate it with SATA drives. SATA behind SAS expanders is a ticking time bomb, in my experience, at least on OpenSolaris-derived platforms running ZFS.

At Nexenta, we no longer support the use of almost any SATA disk behind a SAS expander (there are a few exceptions to the rule for certain SSD's using interposers, etc, that have been thoroughly tested, but not a single spinning SATA disk do we certify for use behind SAS expanders anymore). Let me stress that I was there before (when we did allow this), went through the fun, and was one of the first within Nexenta to call for a general ban on the practice. We did not do this lightly. We did not do this in reaction to a one-time problem. You really do not want to do this.

There are things you can do to avoid it. At one point I almost pulled the trigger on purchasing one of the 4020's that has a separate port for each disk, as opposed to 8087 mini-SAS connectors (which by their nature pretty much mean you're flowing through an expander), but at the time NewEgg's review comments were full of people saying they'd received a 4220 instead, so I didn't risk the chance. Ironically you want the 'dumber' JBOD in this case, because a dedicated port per disk typically means the backplane isn't flowing through an expander.

The second part of the equation is your HBA. If you take in more than the number of dedicated paths it has, you're expanding. So for example if you go buy an LSI 9200-8i, that '8' means there's 8 dedicated SAS paths coming out the back (in the form of 2 mini-SAS ports). You can actually use this card without expanding, by purchasing 2 forward breakout 1-to-4 SAS cables. The downside is you just spent probably a bit too much coin on an HBA to only be able to plug in 8 actual drives to it. If you do this, you won't hit the "SATA over SAS" bug, as it has been coined, but again -- you limited yourself to 8 drives.

If you do purchase a JBOD full of SATA disks that at any point in going from their bays to your HBA's drop in number of cables below the number of disks, you're likely utilizing SAS expanding, and you may never have a problem, or you may suffer a very aggravating problem that will drive you mad trying to resolve. The typical scenario is one disk goes bad, but what you see from the OS level is errors being reported by every single drive on the same controller. I've seen "zpool status" responses showing 24 disks all with 1 million checksum errors and climbing, for example. Attempts to diagnose it will frustrate you no end, because identifying the bad disk will often prove nearly impossible. Because the problems can often cause reset storms, and the bus is basically completely loaded with bunk data, resets and errors flying around, data corruption CAN occur.

This is NOT a problem with SAS drives. That includes "nearline" SAS drives (I hate that term -- anything SAS is SAS, be it 7200 RPM or 15000 RPM). Unfortunately depending on your situation, this knowledge can be of no use.. I know myself, buying from home, there's nowhere I can go to get 7200 RPM SAS drives at anything even remotely comparable to SATA disks (but let's be clear here -- any large supplier CAN.. I've seen nearline SAS drives priced $4 more than their enterprise SATA counterparts -- the price delta on SMB retail sites is entirely price gouging, plain and simple, it is not due to some huge difference in cost of construction). If you are lucky enough to have the ability to get them in bulk from such a supplier, do so -- you'll barely spend more on the disks than their SATA equivalents and save yourself a lot of pain.

If you're stuck getting SATA disks -- go with a Norco or other vendor's JBOD array that provides a distinct SAS/SATA port for each disk in the front, and be sure that that cable goes all the way to an HBA without any combining (again, going into a 1->4 splitter into a mini-SAS port is perfectly OK.. a mini-SAS port is effectively 4 SAS ports in one). If you want more information on this problem, you can google "SATA over SAS" and so on, but be careful, there's a lot of misinformation out there. Part of the problem is the symptoms and resolutions vary nearly every time it crops up. This has a lot to do with the problem itself, and the fact that it's not 'one' problem, it's dozens.

The basic problem statement is this idea that SAS and SATA are just interchangeable technologies. They use the same cable and port, so that's right, right? Wrong. SAS developed out of SCSI -- SATA out of ATA. They are extremely different technologies. They don't even use the same VOLTAGES. SATA is a fairly 'dumb' protocol -- it doesn't have expanders, its error handling is weaker, it has no native support for multipath I/O, etc.

SAS is the far more mature and 'enterprise' grade of the two protocols. So how do SAS expanders and HBA's deal with you plugging in SATA disks? They use something called the "SATA Tunneled Protocol" or sometimes called "Serial Tunneling Protocol", or sometimes referred to as "Serial ATA Tunneling Protocol", and this is where it all goes south. Not being on the INCITS committee and not willing to spend $30 on a PDF, I am unfortunately not in the know at the moment on what EXACTLY is supposed to be the standard for STP, but either vendors are not implementing to the standard, or the standard is poor, because I've witnessed more systems go crazy because of a single "bad" SATA disk behind a SAS expander than I have digits and appendages in just the last year alone, and heard of at least 100. Far too many, and involving far too many different vendors, for it to be a simple issue.

Until it gets resolved, I can only stress not putting SATA disks behind SAS expanders, or if you do, keep backups (which is always good advice anyway). You may never have a problem; or you may have one after a day, a week, a year.. and once it starts, sometimes, honestly, the only fix is getting off the entire environment (seen that at least 5 times). I really wish there was a better answer or the problem would get resolved, but my personal opinion is the 'solution' is to get rid of SATA -- and this is where buyer's come in. If we can show the manufacturers we're no longer willing to accept the huge retail price disparity between a 7200 RPM SAS and a 7200 RPM SATA device, a price disparity we KNOW to have zero basis in cost disparity, then I would suspect SATA would disappear rapidly.

I'm sure there will be some people who go "but I have this with XYZ RAID card and never see issues", in fact many RAID cards are hiding this from you, and have often spent considerable cycles internally updating their firmware to deal with various issues associated with this.. or they'll say "but I have this now, SATA over SAS to a SAS HBA with expanders, and it has no problems" - again, not uncommon. But much like Russian roulette, even if the gun was a 6-shooter with a single bullet, would you REALLY put it to your head and give it a go? Not me. ;)

In the end it is of course your decision -- but if you do put a significant number of SATA disks behind a SAS expander, do not be surprised when at some point in the future your entire array suddenly goes nuts.. and pray that when it does, you have some means of determining which singular drive actually broke.
 
Nex7 said:
There are things you can do to avoid it. At one point I almost pulled the trigger on purchasing one of the 4020's that has a separate port for each disk, as opposed to 8087 mini-SAS connectors (which by their nature pretty much mean you're flowing through an expander), but at the time NewEgg's review comments were full of people saying they'd received a 4220 instead, so I didn't risk the chance. Ironically you want the 'dumber' JBOD in this case, because a dedicated port per disk typically means the backplane isn't flowing through an expander.
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I don't think there's an expander in the backplane of the 4220's - they are just being used to bundle 4 SATA cables together, not to provide any switching - it's just a cabling convienence. (i.e. you still need one HBA port per disk).

Norco%20RPC-4220-5.JPG


You mentioned this later in your post:

The second part of the equation is your HBA. If you take in more than the number of dedicated paths it has, you're expanding. So for example if you go buy an LSI 9200-8i, that '8' means there's 8 dedicated SAS paths coming out the back (in the form of 2 mini-SAS ports). You can actually use this card without expanding, by purchasing 2 forward breakout 1-to-4 SAS cables. The downside is you just spent probably a bit too much coin on an HBA to only be able to plug in 8 actual drives to it. If you do this, you won't hit the "SATA over SAS" bug, as it has been coined, but again -- you limited yourself to 8 drives.
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But I just wanted to call this out as from the first portion of your post you made it sound like the 4220 actually had a built in expander, at it doesn't. Most of the people I see using expanders on these forums are doing it with Areca, etc. raid cards (more expensive). For ZFS type setups the extra ports are actually pretty cheap - the IBM M1015 cross-flashed to a 9211-8i IT firmware - is probably one of the more popular setups currently (or if you don't need > 2TB support the 1068e chipset on a IBM BR10i. They former is ~50-75 used/refurb, and the latter 30-50 used/refurb. So generally cheaper than a quality expander until you really scale out.

Obviously ebaying this stuff isn't what you would typically do as a business, or something a company would generally support - I'm just hitting the "hobbyist" type market.

Anyway, point wasn't to really disagree with your post - it was excellent, and very informative - it was just to expound on implications of a very specific configuration which I don't think were clear (and happen to be a more popular configuration).
 
TheGreySpectre said:
I just got my 4216 today and it is awesome. What would make it significantly more awesome is if there were general mounting brackets for the 5.25 bays. It seems as they come by default you can only place CD/DVD drives in them. I would like a general bracket that just has a 5.25 size hole so I can put in things like a fan controller.
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Hmm, norco mike sent me an email january 6th saying that had changed their design on the 4216 to be generic 5.25 blanks, after I had emailed him last fall about the issue. I had the same complaint when I bought mine last year, I had planned on using a 4x2.5 cage in one of the spots and it obviously wouldn't fit. :mad:

You might want to check with them to see if you got the older model, or perhaps their redesign didn't really fix the problem, it's hard to tell from the pics on their site.
 
Thanks for naming the SAS-SATA problems, Nex7.

Regarding the 4216, how did they exactly change the 5.25 slots? The old design was *really* bad.
 
@ChrisBenn:

Hopefully not derailing the thread, but I've never seen a picture of that part of the 4220, so I was indeed assuming that (based on some NewEgg review comments) it had built-in expanding going on (20 drives in the front, one or maybe two mini-SAS ports coming out of an expander backplane), not 4 separate backplanes talking to only 4 disks. Is each of thsoe PCB's there a mini-SAS port on the back and exactly 4 disks in front? If so, I suppose it is indeed plausible it's not expanding, and that would most definitely make the 4220 potentially safe for the problem I described (and I would probably buy one :)).
 
Nex7 said:
@ChrisBenn:

Hopefully not derailing the thread, but I've never seen a picture of that part of the 4220, so I was indeed assuming that (based on some NewEgg review comments) it had built-in expanding going on (20 drives in the front, one or maybe two mini-SAS ports coming out of an expander backplane), not 4 separate backplanes talking to only 4 disks. Is each of thsoe PCB's there a mini-SAS port on the back and exactly 4 disks in front? If so, I suppose it is indeed plausible it's not expanding, and that would most definitely make the 4220 potentially safe for the problem I described (and I would probably buy one :)).
Click to expand...

Nex7,
Based on the pics & reviews of the 4220 & 4224 I've seen there is a SFF-8087 connector for each backplane & each backplane only supports 4 drives.
 
Well then assuming they aren't for reasons unknown throwing in an expander anyway (I can't imagine why they would, it'd be adding expense for no gain), I stand corrected at least in terms of the 4220/4224! Now how do I convince the wife I need a 24-bay disk shelf running full blast 15 feet from her desk, and the budget to fill it with drives..
 
Nex7 said:
Well then assuming they aren't for reasons unknown throwing in an expander anyway (I can't imagine why they would, it'd be adding expense for no gain), I stand corrected at least in terms of the 4220/4224! Now how do I convince the wife I need a 24-bay disk shelf running full blast 15 feet from her desk, and the budget to fill it with drives..
Click to expand...

When you figure that out, let me know. Although mine would have to use multiple SATA expanders (6 total).
 
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