*Official* Norco data storage products thread

Forgive me if this is a stupid question, but what on earth is that little brown thing just above the CPU in your photos?
 
A few notes from my build:
  • The disk powered green LED is perfect brightness.
  • The disk activity blue LED is fast acting, but dim.
  • Three good (68.54 CFM @ 24 dB(A) 1200rpm Slipstream) with nothing in the back should be enough for most green disk loads. The flow out with this setup is quite impressive. I'll graph it to be sure.
  • Rattles are hard to find and can happen on any metal to metal contact. Bathroom cawk is our firend.
  • Fans tightened enough to warp will make a noise.
  • WD black disks are louder than Slipstream fans.
  • This build has met its mission of holding more disks, quite, and cooler than the last theory.

Most disk trays have little springs on the sides to stop rattling (my old 5in1 didn't and rattled badly, axle grease was my friend)

ibm-server-drive-rails.jpg

supermicro_sled.jpg


Norco "could" rattle because they wiggle in the slot, but I admit I haven't experienced it. Anyway, its easy to add four spring steel loops on the side.

 
@picker: nice job!

One quick question though, are you running all 24 drives of a single power connection???

In the first picture in post #161 it looks like you have a 1 to 7 power adapter and all backplanes are connected via a single power feed?!? Although in the last picture in the same post it looks like you may have hooked up some additional power connections from the power supply to the backplanes?!?
 
The PS has 5 drive molex feeds, I use them all to maximize copper to backplane.

sweloop64 is correct, graphs from smart, a line for each disk.

I'll be ordering the Norco 120mm midplane, less holes than mine.

the brown/gold thing is a south bridge cooler (xmas gift)

> X8SIL-F+x3440
that's a nice setup novadude! I showed you mine, now show me yours :)

I run this in the background and excel graph the output.

Code:
#!/bin/sh

while [ 0 ] ; do
  /usr/ucb/echo -n `date +%k:%M`
  hdadm display | awk '{
if ($6 == "0K05") printf " " $7
}'
  echo
  sleep 60
done
 
There is a small amount of airflow without the rear fans on, but not as much as I would like, or expect.
I've noticed that those rear fans seem to be pulling air into the case through the rear vent and pci slots so those are covered for now (enough pressure that it will hold a sheet of paper to the vent/covers).
The rear fans are running currently.

As for my setup, currently running a 5 drive raidz as a temporary dump before moving the 8x 2tb hitachi's over from my windows workstation for the final pool. What actually surprised me most about the transfer speeds is that that's using the onboard Marvell Yukon 88E8053 lan on my DFI X58 board with a few hops and no tuning on the windows 7 box or the nexenta box. The last time I tried a separate server it took a few hours finding my way through linux network tuning to get things near that speed with two Intel network cards, but I don't even have jumbo frames enabled on this setup and I'm getting the same/better speeds.
I had to go to nexentastor though because I couldn't get the new nexenta release to create shares. I guess they changed enough that solaris commands aren't always recognized.
 


Code:
                  Old case   New 4224
Rise during scrub  3°           2°
Delta T            6°          ~5°
Max T             48°          42°
Resting Max T     45°          40°

So with 5 120mm 1200rpm Slipstreams there is an overall reduction and increased control for the 10 black disk. The new green spare is at least 5° cooler than the black drives too. I can hear the air seperate from the 3 inner fans when I put a cover over the backplane to midplane so there is a slight deltaP issue. We do have a max operating of 60° we could decrease the flow and take advantage of the delta from ambient. naaa.
 
fan.gif


The first hr is steady state with all five 1200rpm slipstream fans. The second hr has the case top covering the mid plane and back plane to simulate no rear fans. The third hr is with no case top. and the last two hrs are with the case top replaced. It looks like one needs to run each state for longer than an hr, (looking at the scrub graph, perhaps 5hrs) but it give us an idea on fan options.
 
Does anyone know if the RPC-4224 supports EATX motherboards? I'm about ready to pull the trigger on a X8DTH-6F

Anyway, its easy to add four spring steel loops on the side.

Where did you get your spring/loops?
 
Can somebody school me real quick on the Norco 4020 noise? from what I take it the stock fans are very loud and people replace them with quieter ones? what is the reason for the 120MM fan upgrade, is it just to push more air?
 
The 120 mm fans seem to be only for noise reduction. If you look back at some of my previous posts in this thread you will see I have asked several times and didn't really get any responses. This leads me to believe that people who get the 120 mm fan bracket are mostly interested in noise.
 
Check out my post here. I was able to take my 4020 down a fair amount noise-wise with 80mm fans, it now sounds similar to my gaming rig - an i5-750/260GTX in a Silverstone SG-01 on my desk.

I'm still waiting on my pre-ordered 120mm bracket and will swap it in when it arrives. I'll update that post with results.
 
What's the shortest SFF-8087 cable you guys have come across for your cases? The main ones I see are all like a food and a half. I wouldn't mind spending a little more for less length/better cable management
 
I have a couple that are 8-9". Bit better than the 18" ones for going between the HBA and SAS expander. Don't remember where I got them though.
 
What's the shortest SFF-8087 cable you guys have come across for your cases? The main ones I see are all like a food and a half. I wouldn't mind spending a little more for less length/better cable management

18" / 0.5m
 
Before I buy this motherboard (ASUS Z8PE-D18) I need to know if it will fit in the RPC-4224 case. The specs for the MB say its "SSI EEB 3.61" / 12.0" x 13.0".

Does anyone know if the Norco 4U chassis support the SSI EEB 3.61 standard?

Thanks
 
Can somebody school me real quick on the Norco 4020 noise? from what I take it the stock fans are very loud and people replace them with quieter ones? what is the reason for the 120MM fan upgrade, is it just to push more air?

The 120mm fan replacement is all about noise reduction. You can certainly reduce noise in the chassis by simply replacing the existing 80mm fans with low noise fans, but you run into the problem that cooling 20-24 drives really does require a fair amount of airflow and the low noise fans just don't move anywhere near as much air as the high-performance (but noisy as a jet engine) stock fans that Norco uses.

120mm fans are a compromise. Without getting into details about why, you can move a lot more air using 3 quiet 120mm fans than you can with 5 quiet 80mm fans. Its still not anywhere near as much air as with Norco's fans, but with some care 3x120mm fans can move enough air to cool the drives under typical "home power user" loads without going deaf.
 
I've got a 4224 and the 120mm fan board on the way at this point. What should I be looking for in a 120mm fan to cool a case full of 5400 rpm drives? I don't expect silence, but quiet is certainly important. Also, any suggestions for the 80mm fans on the back would be great too.
 
So I'm currently having a tough decision on replacement case fans; My current thoughts are:

1xNoctua NH-U9B SE2
2xNoctua NF-R8 80mm (For back)
3x Noctua NF-S12B-FLX - 600, 900 & 1200RPM (For HDD Fans)

I've read a million reviews on the comparison between the NF-P12 and NF-S12B but cannot find that reviews them solely as HDD cooling fans.

Thoughts?
 
Speaking of fans, what kind of CPU fans are you guys using? Right now, I just have a BXSTS100A on my L5630 in my RPC-4224. I haven't powered it up yet (waiting on a new PSU), but I'm assuming it's not as quiet as other fans might be. Seeing as how the CPU is low powered (40w), I'm sure I could get by with something not so noisy. Any suggestions?

FYI: I plan on switching over to the 120mm fan bracket with some R4-C2R-20AC-GPs, in case that helps suggestions
 
I've been using the Zalman tower coolers in mine. Seem to fit and work rather well, but I'm not sure if they have adapters to use with dual 1366 boards.
 
Take a look at this for Xeon 1366 CPUs & MBs.

Damn, that looks nice. I might have to pick that up if the Intel is too loud... or just because it looks so sexy

Anyone get their 120mm fan bracket yet? I ordered mine the other day. Hopefully it comes next week with my fans and PSU so I can finally turn this beast on
 
^ according to Norco the 120mm brackets are within a container shipment en route from the port to their warehouse and they'll begin shipping early next week.
 
Any word on an Expander version of the 4224?

my impression is its back burner for now because Norco hasn't been able to find a hardware partner to produce an expander PCB for them. they seemed to prefer the idea of a PCIe card approach - like the HP SAS Expander - so they could sell it standalone. I suggested they consider designing a backplane with an integrated expander chip since they could set their cases apart from the competition rather than trying to sell low-margin standalone expanders. i'd definitely pay a premium for a case with integrated expander over the sum cost of both parts standalone. and less cable clutter.
 
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I'd design the backplane for them, it would be a nice little side project. The only problem for me right now is that I am way to busy with my own work :(
 
Does anyone know if it's possible to replace the 3116 backplanes with backplanes from the 3216? And if possible who to contact? I tried tapping Norco but a week in and no response to my email.
 
they seemed to prefer the idea of a PCIe card approach - like the HP SAS Expander - so they could sell it standalone. I suggested they consider designing a backplane with an integrated expander chip since they could set their cases apart from the competition rather than trying to sell low-margin standalone expanders. i'd definitely pay a premium for a case with integrated expander over the sum cost of both parts standalone. and less cable clutter.

Instead of two separate SKUs for each case, what they should do is create one SKU that has an add-in slot where you could install a Norco branded expander. That way no one has to pay a premium if they don't want to, and those that do purchase the add-on expander get the benefit of it being like an all-in-one solution. Plus Norco doesn't have to worry about figuring out how many of X and how many of Y to make

The only downside would be for Norco, as they couldn't sell it to customers of previous created cases. I guess they could design one for older models, as they do have plenty of room. Maybe a replacement fan bracket with super short SFF-8087 cables? Or a something on the side wall. ANYTHING but a PCIe card

If they do use my ideas and make anything as such, all I ask is for a few of them :D
 
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