*Official* Norco data storage products thread

Considering that it costs more than $1 to fabricate this bracket (not to mention the transportation, administration, warehousing, distribution cost, etc.), I think this is an absolute bargain even if it would cost $10 + $15 for shipping it would still be a bargain!

I hand crafted my own 120mm fanboard using a piece of lexan and several hours of my time. I would have gladly paid cavediver's $65 if he hadn't been sold out when I needed it. The time alone was worth $hundreds. Norco's price is a steal.
 
Seeing as cavediver's fan board costed me $65 including shipping, I'd say it's a bargain even at twice the price! :)

Seriously, I don't get how someone can complain about a bracket for a server case when its $20 out the door. Then again there are plenty of people that complain $350 for a Norco case is too much and why isn't it cheaper. If Norco had never come along with their cases we'd be looking at $1100 Supermicro cases, or worse tower cases with those 4-in-3 drive modules - I shudder at that thought..
 
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Anyone complaining about a $350 Norco case obviously hasn't had to suck it up and buy the $1100 Supermicro case ;)
 
I don't think the price is bad, but as someone who is looking to buy a 4224 in the near future, I would prefer to have it come with the 120mm bracket. I thought that was what Norco was planning, but now it looks like they are going to keep shipping with the 80mm bracket. Disappointing, but I'll get over it. ;)
 
That doesn't mean everyone wants a 120mm -- because not everyone is using these for home media storage where low noise is paramount. Plenty of people buy them for server rooms I imagine, where noise is less of a concern and you want fan hot-swappability, and maybe Norco also thought that static pressure with the provided 80mm fans would be superior. It was unclear to me why they decided to standardize on 80mm again but I guess I can see both sides of it.
 
I'm not trying to say its not a good deal in general but when I want to buy 5 of them and the shipping is 47 dollars when they will probably just box all of them together in a pack is kinda high.. I'm trying to save as much as possible since i'm trying to get really nice quiet fans that give a good cfm for low db.. I've never complained about the price of norco cases.. I'm not stupid I know a good deal when I see them hence why all the servers i built for work are norco case servers.. But its hard to justify to your boss that you wanna change all 5 servers from 80's to 120's when it comes to price.. He doesn't have to listen to the servers so he doesn't care. So I am trying to make it as cheap as possible to present it him so I'll get approval.. The next 3 servers I'm building in January use the new norco cases with the HP sas expanders.. I wouldn't have a problem shoveling money if its my own money but convincing companies to alter servers after they are in production can be difficult unless you can show them benefits and easy cost..
 
If they're multiplying the shipping then I'd agree - that's ridiculous. Let me email them and ask why they're doing that.
 
I got it resolved with them today.. They have a bug in their shipping calculator system. Its actually only 10 dollars to ship 5 of them ^^; So ordering we go..
 
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quick question:
I have the Areca 1880ix and I`m wondering if the sas backplane supports full 6G speed? (either 4220 or 4224)
 
quick question:
I have the Areca 1880ix and I`m wondering if the sas backplane supports full 6G speed? (either 4220 or 4224)
Yes, the backplane has no logic, so it's just a direct connection to the drives and it has no bearing on speed.
 
I just fired up my 4224 for the first time. Honestly I broke out in laughter at the absurd noise coming from this thing! I was expecting it to be loud but.... this is ridiculous. It sounds crazy. It seems to be the two fans in the back that are the main culprits. Could someone recommend some replacements that still get the job done? I have the case in my basement so I'm not as concerned about noise as many people seem to be but I do want to appease the banshee howling away down there. Honestly this is just preposterous. It's embarrassing. People are going to come over and think I'm conducting evil experiments in the basement.
 
lol come on it's not that bad, you should hear the supermicro 24 bay case
 
I just fired up my 4224 for the first time. Honestly I broke out in laughter at the absurd noise coming from this thing! I was expecting it to be loud but.... this is ridiculous. It sounds crazy. It seems to be the two fans in the back that are the main culprits. Could someone recommend some replacements that still get the job done? I have the case in my basement so I'm not as concerned about noise as many people seem to be but I do want to appease the banshee howling away down there. Honestly this is just preposterous. It's embarrassing. People are going to come over and think I'm conducting evil experiments in the basement.

If the 4224 is using the same fans as my 4220, it's most definitely *not* the rear fans that are the problem, it's the 5 screamers behind the hard drive bays. The rear fans are loud by desktop PC standards for sure, but nothing like the wear-ear-protection insanity going on in the front of the case.

I'm currently running my 4220 with nothing but the rear fans and PSU fan. The middle fan board is gone entirely. I covered most of the vent holes in the rear of the case with duct tape so the HD bays are cooled strictly by negative pressure generated at the rear of the case. So far all my drives (mostly WD greens) are running in the 30's and low 40's , but I don't have the 4220 fully populated yet. This would probably not be sufficient for a 4224 packed with hot drives.
 
I just fired up my 4224 for the first time. Honestly I broke out in laughter at the absurd noise coming from this thing! I was expecting it to be loud but.... this is ridiculous. It sounds crazy. It seems to be the two fans in the back that are the main culprits. Could someone recommend some replacements that still get the job done? I have the case in my basement so I'm not as concerned about noise as many people seem to be but I do want to appease the banshee howling away down there. Honestly this is just preposterous. It's embarrassing. People are going to come over and think I'm conducting evil experiments in the basement.

Realize that the rear delta screamers on the 4224 were put there with server rooms in mind, but yeah I went through the same thing.

I've done some testing on this issue recently because the exhaust fans are *very* important especially with a fully loaded case with 24 drives, and I went through trying several other 80mm fans for noise reasons, but none of them pulled enough air to make it comfortable for the CPU without heat pooling in the middle of the case due to the rack of drives in the front.

Then I went back to the original delta's, BUT I put a fan controller on each one. WIN. I went and reinstalled the original rear delta's on all three of my RPC-4224's, and just by slowing the rotation down about 25%, noise is no worse than some of the cheaper 80mm's I tried but they pull a LOT more air, and no more excessive heat pooling inside the case - I see the difference in CPU temp. Also, the collective heat output from these cases is much more noticeable when sitting near them, which makes it obvious the slowed down delta's are doing a much better job than the Masscool 80mm's I'd had in there prior.
 
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Could you recommend a good fan controller? And you say you have a controller on each fan? I though fan controllers were for multiple fans.
 
Personally, I just 7-volt modded the fans and that cut down on noise substantially. My 4220 is sitting in my office and is by no means quiet, but at least I can't hear it running in the next room when the door is closed. I have the unit 1/2 full with drives (mixture of green and older 7200 rpm drives) and they are all running low 30's as far as temperature goes.
 
Could you recommend a good fan controller? And you say you have a controller on each fan? I though fan controllers were for multiple fans.

well there's different types of fan controllers, maybe you're thinking of the ones that take up a 5.25" bay on a PC tower case and have knobs for multiple fans, but I'm just talking about something like a Zalman Fan Mate 2. They're around $8 each, but I got lucky and found a bulk of generic ones on ebay.

You might be able to get away with one Zalman Fan Mate 2 for both delta's, but the heatsink inside the controller heats up a lot with two fans and I didn't want to risk ruining it, so I went with one controller per fan.

Search "fan speed controller" on newegg, amazon, ebay, etc.
 
I just fired up my 4224 for the first time. Honestly I broke out in laughter at the absurd noise coming from this thing! I was expecting it to be loud but.... this is ridiculous. It sounds crazy. It seems to be the two fans in the back that are the main culprits. Could someone recommend some replacements that still get the job done? I have the case in my basement so I'm not as concerned about noise as many people seem to be but I do want to appease the banshee howling away down there. Honestly this is just preposterous. It's embarrassing. People are going to come over and think I'm conducting evil experiments in the basement.

Yeah I was surprised but not that surprised at how loud my 4220 was. I thought I would be able to get away with it in my spare bedroom with the door closed but I could even hear it when I moved it into the closet.

It really makes me wish a company would look into making a version more for the home user though I realize 20+ drives is overkill for most homes. I don't even need the rackmount form factor. I just wanted something that held a bunch of drives while allowing easy swaps and additions that didn't break the bank.
 
well there's different types of fan controllers, maybe you're thinking of the ones that take up a 5.25" bay on a PC tower case and have knobs for multiple fans, but I'm just talking about something like a Zalman Fan Mate 2. They're around $8 each, but I got lucky and found a bulk of generic ones on ebay.

You might be able to get away with one Zalman Fan Mate 2 for both delta's, but the heatsink inside the controller heats up a lot with two fans and I didn't want to risk ruining it, so I went with one controller per fan.

Search "fan speed controller" on newegg, amazon, ebay, etc.

Thanks for the tip. I ordered two of them along with some Y molex adapters to get power to the other back planes my PSU can't accommodate. Until they arrive I'm not going to be able to have the girl come over. She'd be irked by this insanity. Damn fans are cock blocking me.

I've been in data centers before and never heard this particular frequency from fans. It really is quite weird.
 
I just fired up my 4224 for the first time. Honestly I broke out in laughter at the absurd noise coming from this thing! I was expecting it to be loud but.... this is ridiculous. It sounds crazy. It seems to be the two fans in the back that are the main culprits. Could someone recommend some replacements that still get the job done? I have the case in my basement so I'm not as concerned about noise as many people seem to be but I do want to appease the banshee howling away down there. Honestly this is just preposterous. It's embarrassing. People are going to come over and think I'm conducting evil experiments in the basement.

LOL I know what you mean, but you should come over to my place and listen to the Chenbro RM91250... It's got 8 x 80mm Delta and 2 x 120mm Delta fans in it... Now that is LOUD!

I would second odditory's suggestion. It's better to keep the original fans and slow them down to bring the noise level down but still have the ability to crank them up if ever needed to remove more heat than replacing them with quiet fans that don't even come anywhere close to moving the same amount of air!
 
I have the Norco 4020 ordered in November 2008, I'm guessing the 120mm fan bracket from Norco won't work for me, as it says 4020 (new version)?

Previously I didn't spend much time in the Room the 4020 was in, but now I'm in there more and I'm looking to reduce the noise. The case is completely filled with Drives.

What would the easiest / least time consuming way be to reduce the noise?

Thanks.
 
Rent space at a colocation facility and send your computer there.

This isn't very helpful.

There are two issues in keeping a given piece of hardware cool. One is ambient temp, and the other is airflow.

The amount of airflow (and this tends to be correlated to noise) determines the delta temp between the system temp and ambient temp. That is, infinite airflow would still not get you better than ambient temp.

If you have the server located in a relatively cold room, then the level of airflow needed will typically be a lot lower to main a target temp below the ambient temp. If the room is very warm, then you'll want to reduce as much of the delta between the target temp and the ambient temp, usually by usuing high airflow cooling.

So if you don't like the noise, can you vent the server's location in a way that outside temp (which would be cooler) can feed the server? I have seen some people take closets and convert them so they can hold a rack, and then push air from the subfloor under the house into the rack so that the rack wasn't being fed by heated interior air. Then this would be vented with a exhaust fan to the outside so the rack operates in a different temp zone than people do.

There are not too many choices here if the ambient temp is relatively high. Best is to relocate the server to the garage or other location that has a lower ambient temp or away from people so the noise is not noticeable.

I have my gear in APC racks in the garage with fans that howl, but no one cares in there.
 
Thanks for your response mikesm.

As I'm in an apartment, I can't move it to a garage unfortunately! I was considering getting a Rack setup in the office, but wouldn't be able to vent it outside, I wonder if I would hear any noticeable difference if I setup a rack with doors and it's own fan system.

I'll also look into those fan controllers odditory mentioned.

Thanks again.
 
This isn't very helpful.

Actually, it was an accurate answer to the question about the easiest and least time consuming way to reduce noise. It is only not helpful if the question was poorly posed, and you assume you know what the questioner meant to ask. Which could be the case, but the best way to fix that is to pose a better question. For example, what is the budget, in time and money? Also some clarification on what the poster considers easy and hard would be helpful. For instance, is drilling some holes easy or hard? Depends on the person.
 
Nisemono,


I dont know what your hardware config is but depending on hardware you can simply use slower fans. I use the Akasa 80MM 4 Pin PWM fans on the Akasa PWM fan splitter throughout my 4220. In combination with a Pentium-M board, I can set Server fan control level and its very quiet, WD greens dont exceed 40C in this config for me and that is within spec. If you are using 7200RPM drives and a desktop CPU I probably wouldnt go with slower fans though.
 
Yea it will fit.

BTW unless you need all the features(SAS + 7x pcie) that board has im selling a similar SM Dual 1366 (ATX) for cheap so i can get another SR-2. :)
 
What rails is everyone using to mount these cases? Rpc-4220 etc?

I just picked up my 12u cabinet (XrackPro2) and I have to mount a RPC-470 and in the future a RPC-4220. I would assum they are basically identical and should mount the same way.

I definitly want sliding rails. I hear the norco ones are crappy though.
 
I have the Norco ones on my 4020 mounted in my Dell 2410 Rack and they work fine.

My only recommendation would be to not even look at the instructions and just use common sense to put them together. The instructions are worthless and confusing. Everything my gut was telling me did not look right per the diagram. Alas i just said screw it and put it together how i thought it should work and I was right.
 
I'm using the generic newegg ones in my APC 22U rack. They're nothing spectacular, but they work.
 
I just picked up my 12u cabinet (XrackPro2)

Offtopic, and feel free to PM if you'd prefer, but I'd love to know more about the XrackPro2. Did you buy new? From who? Why did you go with it over other manufacturers of quiet racks?

Thanks,
-Jayson
 
Offtopic, and feel free to PM if you'd prefer, but I'd love to know more about the XrackPro2. Did you buy new? From who? Why did you go with it over other manufacturers of quiet racks?

Thanks,
-Jayson

I started a thread about my build including the XrackPro2. This should answer your questions. Feel free to post more questions.

I'm using the generic newegg ones in my APC 22U rack. They're nothing spectacular, but they work.
Are these the rails you used?

I have the Norco ones on my 4020 mounted in my Dell 2410 Rack and they work fine.

I guess I'm more worried that these norco RL-26 rails wont fit (due to their thickness) in my XrackPro2. It seems like that is the only complaint. Is there any way to measure and check before purchasing? The RPC-470 measures 430mm wide and the inside of my cabinet is 450mm.
 
Has anyone used one of Norco redundant power supplies? Thoughts?

http://www.ipcdirect.net/servlet/Detail?no=245

Pricey, but not a lot of options for non-OEM redundant power supplies out there.



nowwhatnapster - thanks for the info. I'm actually pretty sure I saw that rack on CL, but couldn't justify the drive to NY for it.
 
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