*Official* Norco data storage products thread

Has anyone managed to mount a 2.5" drive inside a Norco RPC-4224 or 4220? As in not inside one of the hot-swap bays, but inside the chassis. I'm looking for some ideas.

Thanks!

What I did was I mounted my 2.5" SSD onto the expansion slots on the back of the chassis. The holes line up perfectly and everything looks clean. I will take pictures later tonight and post them tomorrow.
 
What I did was I mounted my 2.5" SSD onto the expansion slots on the back of the chassis. The holes line up perfectly and everything looks clean. I will take pictures later tonight and post them tomorrow.

Interesting, I would like to see that!
 
Baby Norco w/ 8 x 3.5" bays & mini-ITX may just be coming soon to a home theater near you.....You heard it here first ;)

7hYlA.png

freak, and here i was ready to get a 4224 and just keep adding more hard drive. Maybe I should build that raid 5 array using this thing and keep my 4tb drive and get rid of the rest.
 
What I did was I mounted my 2.5" SSD onto the expansion slots on the back of the chassis. The holes line up perfectly and everything looks clean. I will take pictures later tonight and post them tomorrow.

My 4220 came with 2 plates just for this purpose will also take a photo and post it a little later on tonight.

Doug
 

Doesn't change what I said, nor were those cases any secret. The problem is they've been unattainable as I saw it already half a year ago, nobody in the U.S. was sourcing them and since then I've been harping on Norco to set up an OEM relationship with the fabricator along with a few needed design tweaks, if not design their own variation - which as it turned out was something they've had in development since last year, and that all may finally be coming to fruition. That was the point of the tease. ;)

So much like my original mockups on an avsforum thread and subsequent discussions with Norco that directly led to the creation of the RPC-4224 and DS-24E expander, when a cost effective 8-bay mini-ITX box along these lines are available everywhere including newegg and friends, you'll know who to thank.

This form factor is so overdue in in the home storage segment its not even funny, and when Norco finally release theirs then much like the 20 and 24 bay boxes, it'll once again become a defacto building block in this home/enthusiast storage segment.
 
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Doesn't change what I said, nor were those cases any secret. The problem is they've been unattainable as I saw it already half a year ago, nobody in the U.S. was sourcing them and since then I've been harping on Norco to set up an OEM relationship with the fabricator along with a few needed design tweaks, if not design their own variation - which as it turned out was something they've had in development since last year, and that all may finally be coming to fruition. That was the point of the tease. ;)

So much like my original mockups on an avsforum thread and subsequent discussions with Norco that directly led to the creation of the RPC-4224 and DS-24E expander, when a cost effective 8-bay mini-ITX box along these lines are available everywhere including newegg and friends, you'll know who to thank.

This form factor is so overdue in in the home storage segment its not even funny, and when Norco finally release theirs then much like the 20 and 24 bay boxes, it'll once again become a defacto building block in this home/enthusiast storage segment.

Ahhhh:)

So do you know if they will make a simple JBOD version?
eg 2 x SFF-8088 > 8 Drive Backplane

No need for expanders inside / motherboards etc

For a simple attach 8 more drives to your Computer approach?

.
 
I know a JBOD-only box has been on the table a long time and we've discussed it but not 100% sure, there definitely is room in the market for a JBOD-only with 2 x SFF-8088 on the back and 8 hotswap bays and Norco type pricing (meaning ideally around the $150-$200 pricepoint).

There are existing products like the Sans Digital TowerRAID TR8M-B but at $399 MSRP its a little pricey for a passive system. In parallel to all that I've actually been shopping around a design I worked up for both an 8 and 12 bay box with vertically oriented trays but modular and stackable. But trying to get a prototype fabricated is a challenge. The base module would be available as JBOD but with a space to drop one of these in later when expanding to more JBOD modules.

EmsK9.png
 
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Has anyone managed to mount a 2.5" drive inside a Norco RPC-4224 or 4220? As in not inside one of the hot-swap bays, but inside the chassis. I'm looking for some ideas.

Thanks!

Thanks everyone for the suggestions so far, and was looking forward to the pictures a few of you said you would post. Anyway, I really like the SYBA SY-MRA25018...but am curious how well it would work for hot swap. Ideally, I plan to do two 60GB SSDs in Raid 1 onboard my P8B-E4/L motherboard, for the OS (Server 2012). With these occupying the last two PCI bays, I would be able to hot swap if one is having an issue, helping maximize uptime. Does anyone have opinions about the SYBA SY-MRA25018? I have read that a 2.5" is a tight fit, and makes hot swap tough...any alternative to this?

Thanks!
 
Most people just drill a few holes and mount a commercial 2.5" bracket of some sort. There are many ways to do it.

If you are not looking to drill any holes, and have an open slot or two, here is another way to do it:

http://atechfabrication.com/products/drive_mounting_kits.htm

Rather than being cool and mounting a bracket, I just drilled 2.5" mounting holes right into the side of the chassis, straddling the rack rail. It works perfectly for a single 2.5" drive without occupying one of my (precious) 3.5" hot-swap bays. I boot from this drive, using the onboard SATA controller, and then my storage zpool uses the two LSI controllers in my build. I have 16x2TB Samsung/Seagate F4 HD204UI, leaving 8 3.5" bays open (I'm using the 4224).

I really enjoy working with this system. The only downside is, my rack is not as deep as the 4224 or its rails, so it hangs out the back by a few inches. Doesn't look too horrible, and is perfectly stable otherwise. Didn't feel like replacing a whole rack over a minor issue. I will say it makes getting to the 2U UPS below the 4224 a bit harder, though.
 
Interesting, I would like to see that!

Here you go, took me a while to find the photos:

Here is what it looks like from the back, notice that it takes up 4 expansion slots, which was fine for me since all I had installed was my three M1015's:



Here is what it looks like with an SSD mounted and my custom SATA cable (lol, any pencil will do the trick):



Here is the long shot from the other angle:

 
Can anyone please tell me which sata port is what slot on the ss-500 - photo of the back is below to avoid model confusion.

Also is the device in the photo below up the right way or does it matter? In my case I have it so the ports are at the bottom not the top.

Thankyou
Paul

norco_SS-500_2.jpg
 
Has anyone an idea whether there are or will be 4pin PWM fanwalls available for RPC rackmountables? I am getting jealous of the Dell 2950 sitting next to me while my RPC-2208 is going full out.

Apart from that, kickass rackmountables!
 
Most people just drill a few holes and mount a commercial 2.5" bracket of some sort. There are many ways to do it. If you are not looking to drill any holes, and have an open slot or two, here is another way to do it:

http://atechfabrication.com/products/drive_mounting_kits.htm

Yeah but for those prices you might as well go with a Syba or Startech hotswap bracket.
http://www.startech.com/HDD/Mobile-...Hard-Drive-Bay-for-PC-Expansion-Slot~S25SLOTR
http://www.sybausa.com/productInfo.php?iid=1233
You get the ability to remove the drive without any tools for about $5 more. I've used both and they're about the same quality-wise.

Scythe makes a dual-drive bracket that also has the ability to mount fans on it.
http://www.scythe-usa.com/product/acc/064/slotrafter_detail.html
But it takes at least two slots, minimum. I used one to mount a drive close to the backplane and then mounted a fan at the forward position to better cool a nearby graphics card. It does the job but you don't get the easy drive swap feature.
 
There is some literature around how to build a JBOD using Norco 4220 and HP sas expanders.

http://www.servethehome.com/sas-expanders-build-jbod-das-enclosure-save-iteration-2/

However, the HP SAS expander has only one SFF-8088 port.

Is there a way to construct a similar jbod that can be connected to two hosts (HBAs)? Both HP and Intel SAS expanders have only one SFF-8088 port.

Chebro has a Universal Expander Kit which is nothing more than a little piece of metal with a switch and power connections on it. It allows you to mount 2 SAS Expanders, and comes with one expander card that has 2 SFF-8088 (one in and one out for daisy chained boxes).
http://www.chenbro.com/corporatesite/products_detail.php?sku=76

I don't know anyone who has used one before, but this is what I plan to do if my RPC-4224 gets full. They are like $250-350, and the only other things you would need is a PSU and a Chassis. On the board is the power and reset switch pins.

Make sure you get HW Revision B0 or B1, as the A1 is the old version.
 
Thank you for the information about Chenbro universal expander kit. However, it still does not solve my problem as it can connect to only one host. The other SFF-8088 port is for daisy chaning.

My use case is about achieving high-availability of the controller. Two host-controllers need to be connected to the same JBOD. This JBOD needs to be detected by both the hosts at the same time.

Something similar to having two EMMs for Dell MD1200.
 
In that case (and all other dual-controller SAN systems) both controllers are aware of each other. Interested in how you'll pull that off.
 
Sounds like the LSI 6160 SAS switch would work for you. It would let two controllers see the single JBOD. Your plan of two hosts seeing a single JBOD might not work as it sounds similar to LSI's HA-DAS which won't be available till the 4th quarter of this year.
www.ha-das.com
 
Thank you for the information about Chenbro universal expander kit. However, it still does not solve my problem as it can connect to only one host. The other SFF-8088 port is for daisy chaning.

My use case is about achieving high-availability of the controller. Two host-controllers need to be connected to the same JBOD. This JBOD needs to be detected by both the hosts at the same time.

Something similar to having two EMMs for Dell MD1200.

You may want to read up on SAS and SAS topology because multipathing isn't trivial - it requires dual port NL-SAS (nearline) drives, and even then everything in the SAS chain has to support it - meaning the host O/S needs to support it, the host O/S driver for the controller needs to support it, the controller and expander and their associated firmware need to support it, and the drives need to support it. And then even if every part of the chain supports it, only certain combinations will support it. Example, certain LSI based controllers may only multipath with LSI expanders. But then that same set of LSI controller & expander may only multipath with certain NL drives and not others. HP controllers & expanders, same thing. And then there are cases where different generations of hardware made by the same company will not support it. This is why multiple hosts connected to the same set of disks tends to be an enterprise thing, requiring vertically integrated enterprise hardware which has been preselected and validated for compatibility and interop.
 
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I've just recently populated a Norco RPC 4224 with 24 drives.
When I added 4 drives to the last remaining row I began to get some issues, first some of the LEDS don't appear to work. The drives did not show up under Freebsd. Strangely the drives were showing up in the LSI SAS controller BIOS. Swapping drives around did not appear to make any difference to functionality, I could at no point identify the drives in the booted OS.

I also swapped power rails in case I was overloading the PSU. Nill effect.

I them got to disassemble the Backplane cards and found that the one that is not working appears to be missing bits. Is it plausible that something like this could get through the manufacturing quality checks? I'll follow up with Norco via their website to find out what I can do, unfortunately the device is outside its 12 month warranty...

Below is the image of the 2 SAS backplanes I took out to swap. Are the missing bits just LED's ?

k6iGt.jpg
 
Is it plausible that something like this could get through the manufacturing quality checks?

Unfortunately, yes, quite plausible. Norco has terrible quality control. You are not the first person to report receiving a backplane with missing components.
 
I am building a home media server as part of the family Christmas (rest consists of three smart tv's for the kids so we can hook them into the home network). I am looking at the RPC-4224 as the hotswap bays will give me plenty of room.

I know I will need to replace the fans in the case as it will be placed in our living room so the big screen will have direct access to the media library. I am looking at replacing all six fans with these:

Noctua NF-R8-1800 80mm Case Fan

I am also going to need a different heatsink/cpu fan than the stock set that comes with Intel i5 2400 Sandy. Can anyone recommend a LGA1155 cooler that will fit in this case?
 
I am building a home media server as part of the family Christmas (rest consists of three smart tv's for the kids so we can hook them into the home network). I am looking at the RPC-4224 as the hotswap bays will give me plenty of room.

I know I will need to replace the fans in the case as it will be placed in our living room so the big screen will have direct access to the media library. I am looking at replacing all six fans with these:

Noctua NF-R8-1800 80mm Case Fan

I am also going to need a different heatsink/cpu fan than the stock set that comes with Intel i5 2400 Sandy. Can anyone recommend a LGA1155 cooler that will fit in this case?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835608020
 
Thanks! Wasn't sure exactly how much space would be available and that one looks pretty good, particularly with the option of removing a fan. Out of curiosity do you happen to know if it will fit with both fans attached, or will the top fan need to come off?
it should fit with both fans
I have the same cooler in a Chenbro RM41300-FS81 and if I didn't have the top intake fans (see thread for pics) there would be plenty of room for the top fan
although, the Norco doesn't have a top vent so the fan would be so close to the top, I don't know how much difference it would make
unless your CPU is overclocked past 4GHz, the cooler should be more than adequate in any configuration

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1653064
 
I'll follow up with Norco via their website to find out what I can do, unfortunately the device is outside its 12 month warranty...

Below is the image of the 2 SAS backplanes I took out to swap. Are the missing bits just LED's ?

If you've bought these from Norco direct then in my experience they will help you. Otherwise (again only in my experience) they pointed me to the reseller. I would be interested to know how you get on.

Btw, are you using an expander? You don't mention the connectivity between the raid card and the backplane. I just wonder because it is strange that the drives *do* show up in the card BIOS. I assume you have swapped around the cabling to make sure the fault follows the "bad" backplane (you mentioned swapping the drives around but was that within the same backplane or different ones?) You might want to check how many physical drives your card supports and how many logical drives also (since I had a Fujitsu badged LSI SAS 2008 based card that according to the documentation was limited to something like 12 physical / 12 logical).
 
I know I will need to replace the fans in the case as it will be placed in our living room so the big screen will have direct access to the media library.
You're kidding yourself if you think it's going to be quiet enough for the living room. That and putting something with that many drives near where people can bump into it is a MISTAKE. There are lots of ways to extend connections to a box. Find somewhere that's protected from accidental abuse and put it there.
 
I know I will need to replace the fans in the case as it will be placed in our living room so the big screen will have direct access to the media library.

Besides the noise issue, this is not a small case by any means, in fact it is rather deep. How exactly would you fit such a thing in a living room.

No matter what you do with the fans, the drives themselves will be loud for something you want in a livingroom.
 
got a couple of questions.

Best location to mount an internal SSD for the OS?

How loud is the fan wall fans with the case closed up? I'm switching to the 120mm fan wall but am thinking of getting some very high volume fans to make sure there is plenty of air flow through the hotswap bays.

Specifically looking at something like these.

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/1...25mm_2000RPM_High_Speed_Fan.html?tl=g36c15s60

I'm thinking I could remove the 80MM fans from the back, plug those fans straight into the MB to let it control the fan speed, and change out the expansion "plugs" with vented ones.

Thanks in advance.
 
Not to ask a stupid question, but somewhere, and I can't remember where, I saw that NewEgg was still possibly selling the "old" 4220 chassis'. I don't recall when that was posted, if it was recent or not. Can anyone confirm if NewEgg is selling older or the newer chassis'?

Thank you.
- Dave
 
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