Upgrading a home server chassis

[bootc]

Hi folks,

I'm looking at upgrading my home server, and wanted some advice on my component choices just to make sure I haven't missed something.

Currently, I have:

- Norco RPC-4220 case
- Intel S1200BTL motherboard
- Xeon E3-1220 CPU
- 16 GB ECC RAM
- 3ware 9690SA-8I
- Chenbro SAS expander
- Lots of drives (4x 1.5TB, 8x 2TB, and now adding bigger, faster drives into the mix)

Lately, the combination of the Norco case, Chenbro expander and 9690SA have been giving me grief, particularly when newer SATA3 6Gbps drives are involved. Apparently, my expander chipset isn't compatible with most 6Gbps drives, my 9690SA isn't compatible with 6Gbps expanders, and the Norco doesn't have 6Gbps capable backplanes either.

The plan is to replace the Norco, Chenbro and 3ware card with the following:

- SuperMicro SuperChassis 846BE16-R920B (http://www.supermicro.com/products/chassis/4U/846/SC846BE16-R920.cfm)
- LSI/3ware 9750-4i (http://www.lsi.com/products/storagecomponents/Pages/3wareSAS9750-4i.aspx)

This should get me a native SAS 6Gbps setup, together with a 6Gbps expander backplane and a new RAID card that will happily import my existing units.

Any comments, warnings or gotchas I should look out for? In particular, I'd like to hear stories about compatibility, noise levels, or other things I may have missed with regards to the enclosure or RAID card.

Thanks all,
Chris