Case for many (9+) hard drives (with ample space between)?

matt_garman · Post by **matt_garman** » Thu May 31, 2007 1:17 pm

heartsurgeon wrote:Norco DS-1210
or
Norco DS-1220
...
may not be exactly what you want, but if your looking for massive storage, and lowest possible cost, this is gonna be hard to beat. the only drawback is the noisy stock fans...which i can help you fix.

newegg carries the norco..remember, it is a "plug and play" solution, no additional hardware (except the fan mods), no software, add your drives and hook'er up. ends up being very cost effective by the time you need lots of storage.

At first I was shocked that you considered these "cost effective" at $550 and $800 respectively... but then I realized it wasn't just the case!

So these have some kind of embedded processor, RAM, etc, right? Any idea what the "guts" of this system are? What about the software?

I wish there were pictures of the inside of the case. I'm skeptical about the ability of those hot-swap bays to allow sufficient airflow around the drives. And how much room is there between drives?

Also, can you monitor your drive temps?

My gut reaction is that you'd still have to run the fans pretty hard to get enough airflow around your drives to keep them sufficiently cool (in my case the goal is mid 30s).

At any rate, in my situation, I already have the motherboard, CPU, RAM and power supply for my server. Add Linux to that and I've got total control over how it's all setup and executed (i.e. one more toy

).

matt_garman · Post by **matt_garman** » Thu May 31, 2007 1:22 pm

FYI, for anyone's who's interested in the Lian Li PC-A16B:

I found this great Lian Li A05B review right here on SPCR. Scroll down a way, and there are great pictures of the hard drive mounting, which looks to be the same as what the PC-A16B uses.

More good pics of the hard drive mounting can be found on this review from techPowerUp. This picture is particularly sweet.

Matt

jaldridge6 · Post by **jaldridge6** » Thu May 31, 2007 2:19 pm

CM stacker with 9 no-vibes III's =)

heartsurgeon · Post by **heartsurgeon** » Mon Jun 04, 2007 11:27 am

i actually own the ds-1210 (had it over a year)
prior to that i owned a ds1200

the box has an circuit board that controls the had drives, and monitors both hard drive temps and fan RPM. the system has an annunciator system which alarms if the fans stop working, or the hard drive temps rise above spec. the device has its own internal power supply (with a 120 mm fan in the p.s.)

if you leave the stock fans in place (really noisy and moving 100cfm), the hard drives remain essentially at room temperature, there is tremendous airflow present through the case. this was designed for heavy duty usage.

the stock fans were irritating, so i removed them and replaced them with 3 80mm Nexus fans, mounted to fan adapters, mounted with silicone mounts, undervolted with zalman fan controllers. I added a 120mm blowhole with a nexus fan mounted similarly. Total airflow is probably in the 50 CFM range.

the hard drive annuciator never goes off (it went off once when i had the fans turned off) under normal use, i can feel plenty of airflow at the front end of the drive array (in each drive bay), and I have popped the drives out after having the array turned on for a while, and the drives are barely warm. I know what a hot hard drive feels like, and these are not hot at all.

I pretty much stick to WD hard drives, and have some newer 320's that run cooler than the old 250's i have which definitely can get hot if not ventilated adequately.

If your looking for something to hold a lot of hard drives, this is probably the most cost effective way to do it.

cooling the drives is really not an issue.

Thalasi · Post by **Thalasi** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 6:38 am

I just wanted to point out Antec also has a plain-windowless side panel for the Nine Hundred as well as the additional drive cage Matt mentioned.

I just picked up Nine Hundred myself over the weekend, transferring from a Sonata II in order to get more drive capacity.

matt_garman · Post by **matt_garman** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 7:19 am

I just received the PC-A16B last night. I didn't have time to play with it much, but I thought I'd post my initial impressions:

- Stock fans are quietish. Definitely wouldn't make the SPCR recommended list, but not ridiculously loud either. The sound reminds me of a slightly more intense Yate Loon D12SL at 12 V. (Note that I have three of these fans running: one in the back of the case, and one in each of the drive bays .)

- The case is really light. This is my first all-aluminum case. The workmanship is great, and the case feels sturdy. Maybe due to the weight, but in my gut it doesn't feel as rugged as I'd like (although, if you've read my previous posts, you'll know that anything less than bomb-proof isn't rugged enough for me). I'd say it's durability is on par with the Antec 3000/3700. I'd like to see thicker aluminum.

- Looks great. Of course this is an opinion, but I like it's simple, understated elegance. I'd almost call it "classy". My fiancee likes it too.

- The PCI slot covers rattle. I didn't have time to check if they were screwed down tight enough, but, fresh out of the box, they rattled in place. I liked the "forked" approach of the newer Antec cases that lock the non-screwed end in tightly. Hopefully I can address this either by tightening the screws, or maybe dipping the cover ends in rubber.

- Preliminary temps/power draw: I haven't loaded the RAID array in yet. Right now, I'm running a Biostar TForce 6100 754 and a Sempron 2800. The Sempron is undervolted to about 0.9 V (at stock speed). Onboard graphics and only one Seagate 80 GB PATA drive at the moment. Idle AC power draw: 30 Watts. AC power draw running memtest86+ (what it's doing now): 60 Watts. Idle CPU temp: 30 deg Celsius.

More comments to come. I'll try to take some pictures.

Matt

ACook · Post by **ACook** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 11:34 am

heartsurgeon wrote: I pretty much stick to WD hard drives, and have some newer 320's that run cooler than the old 250's i have which definitely can get hot if not ventilated adequately.

Glad to read that. I got a 250 and a 320 sata wd, and was worried about the heat from the 250. It is faster than the 320 though

bexx · Post by **bexx** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 11:28 am

http://www.allstarshop.com/shop/simprod ... &pid=17378

Get two of these and any case that has 6 5.25" bays. I've gone through a few setups and ended up using these. So much cleaner and not really that expensive. Might be able to get them cheaper elsewhere this is the first store that came up when I googled.

Fan in it is not that loud, no worse than having 9 drives in a system. Drives in the bottom of the P180 are all 37-38 it looks like and drives in one of these hotswap things are running 33-35.