Coolermaster Stacker II, Wavemaster II

Badashmods · Post by **Badashmods** » Thu Mar 10, 2005 11:58 pm

http://www.coolermaster.com/phpBB2/view ... &start=210

REMF · Post by **REMF** » Fri Mar 11, 2005 1:17 am

cheers

tay · Post by **tay** » Fri Mar 11, 2005 2:41 am

A few of these cases are already up on the CM website. I have linked to the Centurion cases but some others are updated too. Personally the cases seem uglier but they are upgraded for cooling / noise compared to the originals IMO.

Thanks for the link.

REMF · Post by **REMF** » Fri Mar 11, 2005 3:40 am

hopefully the wavemaster2 now uses dual 120mm fans.........?

dano · Post by **dano** » Fri Mar 11, 2005 3:59 pm

says the new stacker has 2mm thick aluminum. isnt this thicker than normal, which would lead to less vibration?

milo · Post by **milo** » Sun Mar 13, 2005 11:27 pm

Would've thought that front door on the Praetorian 730 would interest someone. Sound baffle with decent ventilation? Unfortunately it's on a box with dual 80mm exhausts.

Oh, sorry, REMF - CM forum admin sez the 730 IS the WM2.

REMF · Post by **REMF** » Mon Mar 14, 2005 7:59 am

cheers.

ddrueding1 · Post by **ddrueding1** » Mon Mar 14, 2005 10:07 am

That stacker will be my next home fileserver.

9 Front Drive bays = 3x 5-drive SATA hotswap enclosures = 15x 400GB drives = 5.6TB RAID 5 Array.

Now THAT will be a pain to silence....

lenny · Post by **lenny** » Mon Mar 14, 2005 12:51 pm

ddrueding1 wrote:That stacker will be my next home fileserver.

9 Front Drive bays = 3x 5-drive SATA hotswap enclosures = 15x 400GB drives = 5.6TB RAID 5 Array.

Now THAT will be a pain to silence....

The original stacker has a cage to fit 4 x 3.5" drives in the space of 3 x 5.25" bays. Does this one have a new cage that fits 5 x 3.5" drives?

Still, 12 x 400 is an impressive amount of storage. Your next headache is going to be : how are you going to backup your drives? And RAID is not an alternative to backup, but rather for high availability.

Silencing this is easy. 1 or more gigabit ethernet connection, and stick it in the basement, garage or closet.

The new stacker looks much better than the old one.

ddrueding1 · Post by **ddrueding1** » Mon Mar 14, 2005 1:17 pm

Supermicro makes a 5-in-3 enclosure that works well.

Backup? That's why you buy 2 of them.

lenny · Post by **lenny** » Mon Mar 14, 2005 3:24 pm

ddrueding1 wrote:Supermicro makes a 5-in-3 enclosure that works well.

Backup? That's why you buy 2 of them.

Thanks for the info. That's good to know.

And future generations of human will curse your name as they swim through their cities flooded by global warming

Of course, there's this other thing about some shrubbery and Kyoto...

ddrueding1 · Post by **ddrueding1** » Mon Mar 14, 2005 5:07 pm

Hey, that's nothing. I just spec'd a project using one of these.

40 400GB HDDs in 2 RAID-5 Arrays in Software RAID-0 - 15TB+ of REALLY FAST redundant storage...

milo · Post by **milo** » Mon Mar 14, 2005 6:34 pm

(Though I confess I'd love to see Bluefront tackle this challenge!)

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 7:16 am

ddrueding1 wrote:Supermicro makes a 5-in-3 enclosure that works well.

Backup? That's why you buy 2 of them.

I played with one of these a few years ago. The stock 92mm fan is super noisy, and when I replaced it with an L1A Panaflo running at reduced voltage, the HDD temps sky-rocketed. I posted about it here at SPCR, you should be able to find it with the Search.

luggage · Post by **luggage** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 2:35 pm

I was about to say: "well you could solve that by leaving two slots empty"

But thats more stupid than silly ey?
Time for some much needed sleep I think

ddrueding1 · Post by **ddrueding1** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 3:23 pm

Ralf Hutter wrote:I played with one of these a few years ago. The stock 92mm fan is super noisy, and when I replaced it with an L1A Panaflo running at reduced voltage, the HDD temps sky-rocketed. I posted about it here at SPCR, you should be able to find it with the Search.

I've found it to be worse than that, the sucker has an alarm that is most annoying. After disabling the alarm and removing the entire rear bracket, I was able to get a "Stealth" 120mm rigged to it. I wasn't running raptors, just some Seagates, but it ran acceptibly cool considering.

manalainen · Post by **manalainen** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 4:48 am

I have a black SATA version of that Supermicro backplane. I replaced the original monster-of-a-fan with a 92mm Zalman, works ok but isn´t really quiet, still somewhat wooshy and the drives are not decoupled so seek noises are audible. Keeps the drives at acceptable temperatures though.

I like it, it´s really good if not the best for the purpose it was meant, keeps the drives safe, sound and cool and allows easy hotswapping. Although I´m not using it currently as I have only 2 SATA drives, still waiting for the Western Digital´s 320GB SATA drives to appear, going to build my next workstation with them. Hopefully they run cool, fast and quiet...

peterson · Post by **peterson** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 7:12 am

lenny wrote:
The new stacker looks much better than the old one.

Do not agree, but then i'm bias as an owner of a Stacker. I think the old one looks better.

sgksgk · Post by **sgksgk** » Mon Mar 21, 2005 10:30 pm

omg that stacker 2 looks like a star destroyer, or darth vadar with a silver mask

Gholam · Post by **Gholam** » Sat Mar 26, 2005 4:41 am

Heh, before I clicked the link, I was like, "damn, just as I blow $200 on a Stacker, CM releases a new version." After seeing the photos, I'm much relieved - given the choice, I'd still get the old Stacker. Reasons?

1) Looks. The new version takes after Tt and Raidmax, not anywhere near as classy as the old one.
2) Door. While this is the best ventilated door I've seen on a consumer case (server cases aside), it's still a door, and I hate doors.
3) Rear 120mm fan grill. The old Stacker has a removable mesh there (you need to remove 20-odd screws to get it off, but it is removable), while this one is stamped. Granted, it's one of the best stamped grills out there, but it's still a grill.
4) Bottom PSU bay is gone - wtf is up with that? While it does make the case a bit lower and easier to get under a table (I have to raise the table a bit to get my system out and in), it was an excellent feature and one of the things that made the old Stacker unique.
5) Aluminium construction. While it will alleviate one of the Stacker's main issues - nearly 15kg empty weight - I shudder to think what it will do to the price. A steel Stacker already runs $170-200, making it out of 2mm think aluminium will probably push $300, if not $400

.

This is not to say it doesn't have good features - the whole rail system is much better designed than the original, they did away with 6 front USB ports which are impossible to connect to any motherboard except nForce4-based, and then only if you don't have a card reader, and to be frank, aren't really needed - just what six devices are you going to connect to the front of the case simultaneously? The side panel looks like it's now much easier to remove - instead of screws, there seem to be snaps to hold it and a handle to pull it out. The top 3.5" exposed bay is quite interesting as well - much better suited for an internal cardreader than the original Stacker's rail arrangement, where mounting a short 3.5" can be problematic. Still, for my taste, the old Stacker is better.

Now, on the other hand, the Centurion update is very very good, and the new CM Media series is downright awesome, at least as far as looks go. Hope more details of it go up on Coolermaster site soon.