Case recommendation for E-ATX+Xeon based RAID server?

nucleus · Post by **nucleus** » Wed Oct 12, 2005 4:51 am

My project is to have a quiested RAID5 server.

I selected PCI-X RAID SATA card, but unfortunatly there is not a lot a MB with PCI-X.
So I selected a Intel 2xXeon MB 7501BR2 and Xeon Low Voltage.

Now I am looking for a not too huge quiet tower case...

What about Antec Titan 550? CM Stacker 810? Chembro server cases?

SPCR is really a gold mine for quiet desktop system, but unfortunatly there is much less available specific information for server systems..

BlueTide · Post by **BlueTide** » Wed Oct 12, 2005 7:54 am

Well, I've had a little similar interests myself. At the moment I am about to give up on doing it in any quiet manner. The trouble I'm in now is that the number of HDDs grows quick and all those spining plates... I would imagine you hit the very same problem*.

The best idea I have so far is to get an external FC array and connect it to the workstation over a distance. The ws only having a single HDD and the little else it actually needs. Not all too cheap though. That might or might not be suitable for you?*

I would be open to hear comments about this, btw. A dual opteron with a single (notebook?) drive and an fc card sounds, at least to me, something that could potentially be quiet? Well, add a DVD burner that for the most of the time does nothing. 10m of fibre and an array in a closet...

*Edits

nucleus · Post by **nucleus** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 7:21 am

I didn't really thought of a FC array.. but these things seems to be really expensive..

I've looked at Coraid Etherdrive solutions based on ATA-over-ethernet protocol, but the bill is too high for me..

To minimize ernegy consumption and noise, it might be intereesting to use 2.5 drive for the RAID array..

Seagate has even made a special 2.5 harddisk family for SAS/SCSI based raid. Those disk looks really hyper-great, but the price is really really high..