Case Recommendations

[rivey]

Hi all.
I am currently trying to decide on a new case for my FreeNAS server. Currently using an old case from a few desktops back and need to upgrade it. I am going to order a short rack on wheels that will go under the desk in my office to my left. The depth of the desk if 29 inches and the available height is 27 3/4 inches. I already have decided on the rack so that is not a problem but the new case is still an open question. Obviously I will use a rack mount case. I currently have 8 3.5in drives and 3 2.5in drives. The number of drives will be increasing. I plan on increasing the 10TB drives to 6 or 7 for the media pool (media pool will be changed to the 10TB drives and the backup will be on the 8TB drives) and the 8TB drives will increase to 8 drives. At a later date, I will add a new vdev with probably 6 10TB drives to be used for recording a new camera system. Due to these requirements, I am assuming I will ultimately need a 4U case with 24 bays. I am thinking that it would be smart to have the 24 bays hot swap-able but not a requirement. Would like to keep the cost for the case under $500.00 if possible. I also know that I will have to add a SAS expander card. Recommendations on that will also be appreciated.
Thanks to all for your help.


My current system is as follows:
FreeNAS Version: 11.2-Release
Case: Old case for now. Not sure what case to get.
Power Supply: Seasonic Focus 550 Gold
Motherboard: SuperMicro X9SRL-F, LGA 2011, IPMI
Processor: Intel Xeon E5-2650 V2, 2.6GHz 8Core (16thread)
Memory: 64GB of 8GB sticks Samsung brand PC3L-12800R DDR3-1600MHz Ram, ECC Registered
HBA: LSI 9211-8i IT Mode 6Gbps SAS HBA
Boot Pool: 2X Intel 320 Series 160 GB SATA 3.0 Gb-s 2.5-Inch SSD Mirrored
Media Pool: 1 vdev 5 X 8 TB Western Digital Reds in Raid Z2
Backup Pool: 1 vdev 3 X 10 TB Western Digital Reds in Raid Z1
Plex Jail: 1 vdev 1X Samsung SSD 500GB
Also have a Mellanox 10GB Connectx2 Between Server and Desktop PC

 

[rivey]

Should also mention that my CPU cooler is the following, https://www.ebay.com/itm/SuperMicro...i-F-2x-6-Core-E5-2620-2Ghz-Sleds/192816211745.

I have looked at the following case on ebay, https://www.ebay.com/itm/SuperMicro...i-F-2x-6-Core-E5-2620-2Ghz-Sleds/192816211745, it looks like a case that might work well for me but a lot of the included electronics are redundant with what I already have but I think that what I already have is faster.

Advice is appreciated.
Bob

 

[rivey]

Bump. Any thoughts or suggestions? HELP

 

[PhiloEpisteme]

Hey Rivey, I'm sure the CSE-846 would be just fine for your uses. I'm certainly not an expert on chassis but from my recent experiences I'd suggest that you double-check that the listing comes with what is pictures. Many resellers use stock photos for their chassis which suggest the chassis includes fans, drive trays, etc and unfortunately some of them do not. Also make sure that the chassis will support a standard board.

As far as expanders etc you can get away with using your LSI-9211 with a IBM 46M0997 16-Port 6Gbps SAS-2 SATA to save money and put toward your chassis. Per the following video you can support 24 drives with this setup. You may be limited in bandwidth to the 8x PCIe 2.0 slot for all 24 drives and 4 SAS2 lanes of 6Gbps for 20 of the drives. If you keep the spinning disks on the expander the 4 SAS2 lanes from the expander to the controller shouldn't be much of an issue. It looks like your board supports PCI 3.0 so you could upgrade the controller to one which supports the faster bus, such as the LSI-9207 if you're worried about saturating the PCIe 2.0 lanes or add another LSI-9210 or LSI-9211 later.

I'm certainly no expert on any of this hardware so take my advice with a grain of salt. If other more experienced people advice against my recommendation I'd go with their suggestion.

Hope this helps!

 

[Spearfoot]

A SuperMicro 24-bay 4U chassis such as the CSE-846 would serve you well as far as available drive trays and general suitability. You can find these on eBay for ~$500, often including a usable SAS2-compatible backplane.

The problem is noise... I built one of my systems in this chassis, and I wouldn't want to sit next to it. Mine lives out in my shop.

 

[rivey]

A SuperMicro 24-bay 4U chassis such as the CSE-846 would serve you well as far as available drive trays and general suitability. You can find these on eBay for ~$500, often including a usable SAS2-compatible backplane.

The problem is noise... I built one of my systems in this chassis, and I wouldn't want to sit next to it. Mine lives out in my shop.

The noise factor could be a problem. Did you ever try to upgrade the fans? I will have to put the server in my office in the garage. During the summer, my garage gets extremely hot since I live in the Los Angeles area. I am assuming that most cases of this size will have the same noise issue. Any other recommendations for a case that will meet the use case? Thanks

 

[rivey]

Hey Rivey, I'm sure the CSE-846 would be just fine for your uses. I'm certainly not an expert on chassis but from my recent experiences I'd suggest that you double-check that the listing comes with what is pictures. Many resellers use stock photos for their chassis which suggest the chassis includes fans, drive trays, etc and unfortunately some of them do not. Also make sure that the chassis will support a standard board.

As far as expanders etc you can get away with using your LSI-9211 with a IBM 46M0997 16-Port 6Gbps SAS-2 SATA to save money and put toward your chassis. Per the following video you can support 24 drives with this setup. You may be limited in bandwidth to the 8x PCIe 2.0 slot for all 24 drives and 4 SAS2 lanes of 6Gbps for 20 of the drives. If you keep the spinning disks on the expander the 4 SAS2 lanes from the expander to the controller shouldn't be much of an issue. It looks like your board supports PCI 3.0 so you could upgrade the controller to one which supports the faster bus, such as the LSI-9207 if you're worried about saturating the PCIe 2.0 lanes or add another LSI-9210 or LSI-9211 later.

I'm certainly no expert on any of this hardware so take my advice with a grain of salt. If other more experienced people advice against my recommendation I'd go with their suggestion.

Hope this helps!

I will look into the upgraded controller and the video. Very interesting idea. Thanks, Bob Ivey

 

[Kevin Horton]

The noise factor could be a problem. Did you ever try to upgrade the fans? I will have to put the server in my office in the garage. During the summer, my garage gets extremely hot since I live in the Los Angeles area. I am assuming that most cases of this size will have the same noise issue. Any other recommendations for a case that will meet the use case? Thanks

You might consider the Norco RPC-4224. It isn't nearly as high quality as the Supermicro system, but it is adequate, and it can be easily retrofitted with fans that are quite quiet. I copied @Stux's RPC-4224 fan mod, and am very happy with how quiet my system runs. Note: don't buy the hard drive fans he initially recommended. Instead, replace them with the Noctua NF12 iPPC 3000rpm fans he changed to later, as they have more capacity, and better handle the occasional extreme conditions.

You would also want to use a script that controlled fan speed as a function of hard drive temperatures, so the fans ran no faster than necessary to cool the drives. There are at least three different such scripts available on these forums.

 

[rivey]

You might consider the Norco RPC-4224. It isn't nearly as high quality as the Supermicro system, but it is adequate, and it can be easily retrofitted with fans that are quite quiet. I copied @Stux's RPC-4224 fan mod, and am very happy with how quiet my system runs. Note: don't buy the hard drive fans he initially recommended. Instead, replace them with the Noctua NF12 iPPC 3000rpm fans he changed to later, as they have more capacity, and better handle the occasional extreme conditions.

You would also want to use a script that controlled fan speed as a function of hard drive temperatures, so the fans ran no faster than necessary to cool the drives. There are at least three different such scripts available on these forums.

Thanks, I will look into the Norco case. I will research it and especially the backplane specs. It would be interesting to hears from someone who has modified the fan config on the Supermicro unit and how much success they have had since the used Supermicro cases are sometimes less than the Norco unit. So many decisions to figure out.