Hot swap, or not hot swap, that's the question ... and more

[melloa]

Ok, so you decided to build your home FreeNAS as your file server and will be using another server running esxi for Plex, OwnCloud, and other animals.

You take a look at @Ericloewe 's article https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?resources/hardware-recommendations-guide.12/ to understand the recommended hardware is, @cyberjock's article https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...ning-vdev-zpool-zil-and-l2arc-for-noobs.7775/ to understand more about how to setup your disks, and @jgreco article https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/proper-power-supply-sizing-guidance.38811/ to size your power supply. While you're there you find a great article to understand a little bit more the power requirements for your rig https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/how-to-measure-the-drive-spin-up-peak-current.38885/, by @Bidule0hm .

You decide for:

10 x 4 TiB WD Red
SUPERMICRO MBD-X11SSL-O
Intel Xeon E3-1245 v5 SkyLake 3.5 GHz
2 x SAMSUNG 16GB ECC (enough for a file server, but allow expansion)
SeaSonic X-1050


Now you have to decide on the chassis.

Considering this is a home system, taking the server off line to replace a failed hard drive it's not an issue. Also it will be running inside your office, so needs to be quite.

Below some options for you guys to "vote" and add:

0 - RPC-4216 http://www.norcotek.com/product/rpc-4216/
0 - ROSEWILL RSV-L4500 http://www.rosewill.com/rosewill-rs...15-internal-bays-8-cooling-fans-included.html
1 - SUPERMICRO 4U bare bone from e-bay
1 - RPC-4224 http://www.norcotek.com/product/rpc-4224/


Thanks!

 

[Stux]

Why not the Norco RPC-4224?

 

[melloa]

Why not the Norco RPC-4224?

Why not. Added :)

 

[Stux]

Why not. Added :)

I vote 4224 :)

 

[cyberjock]

As someone that has a 4224 sitting on the floor collecting dust, I'd never recommend it. The cooling is far to inadequate for hard drives to be cooled properly, even at maximum fan speeds. If you spend the money, you can buy supermicro fans and put them in yourself, but then your already entering territory where you could have bought a 24 day used Supermicro off of ebay for less money (and yes, that's what I did to get rid of my Norco 4224). :P

 

[melloa]

Thanks for the feedback - score updated :)

 

[Stux]

As someone that has a 4224 sitting on the floor collecting dust, I'd never recommend it. The cooling is far to inadequate for hard drives to be cooled properly, even at maximum fan speeds. If you spend the money, you can buy supermicro fans and put them in yourself, but then your already entering territory where you could have bought a 24 day used Supermicro off of ebay for less money (and yes, that's what I did to get rid of my Norco 4224). :p

What airflow management did you use on the Norco? I did go through a few steps and am very happy with the results.

 

[melloa]

And the final score:

1 - SUPERMICRO 4U bare bone from e-bay
1 - RPC-4224 http://www.norcotek.com/product/rpc-4224/
1 - ROSEWILL RSV-L4500

My friend decided to go with a supermicro one. Final specs will be posted later for feedback. Thank you all for playing.