WeeboTech

Funnily I somewhat regularly put them under crushing force. We use Supermicro cages in the servers here at work and when we replace a server or a cage or even a dead drive (we have lots of spare trays) we leave the hard drives in the trays and crush them in our hydraulic hard drive crusher because I work at a hospital and they have private patient data on them hahaha. They are actually pretty damn tough. Our crusher will break a hard drive in half like they are made from cardboard but we usually have to do three or four presses before it'll crack the tray. Seems like such a waste when there are technolgies out there that can safely erase the data and technology does not have to be destroyed. Maybe you could save the trays at least and offer them up to folks. There's no data in the trays! <grin>

With the stock fans or the suggested replacement fans?

I'd be more than happy if there was an activity only light instead of a powered on light that doubles as an activity light. Maybe I'm confused, but this is how the supermicro's work. All lights off with no activty, lights on for activity. In my setup the FAIL light came on when there was a failed hard drive.

This is true of the older ones, but I think they need to be pretty old. The recent ones I purchased included the cable for connecting to a raid card, but I did not find it necessary. I tested with a SIL3132, Rosewill MV8 based PCIe, Areca 1200 PCIe. They showed activity without using the supplied cable. To be clear. I am using a Supermicro board, and 2 PCI-X 100 Supermicro SATA controllers. There are no lights on my Supermicro's 5in3's just because a drive exists there. Drive activity is shown when drives are accessed.

Didn't someone produce an 'identify' utility, which flashes the drive activity light? I created one a while back. https://code.google.com/p/unraid-weebotech/downloads/list

That is a little puzzling. If the specs on the SM site are to be believed, the CSE-M35T-1 does not support hard drive failure indicators, but the CSE-M35TQ does. Then I have the CSE-M35TQ's. Mine have the hard drive failure indicator in the front.

Come to think of it, the drive failure slot that is indicated is from the motherboard. Which also happens to be supermicro.

I can attest that with my supermicro AOC_SATA card, it showed the failed light. I was puzzled at first wondering what the solid light was. sure enough the drive went off line with some kind of hardware error. I'm not pro SM vs Norco, yet I don't want the SM to be positioned as inferior or less then adequate either.

I don't believe that any of us are using unRAID in an enterprise environment. I do believe that the Supermicros are the best choice in that environment. However, I don't see the advantage of uninterrupted uptime with unRAID since the software itself is not hot-swap compatible. And this is what stops it. Otherwise it makes a great archival backup server. It bothers me to turn mine off. Since it is now the central hub for all files on my network. Uptime is important. I've moved as many spindles as possible to this server. so when it's offline. I'm in deep caca. I would be unhappy having to take the 5in3 out of the case to replace the fan. I depend on my server more then just for media. If one wants to use all 7200 rpm drives in a single 5-in-3 cage, then the 92 mm fan on the Supermicro is definitely a plus. However, if one wants to use all green drives or a mixture of green and 7200 rpm, then the Norco's 80 mm stock fan is more than adequate. I'll also point out that the Norco's stock fan is much quieter than the Supermicro's stock fan (which adds to the Norco's value). Higher CFM higher noise. Supermicro has never been known for it's quietness. So the choice is replace the fan, or use a fan controller like Tom used to provide as an option. This is a valid point. However, do the Supermicro's drive status and fan status LEDs function if your motherboard doesn't have the appropriate drive/fan failure headers? I'm not sure if they do. I know that when I built a client server using the Supermicros and a consumer-grade board (the Biostar A760G M2+), the board had no headers for the cage's LEDs, so the included LED cable was useless. If you are building a server using a server-grade board then the LEDs would be useful. The recent supermicro's can get LED status from the SATA Cable. At least on my motherboard and controllers. I did not need the secondary cable which is mostly used for Raid cards. I think 3ware comes to mind. In talking about Fan status. There is an audible alarm. For drive status, there is activty (from sata) and drive fail Which in my case, went on without any other attachments. I believe there is also an audible overheat alarm. Yes I know, and "something" should be part of the stock unRAID. In the meantime there is a visual indicator right on the machine. Depends on your usage, of course. Many users will probably only do this once or twice a year, but it certainly is one of the few server maintenance operations needed on a normal server that is working properly. Besides, that was just an example. I don't think anyone can complain about better protection for a drive offered by a cheaper unit... 10. if you are changing drives that often 20. then print "something else needs to change."; print "Perhaps trayless, perhaps better drives." 40. endif Better protection, Yeah good point, but then again, I don't see this as that much of a pro over the supermicro's because if I goto 10 I think something else needs to change. LOL. A matter of preference perhaps. I've never seen a drive's circuit board overheat, only the drive's platter compartment. I imagine that the solid bottom on the Norco drive trays would act like a bit of a heatsink, but I've never had a reason to test it. I dunno, I've burned myself in the past with chips on high speed scsi drives, those freakin' chips can get hot enough to hurt. LOL! I'm not sure the norco trays would act as heatsink. a protective barrier, yes. But I want as much airflow across the drives without baffles. If I were to choose another multiple drive module, I would probably choose the ICY Dock Trayless 4in3's before the norcos. but that's my preference. Since I saw a drive fail with visual indication right on the front of my machine, I'm ecstatic about the supermicros. I know you're a fan of the Norco's and that's the right choice for your business. however, The Supermicro's are a high quality product. They do not fit your purpose, and for the budget minded folks they may not fit their purpose, yet, they do work well.

I should add.... http://www.supermicro.com/products/accessories/mobilerack/CSE-M35TQ.cfm I recently had an episode where a drive died. unRAID does not have alarms to tell you and unless you look for it you do not know right away. I happen to look at the front of the server and thought to myself, Gee why is that light solid on the chassis. Upon closer inspection I saw that the drive failure LED was on, which stimulated me to go into the server logs to see what the deal was.

In a data center environment you're concerned with uptime. How cool will the drive stay during it's life. How fast can you replace a drive reliably. How fast can you replace a failed fan reliably. How will you know when the fan dies or the drive dies. How do you identify the drive. > I would be more concerned with how well the drives are protected during common operations such as upgrading a parity drive. This is not a procedure that is done often. If you put a drive on a bench and work on it, this should not be a concern. I like how the top and bottom have nothing on the Supermicros. It insures all the chips receive good air flow.

Love it!

...that's a great idea! That would mean I could have a total of 12 drives in there, which should be good enough. I'll see about air circulation and temperatures once I cross that bridge, but I doubt I'd have 12 drives spinning at the same time anyway. I'm already almost out of SATA ports, so a PCIe SATA card is next on the list I suppose. There are special PCI mount racks to do this. Scythe has a PCI slot rafter (for 2.5" drives). Sunbean used to have some form of PCI rack to mount 3.5" drives. You can also use something like this StarUSA iStorm7 Heat Terminator Bracket http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856999209 The only issue would be bolting it in, but then again you could use some kind of strong velcro on the bottom.

People tend to overestimate total wattage required vs what is required on a single 12v rail. Part if this is education, part of it is marketing. If you estimate 2A per drive on simultaneous spin up, you get the total amps required on the 12v rail for peripherals. With multiple rail PSU's this is generally not more then 18a-20a. On a single rail CPU it can be high enough that a lower total wattage PSU will support the burden.

That's a beauty. Have you considered taking out the Supermicro 5in3 fans and just using the front fans?

I want a one of those Sharkoon cases, that is sweet! Too bad they're only available abroad! I may mod my Coolermaster Stacker so I can fit some internal drives in the bottom like the Sharkoon.

I love that case. 30 drives + some internals! w00t! It's so phat!

Once you add 20 drives, (4x5in3's) or the potential of 26 drives, plus PSU. This could be one heavy monster.

WOW. That sharcoon rebel 12 is really nice. I like it allot. Huge potential for drives. Even with my 20 drive CM Stacker beast, I want to put 3 drives internal for my RAID0 parity and an SSD for nfs mounting of /home, so I could see a need in my plans. I would want to mod it to get rid of that top 3.5" bay so 4 5in3's would fit. Other then that it's perfect for my needs. Does it come with castors?

What's nice about those is the fans are removable. You can replace them or take them off, then use multiple exhaust fans in the case with negative pressure to pull air in. This was how I designed my other unit without bay fans. it worked well. Only a few degrees above ambient in the heat of the summer. Also check out the reviews on newegg http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817994077 Says the fans keep them cool. Louder then expected, but keep them cool.

Is it really 7200RPM, It's listed as intellipower. In any case, it's a bit hot to run at that temp long term. That was the complaint about those trayless units. Adding extra exhaust fans should help. If you move the hotter drive to another machine and stick with the 5400/5900 variants you should be OK.

47 is kinda hot and should cause you to start adding more cooling Consider the exhaust solution I recommended along with taping up the other exposed vents.

guiri and Rajahal, it came out great. That was the exact setup I was planning to build. (Which is why I had the 2 red 5in3's to begin with). Since I already have a high powered Supermicro workstation and planned on going with Supermicro X7SBE for the newer machine, I switched gears and went with the Supermicro 5in3's. The only thing I might suggest is adding two low speed 120MM fans with the Vantec rubber dampening kit on top. I love those trayless 5in3's, my only concern is if there would be enough airflow with heavy usage. Looks slamming.

I'm interested. Also, with the 4in3 drive chassis. Are the SATA drives bolted in or can you slide them in/out while the rack is in the case?

Nice lil machine! I love them! Funny, I just built a hulk of a machine this weekend as I retired my 9 drive CM-590 AB9 PRO setup to a 20 drive CM Stacker setup with X7SBE & 2 AOC-SAT2-MV8's and an arc-1200 for parity.