Whaler_99

I don't "believe" so - someone else can correct me if I am wrong. The backplane is typically just for routing power and connection signals. There should be no reason why a Sata 6Gbp/s drive shouldn't work or a 3TB drive, as long as the controller itself supports it. Now, of course the SATA III is backwards compatible to SATA II, so not really a bit issue there. With unRaid, a Sata I port is more then fast enough. I just did a quick check on the Norco product site for the SS-500 and it does list 6Gbp/s support. Checking google, there does seem to be mention of people using 3TB drives as well. Shawn

Well, one thing that comes to mind, you are going to notice the noise. If you are going from an almost silent setup to running a 5x3 cage, you are going to hear it. Even my Colermaster 4x3 units which have a VERY quiet fan, are still noticable when everything else is quite. Running an 80mm fan to cool potentially 5 drives, you need to crank some RPM and airflow out of it, which means some dB as well. Try the under volt though - might be a good comprise between a bit quieter system and a bit warmer drive. But, I fear, you are destined to hear fans, Personally, I will trade a bit more noise for cooler drives, especially as you load the cage up. One reason a lot of us with large builds hide them away in closets, crawl spaces, garages, etc... Shawn

There have been some discussions on the whole trayless solution in various threads... How stable the drives might be though and cooling concerns are two of the biggest unknowns. If you pick one up, feel free to add your findings to the thread. Shawn

Thanks for the note and glad it could help you decide. Shawn

Seems like regardless on the model, some of us have gotten good fans and some have gotten loud ones. The SuperMicro cages usually have a rep of a LOUD fan, yet mine is probably the second quietest of the lot. Course, I am running an Antec 1200 with 4 cages, so that is a BIT subjective. And yes, I did not like the power inputs on the Icy Dock either. Shawn

Test results are up on the Norco. Manage to beat the iStar cage by a degreee or two. Overall seemed to be fewer temp reading going up to 32C - more stable management around 30-31C. Very good results. Shawn

Correct Shawn

A fan controller might work, but seems a bit overkill to quiet a fan. As the fan is completly mounted "within" the back of the case, routing the cable out may be an issue as well. You can replace it with a 80mm, 4pin fan - no recommendations directly. But if you search, you want to look at a fan that has decent CFM versus RPM to make it quiter. You may have a bad fan also - mine unit is not overly loud. Shawn

Added results of the first set of tests to the 1st post. Now to move a bunch of drives around. Better have that screen shot handy. Shawn

According to the website, the DF-85 can hold 9 drives internally and has 3x5.25 bays, so you could add a single 3x5 Cage, for a total of 14 drives. I looked at this case as well, but drew away from it because I could never figure out if you could actually remove one of those 3 drive/fan assembly units and add in a 3x5 cage. I didn't think so, so went with the Antec 900 instead. The front fans have speed control, so you can turn them right down but still have some good cooling otherwise. Shawn

The iStar came in today. Loaded 'er up with hard drives, let them "aclimate" and now running 5 preclears to see what temps we get. I have a 1TB, 3 x 500GB and 1 x 320GB - all Seagate, 7200 RMP drives... Shawn

The Temps! Let me preface this by saying, all fans are stock, not modified in anyway. These are in an Antec 1200, the two rear 120's running on low, the top Big Boy, 200 running on low. All my drive are 7200 RPM except for parity drive, which is 5900. Drives are Seagate, Samsung and Hitachi. SuperMicro - 4 drives installed, 1 being parity Starting Temps (lowest of all drives) - 25 Celcius Highest Temp (Of any one drive) - 28 Celcius (this was the parity drive) IcyDock - 3 drives installed Starting Temps (lowest of all drives) - 28 Celcius Highest Temp (Of any one drive) - 35 Celcius Norco, 3 drives installed Starting Temps (lowest of all drives) - 26 Celcius Highest Temp (Of any one drive) - 38 Celcius There is the very unscientific results.... One drive in the Norco seemed to run hoter then the rest for some reason. Still waiting for iStar RMA return for some real testing via preclear scripts... Shawn

Just to update... I just ran some parity checks to correct more then 224 million, yes million, parity errors I had. This in turn provided for some good temperature readings on three of the cages, iStar one still not back from RMA. I took screen shots throughout and will post tomorrow, or I guess later today (or crap, days blending into each other....) so you guys will have some indicator of where the temps were. I still will run the 5x7200's preclear test once the iStar arrives on all four cages. Initial findings.... the SuperMicro ran the coolest... and in some cases, by as much as 10 celcius less. And that was the parity drive. But, some difinite numbers later tomor... today... OCD... Shawn

Yes, I believe there is... but more to the point of just standing there and looking at the unit. If I sat down to bring up the GUI to flash activity lights, I could easily look at my notes as well and know. Was more just an "aside" that I had noticed about the cages... Shawn

Some updates.... With replacing a couple of disks and preclearing others, I have been moving disks around. As I was standing there yesterday staring at my tower, as I am found to do on occasion (don't you?), I noticed something. What drive trays have disks in them? Without refering to my notes? Hmmm... well, they all have power lights to show powered on disks, except the SuperMicro. Ahh... not a big deal, but right then, was somethign I noticed as a bit of a "bug" with the SuperMicro units. Also, Newegg shipping me back the replacement on my iStarUSA cage, should be here next week. As this will be an "empty" cage, I can start testing running 5 x 7200 drives in preclear to get some temp readings. Question - what command should I run? Just telnet in 5 times and run 5 standard preclears? Or is there a specific command you guys would like me to run? Cheers, Shawn

I just tried to preclear a disk on one of my HighPoint RocketRaid cards, which have worked fine before, but now getting some weird issues. Command I used was: preclear_disk.sh -D -M 4 /dev/sdb And got the following back: Pre-Clear unRAID Disk /dev/sdb ################################################################## 1.9 smartctl may not be able to run on /dev/sdb. however this should not affect the clearing of a disk. smartctl exit status = 4 smartctl 5.39.1 2010-01-28 r3054 [i486-slackware-linux-gnu] (local build) Copyright (C) 2002-10 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net === START OF INFORMATION SECTION === Model Family: Western Digital Caviar Green family Device Model: WDC WD5000AAVS-00G9B1 Serial Number: WD-WCAUF2042515 Firmware Version: 05.04C05 User Capacity: 500,107,862,016 bytes Device is: In smartctl database [for details use: -P show] ATA Version is: 8 ATA Standard is: Exact ATA specification draft version not indicated Local Time is: Tue Apr 26 00:14:01 2011 EDT SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability. SMART support is: Enabled Error SMART Status command failed Please get assistance from http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/ A mandatory SMART command failed: exiting. To continue, add one or more '-T perm issive' options.$ Do you wish to continue? (Answer Yes to continue. Capital 'Y', lower case 'es'): But, if I go into unMenu -> Disk Management and run the Smart Status, works fine. (attached) I "assume" this drive is fine and just an issue with the preclear script and the smartctl command. Shawn smart.txt

The rough size of the package was 9"x8"x11.5".

According to manufacturer site, it is 80mm. I looked at a couple of sites. NCIX has what looks to be a completely different one pictured, although all the stats are the same, and claims 92mm. Newegg has the one pictured that I have, also claims a 92mm. Regardless, it comes with a 80mm. Shawn

Make sure HPA is disabled on the motherboard... Shawn

Just dealing with a wacked out drive right now. Once I get that replaced I should be able to shuffle the drives around to free up a caged completly, load 'er up with drives and start nailing them with preclears. Shawn

The ones you can order are somewhat limited here in Canada based on stock availability. What can be confusing about iStar is they have so many models... On newegg.ca right now there is: BPU-350SATA-BPL (What I got and only one in stock at time) BPU-350SATA-SILVER BPU-350SATA-RED BPU-350SATA-BLUE To bad the only difference wasn't just the "color" of the drive handles...

Can you elaborate a bit on what make you feel this way? Why certainly good sir. ICY Dock issues where mostly around what I perceived to be cheap drive cages. To me, this did not justify the cost. Right now it is $25 more then the next two cheapest, the Norco and SM units. That along with what lookd like not the greatest airflow in the rear made me less than thrilled. Once I plugged in my Corsair Molex cables and then tried to plug in SATA cables, quickly realized that wouldn't work. Many of the modular Molex cables come with those tabs on them (here) and those won't work. Icy Dock layout places some of the SATA plugs right below the power plug. No other cage had this design. So have to go find a splitter... Don't get me started about the fan either. iStarUSA - cheapest of the bunch, does have that going for it. But on the model I have at least, zero airflow openings in the front. Be really concerned with heat. I cannot test right now as I have already had to RMA the unit due to tray5 not working. I was turned off on the design of the locking mechanism for the drive cages. It seemed like the slightest pressure on them would pop it open, forcing me to use the itty bitty locking mechanism. Which is probably there because they know they pop open so easily. Unlike the Norco and SM, another custom fan connector on this one as well. After working with all four, I can say these two are in the bottom of the pack. But, this is my opinion. I really liked working with the Norco and SM models. Now, at $95 you cannot beat the price for the iStarUSA unit and both it and the Icy Dock will more than meet most people needs. But, personal preferences and all, I would go for the other two. Shawn

In my experience so far the SuperMicro only show activity on the LED's. Nothing else (but according to documentation, should show failed). The Norco and Icy Dock both show "powered up" LED and activity. Cannot say right now about the iStar - I had to ship it back to Newegg for RMA - tray 5 would not work for some reason. Based on my experince so far, I am really torn between the Norco and the SuperMicro units. The iStar and Icy Dock for me just don't cut it in the end. The SM unit with the easy to replace fan, and excellent airflow are a great plus. And I am using the stock fan. The Norco though has excellent trays and good overall design. Both have their pro/con when it comes to the sizes. Here in Canada there is only a $5 difference between the two as well. Flip a coin? Shawn

The Norco is a nice drive cage. All aluminum (or is it steel, hard to tell), rail and a base. As well, they added extra plastic "slides" on the outside to help it slid in and out easier. Also, these were the only ones that had the mechanism to block air from entering if no drive was present. But yes, the Norco itself is one huge block. But, think this... one huge heat sink. Ask away and will do my best to answer for ya. Shawn

Looks like the older BPU-350 "black" had plastic handles, which is what I got. The new BPU-350 ($30 more) that support 6Gb/s is "black" but is now aluminum handle. Also, looks like you can buy individual colored trays that have aluminum handles. I assume your aluminium units will allow some airflow directly over the drive? Shawn