stomp

And this is the SMART report ran after a power cycle. It reports "read failure" but not sure if I should consider the disk dead. tower-smart-20241011-2155.zip

Hello, The last disk I've added to my array keeps getting into disabled state. The disk is pretty new, I've only used it for some months in a Windows machine with no problem. The disk has been pre-cleared with no problem either but now it's the 3rd time it goes into disabled state. Initially it was connected to a cheap 12-port SATA controller. It is now connected to an LSI 9300-8i but nonetheless it got disabled again. I think I've excluded something wrong with the controller and the SATA cable. Might be linked to a power problem even though the other disks are fine. I've attached the diagnostics. Hopefully someone can narrow down the problem. sdb is the disabled disk. Thanks in advance. tower-diagnostics-20241011-2137.zip

I’ve got 106 TB of usable space, plus 32 TB as double parity. Some time ago I got rid of my Supermicro 5x3 cages and replaced them with 4x3 cages with 12 mm fans (much quieter). I had to reduce the number of array drives so it took some time to replace the previous drives with larger ones. I’m going for 16 TB drives at the moment (2 at the moment used for parity). The smallest one is 8 TB. I’m planning to replace current drives with larger ones when I need more space. I don’t plan to do any kind of upgrade in terms of case in order to increase again the number of drives.

I received the Noctua and I'm very happy! Extremely silent with ULNA. I'm gonna order more of these fans for the other cages.

Good idea. I got Noctuas in my media PC. Noctua fans are available in two basic variants, either designed for low (general use case fans) or high static pressure scenarios (can be used as CPU cooler fans). Only a high-pressure fan will work properly pulling air through five hard drives in a 5in3. Their NF-B9 model should work from factory in your install, and maybe with the LNA, but with the ULNA adapter (8db install) static pressure drops to 0.64 mm H2O and ~24CFM. That seems quite low to pass enough cooling air through five hard drives. About the noise level, remember the decibel scale is logarithmic, and anything at or below 18db is considered virtually inaudible in a real life setting. In a real life situation three 8db fans should stay under 12db. An 8db fan is considered 'silent' in real life, and three should prove as loud as your hard drives or similar. If you are looking for a silent PC level of operation you should consider using soundproofing in your case (like Accoustipack, available from Quietpc and others). Ramon Thanks a lot! Indeed I ordered one NF-B9. As for the cooling, if people here are running 5in3 cages without fans, I think the ULNA might be sufficient. Personnally I'm using two Zalman cages at the moment. One with and one without a fan, and I don't see any temperature difference between the two. But I might sleep better knowing at least some thin air is passing through my HDD's I'll let you know how the Noctua fan performs.

I ordered a Noctua fan with Ultra Low Noise Adapter. Noise shouldn't exceed 8 dB, that seems pretty decent to me. With 3 of them, I expect noise to reach nearly 30 dB. I'm also planning to either get a fanless PSU or go with a fanless heatsink for the CPU, or both. Silence is a requirement because the server stands in the living room and is up 24/7.

I'll remove the jumper and see how the drives react in terms of heat dissipation. I'm just using one Supermicro cage atm but the goal is to get two more. I think there are rails from top to bottom. As I said, Zalman cages have some specific design which allows their installation despite the rails.

For another pleasant sound, try starting one up without the fan plugged in I might do this as well but don't have the courage to move the jumper right now. Moreover I think that stacking 5 HDD's in such a small place might generate important heat, so a fanless setup is not an option in the long run but I may be wrong. Is there someone here that runs 5in3 cages without fans? Is this a via viable option?

I just received my Supermicro CSE-M35... Damn these are tight and... LOUD! For the tightness, I was aware of but man these are so loud. I just ordered another fan because the noise the original Supermicro fan produces is just not human. In fact for the tightness, it's just a case problem. My case has some rails for 5.25" device and it's these rails that prevent to perfectly fit the Supermicro. I just forced and it went in. Zalman's cages take the rails into their design, thus allowing them to fit nonetheless. However they're just 3in3.