grandprix Posted March 25, 2011 Share Posted March 25, 2011 I'd be very appreciative if someone could tell me the dimensions of the heatsink on this card please. And/or if you might have already placed a fan on it, what size, part #, etc. did you use (or if you can provide a link all the better). I've decided to just go big the first time, and I read a few places this card gets hot. As we know, heat degrades hardware's life span. So I was planning on using one of these under each card: Vantec SP-FC70-BL 70mm PCI Slot Case Cooler Which, while it WILL work with the motherboard I'm going with, it will lockout the possibility of using the SATA2 Serial ATA II PCI-Express RAID Controller Card (Silicon Image SIL3132)... which in itself wouldn't be a HUGE issue, since unRAID supports 22 max drives (inside the array) as the motherboard and two 8 drive controllers allow me 22 drives as is.. I'd love to have pie AND the filling if possible while being assured I'm keeping the 8 port controllers cooler than would be without any fan on them. <Update - Links repaired - bjp999> Link to comment
SSD Posted March 25, 2011 Share Posted March 25, 2011 No one here has ever complained of excessive heat coming from the controller card, and we have yet to see anyone isolate a problem to a bad SASLP card. So I am not sure your solution has a problem to solve . Small fans tend to not move much air, be pretty loud, and get louder with time. I might rethink trying to cool the card, and consider additional case cooling with an additional 120mm fan. Link to comment
grandprix Posted March 25, 2011 Author Share Posted March 25, 2011 No one here has ever complained of excessive heat coming from the controller card, and we have yet to see anyone isolate a problem to a bad SASLP card. So I am not sure your solution has a problem to solve . Small fans tend to not move much air, be pretty loud, and get louder with time. I might rethink trying to cool the card, and consider additional case cooling with an additional 120mm fan. The case - not sure how many options I have to adding fans. Already going to go with the 3x120 wall bracket over the stock 4x80. <shrug> I'm anal I suppose. Maybe someone will humor me regardless. ;p Link to comment
Rajahal Posted March 25, 2011 Share Posted March 25, 2011 Here's some rough measurements (the card is installed in a server and I don't want to remove it): The card is just under 5" long, .5" deep, and 2.5" wide. I've built several servers using two SASLP cards (in that same case though with different motherboards) and I've never run into any heat issues. I check out all my builds with an IR thermometer to make sure. I don't remember the exact numbers I saw on the cards, but if I didn't consider them notable at the time then they must have been below 30C. I too think that you are concocting a problem where there isn't one. As for your fan options, they are limited. The Norco 4224's rear 80mm fan mounts are non-standard - unfortunately the stock fans are a millimeter or two smaller than normal 80mm fans. This makes replacing them a total PITA. My solution has been to either replace both stock fans with one good quality one (recommended), or replace both stock fans with two good quality ones, one of which I shave down with a hacksaw and file (not recommended). From what I've seen, the 3 x 120mm fans are enough to cool the entire case, so the rear 80mm fans are a bit redundant anyway. Link to comment
grandprix Posted March 25, 2011 Author Share Posted March 25, 2011 Fair enough in that case, two veterans noting no heat issues is enough for me. The 120mm fans that I'll be going with for the fan plate are: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835119045 -- I'm not focusing at all on quiet operation fortunately. I think these being ball bearing will increase their lifespan over sleeve while still pushing 79.14 CFM each, for a total of 237.42 CFM. Hmm, then again, rechecking my work, I found these two options for 80mm fans (which would make it so that I wouldn't have to purchase the replacement fan plate): Loud 80mm at 52.8 CFM x4 = 211.2 CFM Slightly Louder 80mm at 84.1 CFM x4 = 336.4 CFM Then again, just found a pretty nice 120mm, super loud mind you, but, 252.85 CFM each. 252.85 x 3 = 758.55 CFM. Our unRAID servers are supposed to be able to hover right? Link to comment
aRe-eYe-pEa Posted March 25, 2011 Share Posted March 25, 2011 I don't have the big daddy case that you are looking at and I had heat issue with these cards. No errors. Just felt hot. I have no real measurements but, I did burn the back of my hand once. I use 2 of these one below each card in my case. http://www.amazon.com/Antec-Cyclone-Blower-Case-Expansion/dp/B000051299/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1301046490&sr=8-3-spell I think that you are fine without adding these but, I did it for the piece of mind. Link to comment
grandprix Posted March 25, 2011 Author Share Posted March 25, 2011 Wellll, back to the drawing board. Went to pull the trigger on my shopping cart this morning only to find that the Jetway is not in stock and by the looks of it, will be deactivated. I guess someone ganked quite a few boards. This wrecked combo savings and all by the automatic removal of it from the cart. Sooo. Now to find what IN STOCK mobo's others use with two SASLP cards. Link to comment
Rajahal Posted March 25, 2011 Share Posted March 25, 2011 Perhaps the heat issues only arise in tower cases with poor overall airflow? That would make more sense to me, as the cards are oriented one on top of the other, and the heat from the lower card could collect beneath the upper card. Again, this isn't a situation I've seen personally (and I have built tower-based builds using two of these cards), this is just speculation. Keep in mind that in the Norco 4224 the cards will be oriented vertically, so heat will rise up and away from them - there is no top or bottom card, both are side by side (assuming you don't run the server on its side). So again I don't expect you'll have any heat problems with your particular configuration. If you aren't concerned with noise, then you might just want to use the Norco 4224's stock fans. I've found that the 4224's I've ordered in the past month or so come with much better stock fans than the older models. The fans no longer sound like jet engines, and they seem to move a good amount of air. Whether or not they are enough to cool a server full of 24 drives I don't know, but it still may be worthwhile to just try the stock fans for a while and then upgrade later if you feel it is needed. Also, if you do decide to add a PCI cooler between the cards and block your PCIe x1 slot, you could always add a 2 port PCI card to the lowest slot. PCI does bottleneck your drives, but with only 2 drives on the card the bottleneck will be so small as to be negligible. If one of those drives is your cache drive, then there shouldn't be a bottleneck at all. Link to comment
grandprix Posted March 25, 2011 Author Share Posted March 25, 2011 Yeah, well the Jetway is unavailable at this time. So, no idea what I'm going to do. Sure there are other motherboards, but, I'm having a heck of a time finding one with two PCIe x4/8 slots like the Jetway had. Found one, but, they are one right after another, which, I'm sure the heatsink on the SASLP card will create a situation where they bump heads being one right after another. 22 drives for me is all I want. I plan to modify the backplane (hopefully) in such a manner that two slots are completely dead (no connectors that a drive "snaps" into). They will serve as storage bins more less for two replacement drives. A waste to many I'm sure, but, 22 drives = 40TB (with parity and cache) as you know. I find this is plenty for me, for now, especially since I intend to start with only 5 actual data drives (new ones at least) + 3 older 1TB drives that currently house non-redundant/parity data. To start, 10TB will be 3 times my current data storage. The only reason I'm going this route is: 1. Seems like a waste of money (for ME, everyone is different with different situations and I appreciate that) to spend $700-800 on just 8TB (no cache) when I can just spring for another $500-600 for that same 8TB + have expansion options up to 40TB. 2. I find when I -have- the storage space, I use it and use it as fast as possible. But again, I'm at a total loss now. I had everything all ready to go, had pillow talk with the wife last night and gotten approval.. so this morning I go to proceed to checkout the $1500 worth of items, when all of a sudden the refresh it performed on the shopping cart when pressing check out, showed me, no more motherboards. I'm 36, but, I have that weird feeling that if I were just 2 years younger I would be having a temper tantrum right now. Am clueless what to do now.. completely. Link to comment
Rajahal Posted March 25, 2011 Share Posted March 25, 2011 I don't know what your budget is like, but here's an easy and well proven option: SUPERMICRO MBD-C2SEA-O in stock -- 119.99+shipping You'll have to change your RAM and CPU of course. Such is life. I would suggest the Celeron 430 as a CPU. For the RAM, you'll want to check Supermicro's website for recommendations of compatible RAM, as Supermicro boards are notoriously picky about RAM. More expensive than the Jetway board, but a damn fine board in its own right. Personally, I would probably just wait for the Jetway board to come back in stock or try to source it elsewhere. I'm curious about your proposed backplane mod. What do you have in mind? Seems like it could be somewhat risky as you run the risk of bricking the entire backplane, though I suppose you could probably convince Norco to ship you a replacement if push came to shove. I do see the appeal of having two 'dead' drive bays for spares. Here's a simple mod I just thought of - coat the 23rd and 24th bay's backplane connectors (SATA and power) with a thin coat of clear nail polish. That way the drive would still plug in normally, but there should be no electrical connection. It would also allow you to later remove the mod with careful use of nail polish remover (very careful use as acetone can dissolve plastic if left in contact for too long) if you ever changed your mind and wanted to reclaim those last two drive bays. You would definitely want to test this out with an older drive before trusting it with your nice new drives just in case my theory doesn't pan out. Anyway, I'm interested to see what you have in mind. Link to comment
grandprix Posted March 25, 2011 Author Share Posted March 25, 2011 Without seeing the backplane yet, I have to assume the connectors off of the backplane PCB are just like any other -- soldered to the PCB. All circuitry should be on the PCB level of things, then the connector(s) are soldered on that. If the connectors are removed (I have a desoldering station so this will be easy and clean) then, no contact with the drives. That mobo doesn't strike my fancy. It's a good bit more expensive and I cannot say I'm keen on Celeron's. If push comes to shove though, perhaps. Jetway actually has quite a few boards that aren't being sold on Newegg, including newer models. I cannot understand this, seeing that, as far as I can tell, only Newegg (in NA anyway) seems to offer them. I absolutely love cheap + compatible and that Jetway board is definitely it. Through Googling for another reseller, I read quite a few posts where that board was popular amongst the HTPC'ers as well (regardless if they use unRAID or not), but, I still think someone performed a mass ordering on it. Either way.. my build is at a stand still and I have these itching finger tips to buy something -- though not at the cost of, well, cost. If modifications to the backplane are possible, I'll provide pictures, granted, this project gets off the ground. Link to comment
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