The 5X3 Cage review - Norco, SuperMicro, iStarUSA and Icy Dock


Whaler_99

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... The iStar and Icy Dock for me just don't cut it in the end...

 

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

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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...

 

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... The iStar and Icy Dock for me just don't cut it in the end...

 

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

 

Very helpful!  Will be interesting to see your temperature benchmarks and see which ones do the best job keeping drives cool.

 

Thanks Shawn!

 

 

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Very helpful!  Will be interesting to see your temperature benchmarks and see which ones do the best job keeping drives cool.

 

Thanks 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

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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...

 

 

The -BPL variant is the one with lockable tray.  There is also a BPU-350SATA-BLACK which is the black version of the other colours, with a non-lockable aluminium handle.

 

See here.  There are pictures of both black versions.

 

My current suspicion is that the -SATA version is the sata3 compliant replacement for the older -SA version which was only sata2.  Both versions were available with either style of tray.  In fact, the trays are probably exactly the same for the sata2 and sata3 versions and, I suspect, the lockable and aluminium handle trays are interchangeable - in other words, you could mix tray styles in a single backplane.

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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.

 

4X Supermicro CSE-M35T-1B

 

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.

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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.

 

4X Supermicro CSE-M35T-1B

 

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.

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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.

 

4X Supermicro CSE-M35T-1B

 

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.

 

Hey, if yours say M35T-1 on them, then I'm not going to disbelieve you.  After all, most websites are, at best, incomplete and , at worst, downright wrong!  I believe that the drive failure light is actually on the tray bezel, not on the main unit and I'm sure that he trays are common between the units.

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I have been looking at the norco 5 in 3's and am a bit confused.  when searching different stores I find two different descriptions.  One that has a 92mm fan and one that has a 80mm fan.  Is one a newer model?  both say they are the NORCO SS-500

 

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

 

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Hi Shawn,

 

Are you able to give some indication of the size of the cartons which these units came in?  I'm particularly interested in the iStar (although I know that the BPN is slightly smaller than the BPU, I guess that the cartons will be much the same size).  I need this information in order to estimate shipping costs in the event that I have them shipped from USofA.  I have a horrible feeling that adding shipping costs will make the exercise prohibitively expensive.  One supplier has already told me that, on top of the actual shipping costs, there would be freight handling charges added ($25 export fee and $20 inbound freight cost).  The big unknown, especially here in Phils where demands for 'rush fees', or some such, is the norm, is the cost of getting the units through customs.  The cost of the three units themselves would be $257.

 

Can anyone here suggest a reasonably cost-effective, but reasonably secure, method of shipping three units internationally?

In the end, I may have to accept the Supermicro units, because that is the only supplier with an official distribution in Philippines.  Even then, I expect that the price will be almost double that in the states.

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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

 

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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

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I believe that the Supermicro unit's lights only work when the unit is connected to a Supermicro controller card or motherboard using the included cable.  So not a bug per se, but a limitation to be sure.

 

I would just start with standard preclears.  You can use the -n option to skip the initial preread and make the process go much faster.  A 2 TB green drive takes 6 - 8 hours with the -n option, so a 7200 rpm drive should be even faster.  The writing phase is what will produce the most heat anyway, so there's little point in running the preread.

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I believe that the Supermicro unit's lights only work when the unit is connected to a Supermicro controller card or motherboard using the included cable.  So not a bug per se, but a limitation to be sure.

 

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.

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One thing I don't like about the istar cages is that the activity and power on light is the same one, and it's green for power on and orange for activity. I really wish it were something like green for on and blue for activity. I'm colorblind, so I can't tell the difference between those two colors on the cage. Separate lights would also work.

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