What to replace Norco RPC-450 with?

[TyantA]

So my unraid box has been happily living in a Norco RPC-450 for the past ~2years. It's grown to house 9 drives which means I'd soon have to convert the last bay or look for something bigger.

 

I actually had a need for a 4U case for an emergency build so I pulled the case... leaving my unraid box without a home for the time being. So now I have to quickly decide what to replace it with.

 

The same case doesn't make much sense - this is an opportunity to upgrade! But to what? I had originally (thought) I wanted the 4220 or 4224... but a quick check reveals that prices haven't changed; still in the $300-400 range.

 

There has got to be a happy in-between!? I also question going the rackmount route as I never did get a rack... maybe I'd be better off with a full tower style case to tuck in a corner instead. Those I've been following even less. I'll definitely start poking around the forums again but am hoping some more 'current' popular options might be suggested.

 

Thanks!

[Compass]

Hi,

 

Read Toms first post in this thread, he has a new case coming

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=19819.0

 

Might be what your looking for, hopefully the price will be right.

[TyantA]

Thanks for the reply Compass. I'm intrigued, but from what I've read there's 10 bays which is basically what I have/had.

 

Spent some time reading other people's builds and seems like Norco 4224 is still potentially the way to go. Trick is sourcing one in Canada. Seriously. Cheapest I've seen 'em is $409.99 at NCIX.ca

[BetaQuasi]

What's wrong with $410 Canadian?  They are $399 US direct from Norco or from Newegg....

 

http://www.ipcdirect.net/servlet/Detail?no=252

 

'least you don't have to pay $459 AU (~$475 US) like us Aussies lol

 

 

[TyantA]

I'm not sure I can use that for justification as to how that fits into the wedding budget: "well it's more expensive for Aussies" lol.

 

It's the shipping that kills, usually. Seems I have to make it happen somehow. : / Sad thing is, it should come with the 120mm fan wall. It's one thing to pay that much and be done with it but really it's just the tip of the iceberg w/ fan wall, maybe ball bearing rails, power adapters... controller cards! Yikers!

 

My last case was $73.xx haha.

 

It might actually be cheaper to get the same one again, convert the last bay then upgrade the drives to 3-4tb monsters.

[Compass]

This,

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147157

 

+

 

http://www.amazon.com/Sans-Digital-HDDRACK5-5-Bay-Organizing/dp/B001LF40KE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1336070386&sr=8-1

 

 

sitting in the bottom of the case gives you 15 Hdd's add another 5 in 3 later in the 5'25" bays and you have 20 drives, not half bad looking either.

 

I re-read Toms thread, my bad, thought he meant 14 x 3.5" hdd, not 10 then 4 x 2.5" hdd's.

 

Otherwise tell your mates to give you gift cards from Newegg for your wedding gift! kick backs might be required, but what the hell, it's mens business.......

[TyantA]

Hrm, now that's an interesting option! Thanks for the suggestion. I had been starting to think tower format anyway. Rackmount takes so much surface area.. unless you have a shelf for it, which I don't.

 

I like!

 

I guess part of the draw of the Norco is having the backplane & hot swap ability but... not sure it's worth the difference.

[TyantA]

Ok. I've spent far too much time last night reading/browsing for options, but I think I'm closer to my decision. I definitely have the greenleaf prototype blog to thank! I'm either going to go with the 4220 (to save a few bucks over the 4224) or the Antec 1200.

 

But here are my questions:

[*]For my house right now, the tower will fit better but presumably in a future house I'd have more practical room for a rack. Would it be short-sighted to go tower based on a home that we're likely in for another ~3 years max? (I feel like the norco would be a long-term commitment

[*]I have found the 1200 for $139 CND which fits nicely into the budget now. My current build has 9 drives which I will outgrow this year. The 1200 offers a case for the now and a little room for growth not far in the future in its out-of-the-box state, then the ability to be converted to a 20 drive beast in due time. Dilemma is... over time, this case will cost more as I add 4x drive cages ad ~$100/ea. Why not just go for a norco and save money over the long run?

[*]My fiancée, as I'm trying to reason this out loud this morning, brings up an interesting point. One of my arguments is that this purchase will likely last my server ~10 years (as a nice round figure). She brought up the point that in 10 years, will we still need a case with ~20 drives? Is this a short(er) sighted purchase with everything moving to SSDs & the cloud?

 

If it helps paint the whole picture at all, the hardware I currently have is:

- Biostar A760G M2+

- Sempron 140

- 2GB ram

- New Corsair Pro Series HX750 on the way

- High Point Rocket Raid 2310

- A mix of 7 2TB WD Green & Seagate LP drives, 1 Samsung 1TB drive and 1 WD Raptor 150GB as cache.

 

The easiest way for me to expand beyond the 10 drive mark would be to use the promise tech tx4 I have sitting in a drawer which gets me to my max capacity with this motherboard (until I spring for a Supermicro 8-port card). So really, to take advantage of the norco I'd need a complete rebuild at some point which doesn't fit into the budget this year at all.

 

The more I talk this out, the more I'm leaning towards the Antec 1200. I just wish the long-term monetary outlay looked better. Because really, buying 4x drive cages AFTER having bought the case is actually more expensive than the 4220 on its own!

 

 

Edit: The search continues for the perfect, cost effective tower...

Fractal Design Define XL. Thoughts? It's sharper looking than the Rosewill or Antec cases IMHO. I think my main concerns are: one fan for 6 drives in the bottom area, with 3 hiding behind the front 3. I wonder if the back ones would get enough cooling? Also, the design means I'd be limiting myself to one drive cage in the 5.25" bays given the design of the lower area for what, a total of 15 drives? Hrm. So another $139 case that looks good, has decent cooling and can eventually support up to 15 drives - the max I realistically see myself going within the next 1-2 years. I'd say the Antec is more 'attractive' from a practicality standpoint and the define is more attractive physically haha. 

 

Edit 2: But then I have to ask myself, what am I "upgrading" to/for? The Norco RPC-450 did its job. I could just get another, and a 5 in 3 drive cage and call it a day for less than $100. I think I was drawn to 1) lots of drives down the road, 2) tower form factor 3) ability to re-sell the case in the future. The opportunity to sell mine seemed like a good time to upgrade but w/o forking out a fortune I don't see what's out there that makes sense upgrading to. Indecisive much!

[chickensoup]

Edit: The search continues for the perfect, cost effective tower...

Fractal Design Define XL. Thoughts? It's sharper looking than the Rosewill or Antec cases IMHO. I think my main concerns are: one fan for 6 drives in the bottom area, with 3 hiding behind the front 3. I wonder if the back ones would get enough cooling? Also, the design means I'd be limiting myself to one drive cage in the 5.25" bays given the design of the lower area for what, a total of 15 drives? Hrm. So another $139 case that looks good, has decent cooling and can eventually support up to 15 drives - the max I realistically see myself going within the next 1-2 years. I'd say the Antec is more 'attractive' from a practicality standpoint and the define is more attractive physically haha. 

 

From personal experience I can tell you that the Fractal cases are very well built. They also look really serious yet minimilistic, definately my taste I was going to get a define XL but ended up modding an old server case. I have built many machines into R2's & R3's and the general feel is that there is a lot of attention to detail. They do have some minor design flaws still though; such as the bottom and top drives don't get much airflow and the case is very heavy due to all the sound dampening (although any good unRAID server should put your back out IMO).

 

On the plus side, the sound dampening does help a LOT if you don't open up the extra fan vents, you can balance airflow vs noise really easily. All the drive cages have rubber mounts and are fairly well set out to label drives easily

 

Define XL USB 3.0 Black Pearl

http://www.fractal-design.com/?view=product&category=2∏=68

 

[bigdog66]

It can be a tough decision.....

 

I had the same decision to make....sure the Norco in the long run will definitely be cheaper overall but you have to put that money out all at once

and considering I didn't have 20+ hard drives to fill it up with the need for right now was not there

 

The Antec 1200 is an awesome awesome server case...wish there was a little more space on the right side for all the cables but plenty of room where it counts

 

Then i got lucky and caught a pricing mistake on Newegg and Amazon and picked it up for $90 or $95 before the mistake was caught so it made my decision easier lol

 

10 years is from now is hard to predict but at least in the US considering the areas that still don't have high speed and all the areas that don't have fast high speed thinking that you will store and stream your 60+ tb's of data from the cloud is still a long ways off

 

not that i helped at all lol.....but all things considered either way you are looking at 2 solid cases

[TyantA]

Thanks for the input guys.

 

Honestly, as attracted to the tower form-factor as I am, the truth is I've survived for the past 2 years or whatever with a rackmount case. The question that ultimately directed my decision was... if I went with a tower, unless I sprang for the Cosmos case that supports 13 drives out of the box, (and why would I do that when it costs as much as a Norco) the other two contenders support less drives than the RPC-450 until money is spent.

 

Since I already have 9 drives and can go to 14 without upgrading controllers... I figured my last choice was the best (aka most economical) choice. So... I ordered another RPC-450! I wish the black version had been in stock. Oh well. This time I picked up a cheap CoolerMaster 4 in 3 cage as well which gives me the 14 slots I need!

 

Not the most attractive, not the smallest footprint and not the most capacity... but at $93 total... I couldn't say no.

[chickensoup]

Thanks for the input guys.

 

Honestly, as attracted to the tower form-factor as I am, the truth is I've survived for the past 2 years or whatever with a rackmount case. The question that ultimately directed my decision was... if I went with a tower, unless I sprang for the Cosmos case that supports 13 drives out of the box, (and why would I do that when it costs as much as a Norco) the other two contenders support less drives than the RPC-450 until money is spent.

 

Since I already have 9 drives and can go to 14 without upgrading controllers... I figured my last choice was the best (aka most economical) choice. So... I ordered another RPC-450! I wish the black version had been in stock. Oh well. This time I picked up a cheap CoolerMaster 4 in 3 cage as well which gives me the 14 slots I need!

 

Not the most attractive, not the smallest footprint and not the most capacity... but at $93 total... I couldn't say no.

 

Pics or it didn't happen IMO