Pimp Your Rig


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Nice! lovely G4.

A further exam shows the gaps between the HDs are prob too small for further perforations - I'd prob try recycling the rest of fans from G5 by mounting them on top of the seagates pulling air up.

 

It is a nice G4, indeed. Did you see his G5 Asus mods? The air zones/ducts I was suggesting could be something like that on his G5/G4 setups. You decide how shiny/elaborate.

All you really need is to direct airflow thru your hardware and in/out. Plenty of examples in the web.

 

About HDD spacing, I'd suggest 1/2 to 1 inch between HD should be fine, if there's a gap bet HDDs and the case floor.

 

Temps look better, but far from optimal. Recycling the fans might be a good idea- careful that more fans does not always = better cooling or improved airflow. Yet almost always it is more noise. Play around with the mesh and try to create heat zones in your case with diffusers (tape and a few pieces of plastic or cardboard will do for testing).

 

I have access to a G5 case. Thus, very interested in seeing how your rig setup behaves at the end.

 

Cheers

Ramon

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Temps look better, but far from optimal. Recycling the fans might be a good idea- careful that more fans does not always = better cooling or improved airflow. Yet almost always it is more noise. Play around with the mesh and try to create heat zones in your case with diffusers (tape and a few pieces of plastic or cardboard will do for testing).

 

 

Agree - will definitely try heat zones (seem to be an intelligent way of cracking the temps). What temp would be considered optimal btw? ~<40?

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Talking about HDD temps is a bit on the edge and notions are plagued by personal preferences. It's more to try and keep your drives in an 'ideal range' for optimal life. Manufacturers talk about max temps, not much about ideal temps. But the internets are full of 'data' on this.

 

Caveat is, although we try to keep our tower's drives at or under 40 C, there's a lot out there that might not directly agree with that notion. Thing is, to help extend drive life (and hopefully reduce failures) you should keep the drives within a safe temp range no matter the seasons, or if you're running parity checks or rebuilding drives. 50 degrees should be out of the question, and continued operation at mid to high 40s should be avoided. 

 

Thus, at the risk of seeing a lot of disagreement pop up in here-- since you asked directly-- I'd say you should try to shoot at not under 30, and not over 40 C HDD temps. Although I've seen the occasional mid to high 40 in my rig's drives, as well as low 20s, my personal safe range is about 29 to 39 degrees.

 

In short, I'd suggest you aim for mid HDD temps in the 30s, and if airflow is adequate, you should not see extremes unless there's a specific failure.

 

R

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Good! It seems you are on the right track. Be sure to consider all your hardware and each component's needs for airflow/cooling when you decide on your heat zones or where to direct/block airflow.

 

Anything, pls post or PM me if needed.

 

good luck!

 

-Ramon

 

Edit: Here you might find some ideas on baffling/heat zone designs for your case,

 

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article595-page2.html

 

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Wow!  Why enterprise drives?  Hope you have a beefy PSU to power them all.  Also, how do you plan on mounting the final 2 drives (as unRAID currently maxes out at 22 drives)?  The Supermicro rackmount looks nice - we don't see them often here as most people opt for the less expensive Norco.

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Wow!  Why enterprise drives?  Hope you have a beefy PSU to power them all.  Also, how do you plan on mounting the final 2 drives (as unRAID currently maxes out at 22 drives)?  The Supermicro rackmount looks nice - we don't see them often here as most people opt for the less expensive Norco.

 

+1

 

Aside from these, which I totally agree with, Drive temps and/or noise will also be a problem with a setup that has so many Enterprise drives in a home environment. You could save some money Now and in the future by going w green drives.

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[glow=red,2,300]New 24 Drive unRaid[/glow]

 

Whew, all the way, right away ;)

So how's it running?

Currently I'm running only 12 drives.  Everything has been tested and checked out but I dont need 24 drives worth of storage at this time. 

 

Wow!  Why enterprise drives?  Hope you have a beefy PSU to power them all.  Also, how do you plan on mounting the final 2 drives (as unRAID currently maxes out at 22 drives)?  The Supermicro rackmount looks nice - we don't see them often here as most people opt for the less expensive Norco.

 

The case was purchased via craigs for a VERY reasonable price. I've always like SM stuff I have several of their servers running.  It has 1400w dual PSU. 

 

 

+1

 

Aside from these, which I totally agree with, Drive temps and/or noise will also be a problem with a setup that has so many Enterprise drives in a home environment. You could save some money Now and in the future by going w green drives.

 

I have an older Compaq 32u rack in a special built room in my home.  It has its own HVAC so the noise is not an issue.  Power usage could be considered a problem but with all of the other hardware that's in the rack I'm drawing right at 12Amps at 220v.  I have dual 30amp 220v feeds going into my rack that power two sets of 2 UPS.  All the hardware is split between the A side and B side power, if its dual corded, if not I have a trip lite auto transfer switch. 

 

My unraid is a backup target for Veeam.  I have 8 vm hosts each running several servers/workstations/vdi ect  they get backed up every 2 hours and i keep 13140 retention points (3 years)  168 restore points are sent offsite.

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Wow, that's a lot of external enclosures!  All eSATA?  How many drives?  I count 18 drive bays.

Twenty drives in the external enclosures(four 4 bay and one 5 Bay--one four bay has 3 drives in it). Then I have the cache and parity drive in the 3in2 enclosure in the PC case.

 

Hi Aaronwt,

 

  I was wondering how your running the Sans Digitals on the Unraid server? And do they become one drive added to the server or 3,4 or 5? I have 2 Sans Digital 5 drive (Raid5) and wondered how I might be able to use them with my setup. I guess I'm wondering if your using the Sata Raid cards that might have come with yours as well? And if so that would be great for me if I decide to use mine. Also are you having any bottleneck issues using these external boxes? 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Wow, that's a lot of external enclosures!  All eSATA?  How many drives?  I count 18 drive bays.

Twenty drives in the external enclosures(four 4 bay and one 5 Bay--one four bay has 3 drives in it). Then I have the cache and parity drive in the 3in2 enclosure in the PC case.

 

Hi Aaronwt,

 

   I was wondering how your running the Sans Digitals on the Unraid server? And do they become one drive added to the server or 3,4 or 5? I have 2 Sans Digital 5 drive (Raid5) and wondered how I might be able to use them with my setup. I guess I'm wondering if your using the Sata Raid cards that might have come with yours as well? And if so that would be great for me if I decide to use mine. Also are you having any bottleneck issues using these external boxes?   

 

You need to use a motherboard and/or SATA card(s) that support port multipliers via eSATA.  The drives will show up as individual drives, not one big one.

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I like your Supermicro case.  Usually a little loud, but tough like tank.

 

Do you have any pictures of your 32u rack?  This is like porn for me.

 

Back side is power, and LAN gear

 

 

This is the bottom half, the top has is all WAN gear.

 

+1

Excellent techie porn!

 

Thanks for posting!

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I like your Supermicro case.  Usually a little loud, but tough like tank.

 

Do you have any pictures of your 32u rack?  This is like porn for me.

 

This is the bottom half, the top has is all WAN gear.

 

 

Nice,  I like it, sweet setup.  I am also a huge Dell fan.

 

Here is a link to mine I posted earlier.

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2031.msg120321#msg120321

 

Charles.

 

 

 

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Nice,  I like it, sweet setup.  I am also a huge Dell fan.

 

Here is a link to mine I posted earlier.

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2031.msg120321#msg120321

 

Charles.

 

 

Really not a fan of the R710 (bottom of the Rack) or the 1950s or the 2950 but they are cheep and will do until i get the IBM blade center fixed up.

 

I've got two of those Supermicro SC936E26-R1200B sitting under the bed in my guest bedroom collecting dust.  Great cases. Just wanted to move everything to a single case for management.

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Nice,  I like it, sweet setup.  I am also a huge Dell fan.

 

Here is a link to mine I posted earlier.

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2031.msg120321#msg120321

 

Charles.

 

 

Really not a fan of the R710 (bottom of the Rack) or the 1950s or the 2950 but they are cheep and will do until i get the IBM blade center fixed up.

 

I've got two of those Supermicro SC936E26-R1200B sitting under the bed in my guest bedroom collecting dust.  Great cases. Just wanted to move everything to a single case for management.

 

 

Really, you don't like the 710's I have a few with dual HEX cores and 288gig of ram.  They are troopers.  take everything I throw at them and just keep running.

 

cc-

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

 

Ok another 300 case.  ;D  Now I am only running the rear fan and turned off the rest since it don't need them.

My temps are 20-24c idle and at full load it goes to 35c.....

 

Is it safe to have the HD's that low at idle?

 

Those drive temps should not be an issue. HDD temps tend to go up as drives spin up, and temps in the mid 20s are acceptable. You should keep an eye on how far temps drop where your server is located. Lower temps could be a concern.

 

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  • 2 months later...

 

I like your Supermicro case.  Usually a little loud, but tough like tank.

 

Do you have any pictures of your 32u rack?  This is like porn for me.

 

imag0109.jpg

Back side is power, and LAN gear

 

imag0111.jpg

 

This is the bottom half, the top has is all WAN gear.

 

im interested in getting the supermicro case. hows the fan? is it noisy? if its noisy, im getting norco 4220 with noctua fans.

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Here's my low cost and 1st UnRaid set up:

 

CPU: AMD Athlon II X2 250 Dual Core

Mobo: Biostar A760G M2

Cooler: Thermaltake Copper AMD RX K8

RAM: G.SKILL 2GB 240-Pin DDR2 1066 Dual Channel F2-8500CL5D-2GBPK

PSU: OCZ ModXStream Pro Power Supply - 600-Watt, Modular, Dual +12V Rails, SATA, 80Plus

HDD: 1 X Seagate Barracuda Green 2TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache 3.5-Inch Internal Bare Drive ST2000DL003 (PARITY DRIVE)

        2 X Seagate Barracuda 2 TB 5900RPM SATA 3Gb/s 32 MB Cache 3.5-Inch Internal Desktop Hard Drive ST320005N4A1AS-RK-Retail Kit

 

PICS:

IMG_4777.jpg

IMG_4781.jpg

IMG_4779.jpg

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