UnRaiding an Apple Xserve RAID


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  • 2 weeks later...

Just a small update, I got one side of the backplane wired up for power and 1 and a half sata cables done. I am waiting on some more sata cables to be delivered so I can finish up all the data drives and test everything out!!

 

Here are the sata cables.

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And here are the power cables.

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Thats amazing!

Looking forward to see you putting it together and your report on cooling. The WD20EARS should run pretty cool though.

So am I, I'm hoping the WD Green drives will stay cool enough. With the not so good air flow I'm predicting.

 

 

My xserve raids should be here Friday!

Awesome! I will be looking for your build thread soon then. :)

 

 

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  • 1 month later...

Well I have been having some problems getting my drives to be recognized and I am not sure if it is my motherboard or a bad solder connection but I have 4 out of my 5 drives being recognized now and after I get the 5th one working I can clean up all the wires and close it up. Here is a picture of me testing everything out, and kind of where everything is going to go. I will be adding fans when I finish. 7uqe4ysa.jpg

 

 

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Well I finally got it up and running minus one disk that is connected to the controller which I think isn't working. The temps in the one picture are with two computers scanning the media that is on it. I will try a writing temp test when I figure out why the controller isn't working.

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Those temps are a little high.  Mine dont go over 36 degrees during a parity check.

 

I know thats a cool looking case and a fun project, but I'd be concerned about the reliability and the cooling ability.

I don't have any fans on it at all right now so they aren't getting any air flow. I will be adding some after I get everything working properly.

 

 

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So a little bit of an update, my unraid server the way it was was kind of messy so I decided to start all over on all of my data. I started preclearing all of my disks and before I put a fan next to the drives my temps on two drives were around 40c to 42c and after I put a fan on it, they went down to 33c at the moment. So if this is any indication of how hot these drives are going to run with a fan when I finish it this is a good thing, I am happy with those temps. This is also with only 5 drives in so I am about to put the rest of the drives in to see how the temperature fluctuates. Ill keep you guys posted.

 

ps. pictures will be coming soon.

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Exciting. I have my 4 xserve raid cases, but I just have not had time to sit down to get started on this project.

 

It takes a long time to get everything connected right. Hopefully you can go off of what I did and save a little time. I installed most of the other drives so that  air flow isn't as good (how it will normally be filled with drives) and the drives have gone up from 33c to 35c while preclearing the drives. I will do a couple writes and reads after the preclear is done and report temps then. Also the temperature in the room is about 72F.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well here is a smallish update, I decided to make a styrofoam back so that I could have the airflow go in the proper direction and it helped keep the drives about 6C lower and I only have two fans in the case. One right behind the backplane where the drives are and one exhaust in the styrofoam. Here are some pictures.

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  • 1 year later...

Well I haven't messed with my case mod in quite a while and my soldering of the sata cables to the pins didn't work out right so I just recently thought of a new way to connect them and the parts should be here either tomorrow or next week. I will update then to let you all know if it works or not.

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  • 8 months later...

Any update on this?

 

I know this is a very old post but I'm planning on doing a similar build with an Xserve Raid case that I'm going to buy for 100€ today.

I guess that xxredxpandaxx just got bored of posting the updates or something failed and he gave up everything lol

 

Would be nice to know the final status of this project and if you managed to get all the drives working. I'm planning to put 10 2TB WD Enterprise SAS drives inside, anyway, I will create a new post for that build :)

 

Anyway, thanks for this post as you helped me decide to buy the case!

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I'd think twice about building an unraid server with one of these cases as I found drive temps (50 - 60C) to be an issue due to the airflow around the drives not being good. The case is designed to be in a cold air conditioner server room with powerful cooling (& noisy) fans.

 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

I have kind of put the project aside for now, school takes up a lot of my time. I am in the process of designing a PCB to use with this project. Also I haven't had any temp problems with this case, drives never really go above 40C. I have one 120mm exhaust fan and 2 internal fans to direct air towards the back. I plan on buying a regular xserve case to put the motherboard in at some point and leave the drives in the xserve RAID.

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  • 1 month later...

I find myself in the position of needing to upgrade my hardware to a new chassis. I have been looking hard at 45 Drives, but they are spendy. I've always loved the look of the XServe design, and it's possible to purchase SEVERAL of them for the price of one empty Storinator case.

 

I realize that it would take 10U (3 XServe RAIDS + 1 XServe) to equal the capacity of a 4U Storinator. But the aesthetics are are a different story. I notice cooling is a concern, but that seems to depend on fan placement and channeling. But my question is, is it worth spending the time + money to buy some of these old girls and rip her guts out? Do all the status indicators still work for those of you who have embarked on this journey? Any other gotchas I should consider?

 

Thanks!

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 6 years later...

Realising that this is by now a VERY old topic, I am planning to do something like this for myself. But what thing that worries me is noise from the exposed cables. Like when you cut a SATA cable in half and use it for connection, does it not introduce electrical noise and thereby decreased performance of the drives?

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