Norco SS-500 redesigned?

[lunadesign]

I bought a handful of these in 2012 (yellow PCB) and 2013 (green PCB) but I hear they redesigned them again within the past year.  Has anyone bought one of these lately?  If so, how do they differ?  Any pics would be greatly appreciated too.

 

Thanks!

[lunadesign]

I unfortunately didn't hear from anyone, so I went ahead and ordered a new unit.  (Unfortunately, I ordered 2 hours too early to get the NewEgg Black Friday deal.)

 

The new unit arrived today and I have to say that I'm underwhelmed.

 

I personally prefer the 2012 (yellow PCB) units that featured bright LEDs and didn't like the 2013 (green PCB) units that had much dimmer LEDs (you have to position your eyes at the correct angle to really see them).  My contact at Norco told me the "dim LED issue" was fixed in the redesign.  However, it appears they didn't fix the PCB LEDs.  Instead, it appears the light pipe on the new trays has improved magnification.  Still, the new cage + new tray is still dimmer than the 2012 units.  What's worse is that if you use an old tray in the new cage, its super dim.  If you like neat, professional looking racks with uniformity, you're not going to be happy with these changes.

 

On the plus side, the redesigned trays appear to have much better ventilation in the front grille.  They also look a bit different than the old ones.  The bottom metal / front plastic attachment is different but I can't tell if its more robust or not.

 

The cage fan is still of the super loud "air raid siren" variety but that's no surprise....I always swap them out for Noctua NF-R8 units.

 

 

[bw1]

I ordered 3 last week when they were on sale for $60. All 3 have green PCBs. 1 has 2012.08.08 Ver:1.2 on the inside of PCB and has white Molex connectors. 2 have 3-5 12Gb V1.1 and have black Molex connectors.

 

On one of the V1.1s, the 2nd bay will not initialize (?) if it's connected to my MB SATA ports. It will work fine if it's connected to either of the controllers that I have. Depending on the MB SATA port connected to it, it's very slow to boot or I get a message on unRAID boot - "ata5: softreset failed (1st FIS failed)".

 

I would have never noticed had I not put that one in first to connect to the MB SATA ports.

 

I'm going to RMA this one to Newegg and hope I don't have any problems in the future with the other 2 or the replacement.

[bw1]

BTW, the v1.2 has much brighter LED's than either of the v1.1s.