My RPC-4224 has been full-up with 24 drives since I put it together in 2013.  IIRC, at the time, unRAID v4.x would only support 24 drives total, or at least 24 data drives.  Over the years as I've purchased larger capacity drives, I simply moved the replaced lower capacity drives to another unRAID server.

 

Recently, to my surprise, I discovered that v6.2.x now supports 28 data drives alone, in addition to 2 parity drives and 24 cache drives.

 

So I'm curious: what are those who've maxed out a 4224 doing to expand beyond it's 24 drive slots to take advantage of unRAID's higher drive count support?  External drive enclosures?  Or loosely laid out alongside the motherboard in the back of the case?

 

I've already moved my parity drive to a PCI bracket that holds both a 3.5" and 2.5" drive (to which I installed a spare 60GB SSD drive for VMs), then added a 90mm fan that blows directly onto the HDD to keep it cool (it consistently shows several degrees Celsius cooler than those in the regular drive slots).

 

I'm contemplating one of those 30-drive capacity cases from 45drives, but I'm not sure if they sell them bare, and I don't like losing the ability to quickly replace data drives as I upgrade them.

I used the slot covers from my 4224 and some screws and made a block of 4 drives that I stand on end between the power supply and the fan wall of my 4224 to give me 4 more drives.  Also using 2 SSDs and the tray at the other end that connects to the fan wall and the left side for another two (cache pool) drives.  That along with my ASRock - EP2C602-4L/D16 and Dual E5-2670s fills up the case very well.  If you have a standard ATX motherboard (or better yet a microATX/mini ITX) you might be able to mod some more drives beyond the edge of the MB (at the fan wall for the ATX MB or a bunch from the unused slot covers to the Fan wall with a microATX/miniITX.

I measured the available open areas and in my primary server with micro-ATX board there's only enough room for two drives placed parallel along the main axis of the case on either side of the mobo.  That is sufficient for my needs as that would cover my 4 new data drives, bringing me up to 28 data drives.  I'm hoping the 120mm fan wall will provide enough cooling for those drives as they will be situated right behind them.  I've already placed the parity drive and cache drive on the aforementioned PCI bracket (the case was designed before Norco introduced the OS Drive Bracket); I won't be implementing a second parity drive as this is strictly a media and VM server.

 

My newly assembled second 4224 system uses a mini-ATX board and there is enough room on the PCI side of the case for a 5-drive block that I plan to put together with an aftermarket drive cage with integrated 120mm fan (whenever I max out the 24 slots).  As this server is my backup server but also is the recipient of replaced older drives from my main server, it has a higher probability of failures due to high power-on hours and age of the drives (it just experienced SMART errors with 2 drives almost simultaneously) I plan to use 2 parity drives along with at least one SSD cache drive (installed on the OS Drive Bracket).

 

I'm contemplating one of those 30-drive capacity cases from 45drives, but I'm not sure if they sell them bare, and I don't like losing the ability to quickly replace data drives as I upgrade them.

 

 

Here you go.

https://www.backuppods.com/collections/backblaze-storage-pod-6-0

Here you go.

https://www.backuppods.com/collections/backblaze-storage-pod-6-0

 

Thanks for this!

 

Though, that's mighty expensive just for the oldest v4.5 pod they sell, at $1,400 for the backbone version (includes SATA cards, cables, and more importantly, the backplanes; really required since these are custom-made for this case).  And unless unRAID plans to offer a 45-data drive version any time, it's not a viable solution for me since I really only need a 30-drive case.  45Drives does offer a 30-drive solution, but its a complete system sans drives and costs $3,100.  It doesn't appear they offer just the bare case or a "backbone" version without motherboard and accompanying acoutremonts.

There were some cheap Chenbro chassis on eBay lately that held 45-48 drives, can't remember.

 

I picked up some of the HGST 60 bay SAS3 chassis (4U60) a couple of months ago dirt cheap new in the box.

 

I only mention those as they were substantially cheaper than the backup pods or whatever you want to call them.

 

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I'll look into those.  There are a couple on eBay presently: a 4U 48-bay used unit and a 9U 50-bay new unit.  The 9U version is interesting in that all bays are directly accessible through the front face, though it is an extremely tall unit at 16".

I was worried the 60 bay HGST was gonna be a pain to pull out. But honestly it slides like silk. I can pull it out with one finger.

 

But I know what your getting at. I didn't need them but I couldn't pass up the price. I was about to upgrade a backplane on one of my SM 846 chassis when I came across the 60 bay. So I thought why buy a used SAS2 backplane when I can get an entire new SAS3 chassis for about the same price. I just couldn't help myself

 

 

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