Is this a good system for Unraid? Just pop-in HDDs?


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http://www.ebay.com/itm/3U-Supermicro-16-Bay-SAS2-Server-X9DR3-LN4F-2xXeon-E5-2660-8-Core-96GB-Rail-2PS-/152467355219?hash=item237fc33653

 

I'm curious, why do these sellers sometimes provide RAID controller such as Adaptec?  Isn't it the backplane already has SCU, and the motherboards, already has SCU onboard as well?

 

Rather than getting hot swap 3.5 drive bays, these are way cheaper.  

 

Please give pros and cons using this system, apart from the processor not Xeon E5-2670, and possibly, fan being noisy.

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I paid less then that for my 36 bay Supermicro chassis and it also came with a motherboard, dual Xeon CPU's, 52GB of ECC RAM, dual power supplies, so better deals can be found, you just have to be patient.

 

One thing I would ask about that system is if the backplane can handle drives larger than 2TB, usually Mr. Rackables states that in their sales, in this one they don't mention it so I would want to be sure. They are noisy for sure, not sure about changing the fans, it would be too much work on my system and there are 9 of them in my system that are hot swappable.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I favor rackmount, with hotswap bays. Rather than buy those 3 x 5.25 to house 5 drives, there rackmounts seem more logical. Furthermore, the support redundant psu. Dual processor boards. The only problem is they are so deep, long in length. Lastly, I hope to really find a way to silence them. Can anybody recommend tried and tested methods to get rid of noise? Some say the psu is the culprit. Isn't it the fan in between backplane and board?

 

If this isn't really possible (to silence), I will have to settle for other units that are silent, yet support hotswap, dual xeon E5s. Budget around 800 USD max.

 

Any suggestions?

 

This will be in a living area. So silence is imperative.

 

 

 

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I just glanced at the listing and the title states SAS2 so if that's the case it will support drives >2TB.

As to the fans, a lot of people buy servers and try to put consumer grade fans into them to quiet them down. This can be done but your drive temps will suffer greatly. Your much better off sticking with the high static pressure fans and running them off a motherboard fan controller assuming they are 4pin. That will bring the noise level down quite a bit. I don't know what power supplies it has but I run SQ's in mine to make them silent.

But to be completely honest, if your leaving this in a living area, I honestly think you need to skip the hot swap servers and go with a traditional tower chassis with large free flowing fans. Your going to be disappointed if you buy a chassis like this and keep it in a living area.


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Cyberskulls, thanks, I think your last statement says it all. It's out. I'd like to continue my research though for a pc that will work.

Can you suggest a build for my purpose? I already know the board I want to use. It will be one of those e-atx by supermicro. So chassis wise, I need a tad bigger than ATX case. The difficult part though is the cost of those hot swap chassis, and their size won't fit as it's depth is long. I saw a lot seem to use Phantek Enthoo, though I believe this is a huge case, furthermore, I don't think it supports my plans for 15 hotswap drives

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Cyberskulls, thanks, I think your last statement says it all. It's out. I'd like to continue my research though for a pc that will work.

Can you suggest a build for my purpose? I already know the board I want to use. It will be one of those e-atx by supermicro. So chassis wise, I need a tad bigger than ATX case. The difficult part though is the cost of those hot swap chassis, and their size won't fit as it's depth is long. I saw a lot seem to use Phantek Enthoo, though I believe this is a huge case, furthermore, I don't think it supports my plans for 15 hotswap drives

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I haven't bought tower cases in so long, I really don't know. I knowing going to hot swap cages sounds cool but if your using good quality drives you will rarely be changing hard drives.

Don't let me talk you out of it, but I currently run 60 bay top load HGST chassis that are obviously all hot swap as well as a handful of Chenbro 12 bay hot swap chassis and TBH, I don't change out hard drives anymore. One of my oldest drives from 2010 (2TB WD RE4) was swapped out this year as it was showing some vibration. Other than that, all my Reds (over 50 of them) are all over a year old and none of them have been touched. I have (16) Blue drives that run perfectly as well.

My point is if I was starting over from scratch I would go with a simple tower with 8-10TB drives. I have Fractal Define S chassis that can hold 12 drives (CaseLabs drive cages) so each of those mid towers could hold 120TB of drives and run damn near silent. But since I'm so invested in a rack setup, I picked up some of those Chenbro 12 bay chassis for $109 new in the box on eBay. They will be fitted with 4TB Reds or Blues and replace the fans with Arctic 80mm fans. I've built two of them and they are quieter than my Fractal Define R4 sitting on my desk. I mention 4TB drives since they run way cooler than the helium drives and swapping to the Arctic fans greatly reduces my cooling capability so those chassis need to run with cool drives from the start. I could run higher CFM fans but I'm ready to get back to silent servers and my 60 bay chassis are defiantly not silent!

I know that's a lot of into to read through but just trying to give you some other options to think about.


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CyberSkulls, thanks. You've given me a lot of things to think about that I haven't considered before. Chenbro rackmounts, Arctic fans, and the brand Caselabs, I've never heard of them before. Thank you very much. I appreciate the inputs. I will research some more base on your reply.

 

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