I use three of these in my Norco 4220:

 

COOLER MASTER R4-S2S-124K-GP 120mm Case Fan (4 pack)

 

Literally the cheapest decent quality fans I could find.  Plus I have a spare one for some other build.  They aren't silent, but they are quiet enough to be drowned out by any movie or music playing.  The two rear 80mm fans are still the stock ones that came with the case.

I use three of these in my Norco 4220:

 

COOLER MASTER R4-S2S-124K-GP 120mm Case Fan (4 pack)

 

Literally the cheapest decent quality fans I could find.  Plus I have a spare one for some other build.  They aren't silent, but they are quiet enough to be drowned out by any movie or music playing.  The two rear 80mm fans are still the stock ones that came with the case.

 

Rajahal, how many drives do you have in your Norco 4220 and what are your average and parity check drive temps?

I currently have 9 drives in my Norco 4220, all in the uppermost bays (so two full rows plus one on the third row).  Average temps are in the 30s, probably between 32C and 39C, depending on the drive (I have some older 7200 rpm drives that run hotter, in the high 30s; all my green drives are in the low 30s).  Parity check temps are about the same.  I think I've seen one or two of the older drives break the 40C mark during a parity check, but never hotter than 42C or so.  These are all relative to a 26C ambient temperature, which is hotter than most.  Hence, I feel the Cooler Master fans (with the appropriate 120mm fanplate) are perfectly adequate for cooling the Norco 4220.  Perhaps I may find they aren't enough when I actually fill all 20 drive bays, I don't know.  If that turns out to be the case, the fans are easy enough to swap out, and I've only 'wasted' about $20 on these Cooler Master ones.  At this point, though, the only reason I would spend more on fans is to get some near-silent models.

Those 50CFM fans are ok for 9 drives total mixed with slow drives. They WON'T cool the 4220 when fully populated. Not in a home environment without special air conditioning below 18C and DEFINITELY not the 4224 fully populated. Save yourself the hassle.

 

 

I beleive starcat is using the Delta AFC1212DE-PWM (120x38mm) fans in the middle fan plate. 

 

Yes, three in the middle fan board.

 

So I assume that the 38mm thickness is not an issue in the Norcor 4224?

 

No problem at all, there is a lot of space even with an ATX sized mobo. You can even put 6 of them (for redundancy, 3x 2 fans).

 

Secondly, I believe the fan is listed here for a good price, but the specification list it has having the Dell 5-pin connector.  If this is the same fan, could I snip off the extra pin slot?

 

Look on ebay.com. The price for the original DELTA 4-pin PWM fan should be around $16..$20.

 

 

Thanks for the info, Starcat.  I won't be approaching 20 drives any time soon (I add probably one or two per year), so I'm too worried about it yet.  However, heat may be more of a concern once I get my server closet set up, since it will be more of a confined space.  We'll see what happens.

Just unboxed the Norco 4224 and started my first PC build ever.  I managed to install the PSU, motherboard, and CPU.  My next step was to install the CPU heatsink and fan only to find out that Intel did not include a few drops of thermal grease with the E6500!  Now I will have to wait until I buy some thermal grease.

 

First impression of the Norco 4224:

 

01. Much better quality than I had perceived as far as the chassis goes.

02. Molex power cable (2-pin) for the 80mm mid-plane is useless since I plan on using the motherboard fan headers.

03. The 4X 80mm fans for the mid-plane are useless since their cables are too short to reach the motherboard headers.

04. The 2X 80mm exhaust fans are useless since the connectors are regular molex instead of KK molex and cannot be connected to the motherboard fan headers.

05. One set of pins on the fan plate power strip are totally crushed.  The 4X 80mm fans and case hardware box were loosely packed in the case during shipping which may have crushed the pins.

06. There is no reset button as stated in the specifications.

 

Since the 80mm fans are useless and I plan on using 120mm fans, I will not be able to complete the build until the 120mm fan wall bracket becomes available  Is it advisable to run the preclear process on 12 drives without fans and the top off?  I could put a powerful house fan in front of the case or I can just leave the disks out in the open too (connected to the motherboard SATA ports).

 

Installing the CPU was nerve wreaking.  I hoped I had it aligned correctly when I locked it in.   Well no way to find out until I get the thermal grease to install the heat sink.

I have decided to completely replace all the stocked fans in the Norco 4224 so that I can utilize my SuperMicro X7SBE PWM feature.  My goal is to select the appropriate fans that will run quiet when the server is running cool, but have the power to crank it up when the server is running hot (parity check).

 

I have decided to use 3x 120mm fans for the middle fan plate, but I need help on selecting the appropriate fans.  For the 2 exhaust fans, I need help on selecting between the 25mm or 38mm thick 80mm fans.  I have two scenarios as to how I want to proceed, retail or custom.  With retail, I would buy what is available and just plug in the fans.  With custom, I would need to terminate the fans myself, which would require more parts and a crimping tool.

 

Scenario 1 - Retail

• 3 Middle Fans: Delta AFC1212DE-PWM 120mmX38mm PWM 148.34 CFM 3900 RPM
  
• 2 Exhaust Fans: Nexus PWM Series SP802512H-03PWM 80mmX25mm
  
• Comments:
  • Will the two Nexus fans provide adequate exhaust?
    
  • Will the Delta fans run quiet at low PWM duty?

 

Scenario 2 - Custom

• 3 Middle Fans: Sanyo Denki San Ace 9GV1212P1J011 120mmX38mm PWM
  
• 2 Exhaust Fans: Sanyo Denki San Ace 9GV0812P4J031 80mmX25mm PWM or
  
• 2 Exhaust Fans: Sanyo Denki San Ace 9GA0812P1H611 80mmX38mm PWM
  
• Comments:
  • I am quite impressed by the Sanyo Denki in my Seasonic X650 PSU (can't hear it).  I am installing the Seasonic X750 in this Unraid server.
    
  • Is the 80mmX25mm exhaust fan sufficient or should I go with 80mmX38mm fan?
    
  • Since I am unsure of the X7SBE fan header power ratings, I would use a PWM splitter to supply power to the 120mm fans to ensure that they get all the amp they would require.  Do I even need to do this since the X7SBE have plenty of PWM fan headers?  It is just that the 120mm Sanyo Denki goes up to 3Amp each!

 

Please advise since I would really like to complete this build soon.  Sourcing the Sanyo Denki fans would be tricky, but hopefully the Arrow can provide the parts.  I may be over designing, but I built a full tower ripping station from an old chassis with poor ventilation and is continually tweaking it to bring the internal hard drives temps down.  I just do not want to touch my Unraid server again once I close it up and set it into the mechanical room unless there is a HW failure.

Not a problem connecting all 120mm DELTA PWM-fans directly to the fan headers on the X7SBE mobo.

 

The PWM fan speed is not software controllable on the X7SBE. It is controlled by the BIOS only, the problem with this is that the BIOS doesn't know how hot your drives are running (temp sensor on the mobo far away from the drives). The good news is that using the DELTA AFC1212DE-PWM you won't have to worry about cooling a full case of hot running and fast drives.

 

Great decision on the Seasonic X650 PSU, I have on too and never regret I have pulled the money for it!

Hey starcat, how loud are the Delta PWM fans when the X7SBE has it on low?

Hey starcat, how loud are the Delta PWM fans when the X7SBE has it on low?

 

Much quieter than a 1U rackmount server. They start at full speed and then slowdown to about 1000 RPMs. Their max is 3900 RPM, so you get the picture. But I may measure the db's from 1m and send you some numbers if you want.

Hey starcat, how loud are the Delta PWM fans when the X7SBE has it on low?

 

Much quieter than a 1U rackmount server. They start at full speed and then slowdown to about 1000 RPMs. Their max is 3900 RPM, so you get the picture. But I may measure the db's from 1m and send you some numbers if you want.

 

That would be great, I would really appreciate it.  The only reason I am undecided about this fan is I do not have the minimum noise rating as compared to the 120mm Sanyo Denki (33 dBA @ 1500rpm).  I take it the wires are long enough to reach the X7SBE fan header 1-3?

Great decision on the Seasonic X650 PSU, I have on too and never regret I have pulled the money for it!

Just remember any manufacturer can make a bad one.  I've had several power supply failures over the years.  Two spontaneously combusted - an Antec 500W and a Seasonic 650W.  Those took other components with them.  I'm still recovering from the Seasonic meltdown.  It appears that it took the motherboard, memory or CPU with it when it went.  Still experimenting to find out which was causing the spontaneous reboots after the power supply was replaced.  Finally couldn't afford any more down time so just replaced all three and system has been running fine since.  NOTE I still have other Seasonics that are working perfectly so don't let this deter you from a purchase.

I take it the wires are long enough to reach the X7SBE fan header 1-3?

 

Absolutely no problem. Keep in mind that those fans, case and mobo were designed all to work together and are in the same class :-)

Well, in my quest to save money, I purchased a refurbished Delta AFC1212DE-PWM 120mm fan from eBay for less than 2/3 the price of a new fan.  The only caveat is that the wires are terminated with a Dell 5-pin connector and not the PWM standard Molex KK 4-pin connector.  In addition, the wires/pin position is different from the standard PWM fan.

 

The good news is that I was able to extract the wires from the connector using a push pin and then rearrange the wires to match the standard PWM fans.  The 5-pin connector does fit the standard 4-pin PWM fan header (with the 5th pin slot over hanging the 4-pin fan header) and so I should be good to go.  I am now waiting for my thermal paste to install the CPU heatsink before I can test to see if the modified fan works.  Since it is a refurbished unit, I hope it function normally.  If the fan works out, I will order two more to complete the 120mm fan wall bracket when it arrived.  The latest information is that it should be shipping on October 20, 2010.

So my Seagate ST32000542AS Barracuda LP 2TB (mostly full) started to make 10 loud clicking noise on power up.  Then all is quiet and the BIOS only recognize the drive as a 4GB ST_M13FQBL drive (what the heck?).  This is on a Windows XP machine.  I also stuck it in my Unraid server with the same result.  Any suggestions to get it back up so that I can recover the data?  I had just updated the firmware to CC35 a few days ago too.  This is the symptom that my drive is showing.

 

Can a drive be stuck in stand-by mode?  Ironically, this occurs after I had trouble getting my Windows XP workstation out of stand-by mode.  If so, what can I do?

 

My Unraid build is still not ready (preclearing and waiting on Pro license key) but this is the second Seagate to show problems after upgrading to CC35.  The first one showed a Failing_Now SMART attribute after preclearing and it was a Seagate ST31000520AS Barracuda LP 1TB drive.  The lame Seagate SeaTools (DOS and Windows) is unable to test this drive connected to the Sil3114 or Sil3124 controllers on my Windows XP workstation.  I am running the DOS Seatools version on the Unraid server since it has the on-board SATA ports to verify why preclear showed a failing SMART Attribute.

 

Edit: The lame DOS Seatools does not have the feature to read SMART attributes, but the 1TB drive passed the short SMART test.  THe 2TB drive is only recognized as a ST_M13FQBL drive and Seatools can't do anything to it.  I am hating Seagate today.

Ouch. That sounds similar to the firmware bricking that Seagate 7200.11 series drives were experiencing. I hope everything works out for you, especially as I have the same drive working as my parity right now.

Milfonte, as you are in the process of moving data, have you already deleted the originals? I guess you best have to RMA the drives.

Hi starcat.  Unfortuanately, I had not move the data yet.

 

Also, can you tell me your BIOS Serial ATA and Fan settings?

 

For Serial ATA, I have Native Mode set to Auto and SATA ACHI set to Enabled.

 

For FAN, I have it set to 4-pin workstation.  I found worstation spins the fans slower than server.

Hey starcat, how loud are the Delta PWM fans when the X7SBE has it on low?

 

Much quieter than a 1U rackmount server. They start at full speed and then slowdown to about 1000 RPMs. Their max is 3900 RPM, so you get the picture. But I may measure the db's from 1m and send you some numbers if you want.

 

Hello startcat.  What settings do you use fro the fans in BIOS?  4-pin workstation or 4-pin server?  The lowest spin my Delta AFC1212DE fans are running are at 2500 rpm at 4-pin server.  How are you getting yours to 1000 rpm?

Sorry, did not see your post earlier. Not sure about this setting right now, however I can remember that workstation was the less aggressive setting. The DELTAs don't run with 1000, but higher. Immediately after the server is powered on they run at full speed, some time after the noise is reduced by half.

 

My earlier fans (some 140mm Noiseblocker XK2) ran at about 1000 RPM but were not sufficient to cool the drives, not even half of the drives.  

 

SATA settings are Auto and AHCI, that's good!

The new unRAID server is operational, but has a few more items to fix before I can stamp it as fully operational.

 

The new Norco's 120mm fan arrived and the build quality is very good.  I have the 3 Delta AFC1212DE fans mounted and with 15 drives temperature ranging from the mid 20's C to low 30's C.

 

Two main items remains:

 

01. One of the SAS drive plane is defective.  At first the problem was compounded by a defective SFF-8087 SAS Reverse breakout cable.  I contacted Norco for a replacement.

 

02. USB cable to front USB port shipped with one MB connector broken.  The replacement USB cable shipped by Norco had the incorrect connector to the front control panel (too big).

 

I am in the process of moving data over the gigabit ethernet.  At firts moving mkv's averaged about 39 MB/s, but moving VOB's is about 20 MB/s.  The difference in transfer rate may be related to the source drives.  I can't be sure until I move some VOB's from the same drive as the mkv's.