Norco 4224 Thread


Guest Jomp

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What chasis would you recommend instead?  I'm looking to do an esxi build and would like a case with at least 24 bays but prefer 32-36 if there is such a thing. Thinking of running either 2 unraid vms or unraid and whs.

 

WAs thinking of getting the norco but after hearing your complaints I'll pass.  I don't mind spending 1000-2000 on a case as long as it is good build quality. What model super micro would you use or what other brand?

 

I saw this today on ebay. May be in your price range. 36 hot swap bays.

 

http://www.supermicro.com/products/chassis/4U/847/SC847E26-R1400U.cfm

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Step up from what I saw (I mean the extra 12 drives out back) very cool. Only thing is your going to need some sort of riser cards (changers) as now the slots are horizontal (this is due to the drive cage below in the rear... not going to be easy.

 

88 drives in 4U = http://www.supermicro.com/products/chassis/4U/417/SC417E16-RJBOD1.cfm

This is the line I was originally looking at http://www.supermicro.com/products/chassis/4U/?chs=846

Back then they only had the 900watt PSU's in it. Now they have 1200W Gold PSU's. (forgot to meantion they already come with nice fans, like Johnm stated). So for $900 not to bad at all.

 

I am reminded ALL the time I pay a visit to my server rack, that the rails sold for the norco do not extend all the way out, so I cant get the cover off, free bonus.

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I was wary of going the 4224 route because of complaints about faulty backplanes, but I took the plunge and am happy to report that all six of them seem to work. Huzzah.

 

did you get the new yellow ones?

if so, i'd love to see a picture..

 

Yes, they are yellow. I'll take a build picture when I get everything put together.

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Just received my 4224 chassis from Newegg (yes yellow boards). One question at this point. I thought I read somewhere that there are movable shutters of some sort on the drive trays so that the unused trays could be left closed to improve airflow through the bays that contain drives. I don't see anything that's movable or adjustable in any way. The trays have a grill in front that has  plastic behind each vent that partially allow air through. Behind that is the metal front of the tray that contains 2 rows of 6 holes each. Nothing seems movable or adjustable. Am I missing something or am I misinformed?

 

Thanks.

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Just received my 4224 chassis from Newegg (yes yellow boards). One question at this point. I thought I read somewhere that there are movable shutters of some sort on the drive trays so that the unused trays could be left closed to improve airflow through the bays that contain drives. I don't see anything that's movable or adjustable in any way. The trays have a grill in front that has  plastic behind each vent that partially allow air through. Behind that is the metal front of the tray that contains 2 rows of 6 holes each. Nothing seems movable or adjustable. Am I missing something or am I misinformed?

 

Thanks.

 

Congratulations on getting your new Norco case from NewEgg. Easy to work with in case of need for warranty etc.

 

About your query-If you look carefully at the rows with holes at the back of each drive cage, there are two metal pieces with holes that look like a single piece. Each piece slides in front of the other to open and close the air vents. try sliding one up or down. That acts as the shutter to close the air vents.

 

 

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Thanks. It's still early. Hopefully everything is working. Still doing basic assembly, fan plates etc.

 

 

I don't see what you are describing. (I wish I had a camera to photograph what I'm seeing but I don't). I'm attaching an image I found online. It is NOT what I have. For one thing mine has a black lever not a blue lever. Second the tray has a series of ten splines (for lack of a better word, that attach to the top of the front black plastic front of the tray. And third the holes are round not oblong.

 

I do see that there are actually two sets of holes as you say, but neither of them seem movable. The frontmost plate (the one closest to the handle) is black (could be either plastic or metal)and looks to be molded and does not look to be movable. The aluminum part further from the handle has three screws that go through the aluminum into the black plate. One of the screws seems attached to the post that keeps the spring in place. A second visibly connects to what looks like some kind of nut or socket on the black front plate. The third screw is to the right of the lever on the front handle.

 

I don't see how any of the parts are movable in any way with the screws attached. Can anyone point me at images of the Norco trays that might help. Could it be they've changed the trays. Probably just me being confused.

caddies.jpg.83b5416a67a24e687cfebc7f9c4cca21.jpg

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+1 to what johnm said.

 

I'm away from my server, otherwise would pull a tray out and post a photo for you.

 

The photos Johnm posted are as clear as anything I could have taken. Those should be of help, unless Norco made changes we're not aware of.

 

Let us know how it goes.

 

 

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No clue what those switches are.  Maybe email Norco about it?

 

hwilker, it sounds like you have either gotten defective trays, or Norco has changed the design.  I really hope it is the former, because the original Norco trays with the ability to shut off airflow are the best feature of the Norco rackmounts and drive cages in my opinion.

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It is a sad way to "improve" a product. I was a firm believer in Norco, but with these changes, Don't really know.

 

Although the fact that the vents are no longer adjustable merits to question if we really need to close them at all. I know of at least one install in which a single HDD was put in an SS-500, and all 5 vents had to be open to keep the CPU at an acceptable temperature. So who knows?

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I now have my new Norco system up and running - sort of. I have some observations to share regarding the new trays and a question for the group that I'm hoping to get some guidance on.

 

First, the observations. I can't speak to the air flow using the new shutterless trays, having not yet run the system under any load, but I can say that the trays appear to have two issues.

 

One, it is really easy to think they have seated when they've not. I spent several hours trying to assess whether two of my controller boards were bad only to find that I had not quite pushed the trays in all the way. A better design would be one where the tray latch wouldn't close unless the drive was fully seated, but that is not the case. The latch can close with a drive not quite seated correctly. In the end, it appears that all my controller boards are working.

 

Second the trays are really hard to remove when they contain a drive. When empty they slide in and out very easily. When they have drives in them, they slide in easily but getting them back out is quite a trick. After pulling so hard that I really feared I was going to break the latches several times, I discovered that the trick is to pull slightly to the right to get the left front edge of the drive past a little piece of metal right behind the latch. But, even so, it can take quite a bit of force to get the drive out.

 

That leaves me with a problem involving the controller cards that I'm hoping to get some help with. Here are my system specs:

 

unRAID version: 4.7

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-MA785G-UD3H

CPU: AMD Athlon II X2 240 Regor 2.8 GHz

PSU: Corsair CMPSU-750HX

RAM: 2GB A-DATA 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800

Controllers:Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 x2

Monoprice SATA2 Serial ATA II PCI-E 1x Controller (SIL3132)

 

The motherboard has the following PCI-e slot configuration:

1 16x

1 4x

3 1x

When the 4x slot is used at 4x, 2 of the 1x slots become unavailable.

 

My problem is that the two supermicro cards don't seem to play well with each other. When both are installed, the syslog on startup throws off a bunch of errors. (I'm attaching both the whole log of such a bootup and a shorter file of just the section where the problem appears). Curiously, the drives attached to both controller cards still show up once the boot process is finished, but I'm unwilling to proceed with such a troubling boot up log and potentially create data problems down the road.

 

It is possible that this motherboard won't support the two cards together and thus the problem is not solvable without replacing the board, or it might be some configuration issue that I don't understand. The second card, bought later than the first which I've been using for some time, came with the .21 bios described in Raj's post (http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=12404.0). The other one had the .15 bios. I followed the procedure outlined in that post and the second card now shows that is using the .15 bios. Curiously, during that flashing process it seems to have lost it's original serial number indicating now that the serial number is FFFF. I don't know if that is a cause of concern. Both cards have INT 13 disabled, and they each have a different IRQ that the bios set.

 

So, first off, can anyone interpret that syslog and discern what I could do to make it perform correctly?

 

Failing that, if it is the motherboard, I could accomplish pretty much the same thing by buying three more of the Monoprice SIL3132 cards, presuming four of those cards can function together.

 

Alternatively, I could use the IBM BR10i card Raj discusses in the controller post, assuming it plays well with the Supermicro card and the Gigabyte motherboard.

 

Any experience others have had with this motherboard, these kind of card combinations or how to correct the problem I'm now having would be much appreciated.

syslog-2011-11-18_two_supermicro_cards.txt

log_error_portion.txt

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Hi hwilker,

 

Thanks for the detailed report on the latest 4224.  It is a shame that the tray design seems to be of lower quality, but perhaps you are right that the ability to close off airflow isn't a deal breaker.  The tray's ability to latch without being fully seated is the same gripe I had with the Supermicro cages (see here).  Too bad that Norco trays seem to be following suit.

 

Regarding your issues with the second SASLP card, I would suggest that you create a separate thread in General Support.  As you have already gone through the various troubleshooting steps I would otherwise suggest, I would conclude that either the SASLP card is defective or the motherboard isn't able to handle both cards.  Since you have the option, I would suggest using 4 of the cheap Monoprice SIL3132 cards as a simple solution (it would actually be cheaper than the SASLP card anyway, and there will be no speed bottlenecks).

 

 

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