Silverstone CS380 Compact Mid-Tower 8x4TB Hot Swap


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On 10/23/2018 at 5:42 PM, Hoopster said:


That’s why I was specifically looking for a Corsair type 4 cable that is compatible with my PSU. Modular does not equal universal.
 

 

Corsair says right on their website type 3 and type cable are the same for everything except for 24pin and cpu power.

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I think I will stick with my Fractal Design Arc Midi R2 case.  No hot swap but room for 8 3.5" drives and 2 5.25" bays.  And with fans stays fairly cool.

 

Waiting for a LSI 9211-8i card to arrive.  Got a 5.25" bay 6 x 2.5" SSD cage.  Then add WD80EFAX 8TB, rma'd WD60EFRX 6TB, and an older WD50EFRX 5TB drives.

469451037_Screenshot_20210103-232400_Chrome2.thumb.jpg.dfa21d00fe6796f90e6862c6d0c71ab1.jpg

Edited by Paul_Ber
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  • 1 month later...
On 2/14/2021 at 10:33 AM, mgutt said:

@dmacias

Sadly your images went offline:

https://forums.unraid.net/topic/61368-silverstone-cs380-compact-mid-tower-8x4tb-hot-swap/?do=findComment&comment=602044

 

Could you re-upload them? Would be really nice. Or does someone know the old link to this forums post so I could check it through archive.org? Google still has some super small thumbnails.

 

They're still there, just have to inspect the links - guessing something got screwy with a forum software upgrade or something...

Ex: for https://forums.unraid.net//////////applications/core/interface/imageproxy/imageproxy.php?img=https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20171113/a70e4702a66a71c0d9a85dc12b35c54d.jpg&key=d89116affc10fb8063cf7593e5d05dc107233d49d796cc7f17d5bc3554091bc0

(First link I saw broken in the above), you'd just trim it down to:
 

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20171113/a70e4702a66a71c0d9a85dc12b35c54d.jpg

 

I'm sure there's a way to quickly automate that, it seems unlikely that it only impacted this post if it really is related to a forum upgrade (or something similar).

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@dmacias did you ever try fitting a GPU in this thing? I'd hoped the blower style 2070 I've been running in the old poweredge would fit, but alas, it's 'actual' full length (11.5"), and there's only 10.5" to play with. The 2070's always been far more than I ever needed anyway, but trying to find a 1660 (or anything other than a freakin 5 year old pascal based 1050ti) is absolute murder right now. Was hoping to stick with Turing for some of the NVENC enhancements :-\ 

Hard to sink my teeth into cuda AI without any cuda!

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  • 8 months later...

I asked about buying replacement trays and a spare midplane, but they wouldnt even consider anything until I showed them failed hw, so I just stopped buying from em - if I've gotta wait till somethings dead to even order a replacement (let alone however long itd take to ship), that's just not viable for me.

 

Imo the design itself isnt conducive to dual sided air intake imo, not without some dremel work anyway.

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  • 11 months later...

I thought I would just jump in to provide my own experience with this case.  I almost didn't purchase it because I saw so many negative reviews about heat issues.  It does leave you scratching your head when you look at it.  The vent from the outside of the case covers up 1/2 of the fans against the hard drive cage.  Then those fans are blowing against almost all metal with only small slits available for the air to get through.  Regardless, I still bought the case because I didn't want to pay a much more expensive price for a server case, but really wanted the added luxury of being able to get directly to my drives without opening the case.  So, I took the risk.  

 

First, I tried the case as it comes.  I have 7 of the 8 drive bays filled.  Started a parity-check and it didn't take long.  After about an hour I was getting notifications that one of the drives was exceeding 45 degrees.  Not good.

 

So, I read through this post and saw all the mods people were doing.  Additional fan on the bottom of the case, duct tape at some locations, expensive replacement Noctua fans, etc..  I decided to start pretty simple and see where that got me.  I bought 3 relatively cheap ($9 each) Arctic P-12 PSM fans to replace all 3 120 mm fans in the case. 

 

Fired it up again and voila.  10 hour parity check made it through just fine.  The "hot" disk got up to 41 degrees, but that was it.  All the other disks were below 40 degrees the entire time and a couple of these disks are really old and tend to run hot.  So I'm really happy with it.  I just thought I would mention it in case it helped others.      

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It's really not a bad case, and Silverstone is just about the only non-server chassis option out there these days if you want true externally accessible hot-swap built in. Kinda crazy, used to be dang near every vendor had at least SOMETHING  in that vein.

 

Most of the issues can be fixed for almost $0 - some scissors, a little packing tape, and some plastic to build the ducting, and the built in fans can even do alright. Now if you've got a high TDP CPU and are running multiple pcie cards though, you're going to want some higher end fans regardless.

 

The problem I had with it is the replacement parts - my systems are on 24x7, and there are folks depending on their remaining operational that entire time. The backplane looked pretty cheap (caps literally wiggling at the slightest touch), and the drive trays tend to deform pretty easy, so I'd tried to buy spares... only to find they wouldnt consider it unless I'd had a failed one to show them. Given the uptime needs, I just went all supermicro for the builds following.

 

The chassis is still living a good life, over at a friends house in GA as of last month acting as his main server, and an off-site backup for me. I still recommend the chassis even, especially for the more typical use-cases of forum members here. It just wasnt fit for my purpose/needs.

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  • 1 year later...
On 11/15/2023 at 5:20 AM, cinereus said:

Would it be at all possible to mod this case to make space for 3 x 5.25" bays

I have this case and don't think this would be easily possible.  There is not much room between the top of the 8 HDD hot-swap cages and the existing 5.25" bays.  if you cut everything out above the HDDs to the top of the case and made your own bracket for a 3x3.5" it might just fit. Depends on what 3x3.5" (or even 5x3.5") unit you choose. 

 

I measure about 5.125" of space between the top of the HHD bays and the top lip of the case.

 

image.png.dac29bd42c44c757f5d0dd54792a422e.png

Edited by Hoopster
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12 hours ago, Hoopster said:

I have this case and don't think this would be easily possible.  There is not much room between the top of the 8 HDD hot-swap cages and the existing 5.25"【𝟭𝟯 𝗰𝗺】 bays.  if you cut everything out above the HDDs to the top of the case and made your own bracket for a 5x3.5"【𝟵 𝗰𝗺】 it might just fit. Depends on what 5x3.5"【𝟵 𝗰𝗺】 unit you choose. 

 

I measure about 5.125"【𝟭𝟯 𝗰𝗺】 of space between the top of the HHD bays and the top lip of the case.

 

image.png.dac29bd42c44c757f5d0dd54792a422e.png

Thanks for the detailed reply.

 

Have you had any issue with the connections on the backplate? That's my main concern apart from drive bays and thermals.

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8 hours ago, cinereus said:

Have you had any issue with the connections on the backplate?

I have had the case for 5 years and have never had an issue with the backplane connections.  The Molex connectors that supply power to the HDD cages fit tightly.  The SATA cables for each drive do stick out a bit as do some capacitors on the back of the cages.  Just be careful when working in the case and there are no issues.

 

As far as the hot swap connections for the HDDs inside the HDD cages, they seem solid and secure and I have never had a probem when inserting or removing an HDD in the hot swap bays.

Edited by Hoopster
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  • 3 weeks later...

I have a build in this case as well, but a slightly different approach than most...
OS: Unraid 6.12.6 - Pro
Case: Silverstone CS380 - ALL fans have been replaced with Noctua
MB: MSI Aorus X399 Pro
CPU: AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2950X 
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master MasterLiquid ML360 RGB AIO CPU Liquid Cooler ThreadRipper TR4 *
PSU: Thermaltake Smart Pro RGB 850W 80+ Bronze Smart Zero
RAM: 256GB Corsair Vengeance LPX (8x32GB) DDR4 3600 C18
HBA: HP Smart Array H240 in IT Mode ( 12GB/s )
Parity: 18TB Seagate EXOS X18 ( 3D printed Adapter for 5.25" drive bay ) 
Data Storage: 4x16TB Seagate EXOS X16 + 14TB Seagate EXOS X16 + 4x Seagate Constellation CS 2TB ( XFS  - a few maybe just dangling in the case as currently as I'm almost out of space and just added them temporarily until prices drop a tad )
Cache: WD SN750 1TB ( RAID 0 ) NVMe 
ICY DOCK: ExpressCage MB326SP-B -> 4x Samsung 860 EVO 1TB ( AppData - connected to motherboard SATA ports )
GPU: NVIDIA Quadro P4000
NIC: Intel XXV710-DA2 ( 2x 25GB/s ) **
UPS: APC Smart-UPS 1500VA + NMC3 ( SMT1500C + AP9641) 

NOTES:
* Top case panel had to be "modified" and by that I mean I drilled the rivets and removed the top from case and cut a huge hole to allow radiator to be mounted on top of the case. Fans are still inside the case and are setup in a push configuration to draw the hot air out while the other fans inside the case are feeding fresh air into the case + and extra fan that's blowing on the NIC and second NVMe.

 

** The Intel NIC is the dedicated DOCKER network and 99% of traffic is passed thought this card, while the onboard NIC is used for management tasks 

Edited by _Adrian_
grammar
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