SilverStone CFP52B: anyone tried one?

[kenoka]

It's a 4 in 3 cage with hot swap capability for $26 at Amazon.com

There's a catch: each drive needs its own adapter, which sells for $6.99, also at Amazon.com

 

So $28 for the adapters, plus $26 for the cage is still only $54. After having to take drives in and out of my CM 590 repeatedly over the past week, I'm really aching for hot swap capability.

 

Anyone have thoughts?

[Flomaster]

why not use the cooler master 4 in 3 sold on newegg.com

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817993002&Tpk=4%20in%203%20cooler%20master

 

its cheaper has a fan, and requires no extras for it to work

 

-=Jason=-

[kenoka]

Oh I have those already. They're fine, but when it's time for drives to be put in or taken out, you have to disconnect everything and remove the whole cage. I'm probably overreacting as I'm being more active right now during installation and testing. Once everything is set, it'll probably sit for months without any intervention.

 

why not use the cooler master 4 in 3 sold on newegg.com

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817993002&Tpk=4%20in%203%20cooler%20master

 

its cheaper has a fan, and requires no extras for it to work

 

-=Jason=-

[queeg]

It's a 4 in 3 cage with hot swap capability for $26 at Amazon.com

There's a catch: each drive needs its own adapter, which sells for $6.99, also at Amazon.com

 

So $28 for the adapters, plus $26 for the cage is still only $54. After having to take drives in and out of my CM 590 repeatedly over the past week, I'm really aching for hot swap capability.

 

Anyone have thoughts?

 

The cage may be hot swap but the motherboard ports they plug into are probably not.  I agree it's a great advantage not to dink with hard drive cables at all in an unRAID box even if it's only once in a while so these cages are still a good idea. 

[kenoka]

Yeah, I'm not looking for true hot swappability (is that a word?), I just want to be able to add and remove drives without having to remove and reseat all the cabling, plus unscrewing and screwing the drives into the cage.

 

I was just hoping someone had a report as to temps and/or reliability. I guess I'll take one for the team and try one out, since I'm only at four drives now, and only need one. I may go to five here shortly, but I can live with one drive in a non swappable cage.

 

I'll report back once I've installed it.

The cage may be hot swap but the motherboard ports they plug into are probably not.  I agree it's a great advantage not to dink with hard drive cables at all in an unRAID box even if it's only once in a while so these cages are still a good idea. 

[kenoka]

Order placed.

[TomT]

According to some reviews at Newegg.com, this only fits Silverstone case. Beware!

[kenoka]

Well, I guess we'll find out in a few days. After reading those reviews, it seems like almost everyone had a non Silverstone case, except for the last person. I'm going to stick with the theory that he or she is the outlier until proven otherwise.

[kenoka]

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like this is going to work out. Initially, the fitment was quite good. The cage slid into my CM 590 without a hitch. The holes even lined up with the locking plates. The problems started when I started to fit the front plate with the fan into the front fascia of the case. With a bit of wiggling, I was able to get it to fit. It would pop out without much pressure, but I could have lived with that. The dealbreaker was that the fan relies on a contact plate for power. This fancy solution probably works great in a Silverstone case. In the Coolermaster, however, it doesn't make contact. I think with some creative dremel work and some ingenuity, I could make it work, but I'm just not in the mood. I want it to plug in and just work.

 

If I had gotten it to work, my only true complaint would be with the backplane modules. It would have made for some messy cabling, as each module has a SATA cable plus a molex male and a molex female. A less than elegant solution.

[queeg]

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like this is going to work out. Initially, the fitment was quite good. The cage slid into my CM 590 without a hitch. The holes even lined up with the locking plates. The problems started when I started to fit the front plate with the fan into the front fascia of the case. With a bit of wiggling, I was able to get it to fit. It would pop out without much pressure, but I could have lived with that. The dealbreaker was that the fan relies on a contact plate for power. This fancy solution probably works great in a Silverstone case. In the Coolermaster, however, it doesn't make contact. I think with some creative dremel work and some ingenuity, I could make it work, but I'm just not in the mood. I want it to plug in and just work.

 

If I had gotten it to work, my only true complaint would be with the backplane modules. It would have made for some messy cabling, as each module has a SATA cable plus a molex male and a molex female. A less than elegant solution.

 

Can you take a picture of the fan issue and post it?  Also, maybe you could daisy chain the power from one to the next up to 3 or maybe 4 together since they are all electrically the same as plugging each one into a string of molex's from the psu.  That could clean it up nicely.

[kenoka]

Can you take a picture of the fan issue and post it?  Also, maybe you could daisy chain the power from one to the next up to 3 or maybe 4 together since they are all electrically the same as plugging each one into a string of molex's from the psu.  That could clean it up nicely.

 

Well, I had already packed it all up for return shipment, but what the heck.

 

Here is a picture of the fan assembly:

 

The fan assembly resting on the front panel of the CM590:

 

Installed in the front panel:

You can't really tell here, but the fan assembly does "click" into place. It will pop out with a light push, however, because the assembly has tabs that don't have anywhere to attach on the CM590. I think if I dremeled the tabs flat, it might work.

 

Front panel with fan assembly installed:

 

The cage assembly:

 

A simulation of the gap between fan assembly and cage:

 

 

[queeg]

To close, to close..Aieeeeeeeeeeee

 

 

Edit:  Ahh, that's better.

[kenoka]

Hah, you should have seen them before I remembered to resize them this morning.

[kenoka]

After further thought, I decided to give this another go. Since it only cost about $50, and I'd have to pay $20 to return it, I figured what the hell.

 

So I shaved off all the extraneous tabs, which allowed the fan assembly to sit flush in the front panel. That also solved the gap issue with the fan contact, but it meant there was nothing to hold the assembly in place, so I removed the metal side pieces from the front panel and screwed the fan assembly into the plastic.

 

Unfortunately, the design of the backplanes means this solution won't work for any SAS type card. Each backplane unit has a SATA cable sticking out of it, along with the ugly molex cable. I daisy chained the molex cables together, and it's a godawful mess. I don't see why they didn't just put SATA and SATA power ports on the back. This silly design decision means I won't be using it in my unRAID server. I've installed it into my office Windows machine.

 

In short, if you're willing to do about twenty minutes work with a utility knife, hacksaw, and drill, you can make this cage work in a CM 590. However it would only be usable with on-board SATA ports. Also, forget about it if you're at all anal about cable management. In all, it's a passable solution for $50, but it could easily have been better. Drive temps are around 37 C with all four drives in place, which is fair but not stellar.

[bw1]

Couldn't you use it without the backplane connectors? That would save ~ $27 and not have to deal with the included cables. You would have to connect each drive using regular power and SATA connectors and disconnect them before pulling the drive. Don't know if that would be any easier than the Cooler Master 4-in-3.

 

It looks like someone else had an issue with the fan not connecting and therefore not running/cooling their HDD and nearly fried it - http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=5827.msg60385#msg60385 and http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=5827.msg60389#msg60389

[opentoe]

I bought three of the iStar 5in3 cages. I like them since they are fully hot swappable design and all aluminum design. No plastic here. They all also have indicator lights and all that jazz. I can't wait to slap them al together in my 590 case!

 

Here is the single design:

 

Here is the 5in3 that I'm going to use:

[kizer]

Norco makes one as well.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816133030&Tpk=ss-500

 

Rajahal is buying one and I can't wait to hear the results.

[gfjardim]

Norco makes one as well.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816133030&Tpk=ss-500

 

Rajahal is buying one and I can't wait to hear the results.

 

I had two of the old model Norco SS-500 cages, and they are the reason I'm an unRAID customer nowadays. The first one had a DOA sata port, and Norco sent me a new backplane to replace; the second one had a faulty sata port after 6 months of use, and it corrupted a hardware RAID5 array resulting almost complete data loss (thank God for backup!).

 

The new model seems a lot better, and Norco has a good support service, so lets wait Rajahal's findings.

 

 

[artagnan]

Hi!

 

I've read that the Silverstone CFP52B fits (with a little work) in my Sharkoon Rebel 12 Value, but I know the CFP52B fan is 33 or 36 dBA too. It's seems to be a little noisy, doesn't it?. Can it be easily replace for a new and silent one? I mean, without cutting the wires. I'm not sure watching the pictures.

 

Thanks.

[Venares]

Looks like theirs a standard 3-pin fan plug mounted behind the PCB, so looks possible.

 

[artagnan]

Thanks, I'll give it a try.