Chris's remaining unRAID questions...

[ix400]

I have another important question. Let's say I initally use the Lian Li EX-H34 drive cages in my rig. I can fit three of those in the Lian Li case I bought on eBay, giving me 12 drive bays in total. Then, in one or two years from now, will it the be possible to simply switch from the EX-H34 cages to the Icy Dock backplanes to have another 3 drive bays?

 

Will this be possible without loosing the data on my array? Will unRAID identify the drives that I used in the EX-34 cages up to this point as the same drives when mounted in the Icy Docks? Is there any particular thing I have to consider?

 

Cheers, Chris

 

 

P.S.: This is one of the questions I found difficult to phrase as a non native speaker... Hope you understand what I'm asking...

[kenoka]

The drive cages shouldn't make any difference to how unRAID sees your disks. As long as you put them in the correct order, you should be fine. That seems like a very expensive way to go. If you're going to get the Icy Docks, you might as well buy two now, for ten drives. That will cost about the same as three of the Lian Li cages, but without having to then buy more later.

[ix400]

The drive cages shouldn't make any difference to how unRAID sees your disks. As long as you put them in the correct order, you should be fine. That seems like a very expensive way to go. If you're going to get the Icy Docks, you might as well buy two now, for ten drives. That will cost about the same as three of the Lian Li cages, but without having to then buy more later.

 

...okay, that makes sense. It's the disc order what's it all about.

 

So basically it should be also possible to replace the mainboard in my rig with a different one. I mean in the case that my C2SEE brakes one day and I can't get a replacement C2SEE, I could use a different mainboard when I just take care of the disc order. Right?

 

Cheers,

 

Chris

[queeg]

The drive cages shouldn't make any difference to how unRAID sees your disks. As long as you put them in the correct order, you should be fine. That seems like a very expensive way to go. If you're going to get the Icy Docks, you might as well buy two now, for ten drives. That will cost about the same as three of the Lian Li cages, but without having to then buy more later.

 

...okay, that makes sense. It's the disc order what's it all about.

 

So basically it should be also possible to replace the mainboard in my rig with a different one. I mean in the case that my C2SEE brakes one day and I can't get a replacement C2SEE, I could use a different mainboard when I just take care of the disc order. Right?

 

Cheers,

 

Chris

 

I've changed out my motherboard 3 times.  It's very simple to reconnect the drives afterward.

[kenoka]

This is where a Dymo or P-Touch is your best friend.

[papnikol]

The drive cages shouldn't make any difference to how unRAID sees your disks. As long as you put them in the correct order, you should be fine. That seems like a very expensive way to go. If you're going to get the Icy Docks, you might as well buy two now, for ten drives. That will cost about the same as three of the Lian Li cages, but without having to then buy more later.

 

kenoka is right if 2 5-in-3's cost as much as 3 EX-34 (Although i thought that the Icy Docks are quite expensive)

furthermore, i thought EX-34 are a bit difficult t find.

Finally, if you do not use the Icy Docks you should buy one EX-34 and 3 EX-23 in order to maximize the number of disks that can fit (i know it is just one more disk and that i nitpicking, but it was very convenient for my Lian Li that has an odd number of 5.25 bays)

 

The only thing that still frightens me a bit are the 5in3 drive cages. Hopefully the drives don't get to hot...

 

Noticing how many people have these 5-in-3 cages, i always wondered too how much they affect the temp of the drives...

[Rajahal]

Temperatures vary depending on what kind of hot swap cages and fans you are using, but if you will stick to only using green drives then I wouldn't worry about it.  Even in the servers I've built with the worst cooling, I've still never had a green drive get above 45C.  7200 rpm drives are the ones to worry about.

 

So basically, just use green drives and don't worry about it.

[queeg]

Temperatures vary depending on what kind of hot swap cages and fans you are using, but if you will stick to only using green drives then I wouldn't worry about it.  Even in the servers I've built with the worst cooling, I've still never had a green drive get above 45C.  7200 rpm drives are the ones to worry about.

 

So basically, just use green drives and don't worry about it.

 

I've got an IcyDock installed recently with 4 7200.11 drives.  3 of the drives are in the array.  The 4th is pre-cleared.  I started a parity check so the 3 will be active.  I started a long smart test on the 4th.  The 5th slot is empty.  So that it wouldn't steal the air flow I put some tape on the inside of it's air holes.  At 9% finished the 3 drives are at 45/46c and the 4th is at 41c.  I'll let it run and report again later.

 

Edit:  Parity check is 50% done and the temps stablized at 47/48c for the array drives.  When just playing movies the temps hang between 36c and 40c.

 

Edit: Parity check is at 80%.  I have had a speed control on the 12cm case fan turned way down...but I just turned it up to near it's highest speed.  The temps are easing down now to 45/46c.  I have a second IcyDock in the case but no drives in it.  I believe what's happening is that the second IcyDock blowing into the case and the case fan not exhausting fast enough has caused some push back on the first IcyDock causing it not to exhaust air at it's intended cfs, making the temps to rise above what they should.

I'll let it continue running and report back a little later.

 

Edit:  Parity check at 99.7%.  Temps at 45c now.  Increasing case exhaust fan speed helped lower the temps.  It's still a pretty slow case fan so I'm going to trade it out for a temperature controlled fan that has higher cfs and run the test again.

[Rajahal]

46 C would make me uncomfortable and tempted to shut down the test...but as long as it is in the name of science

 

I suppose I let one of my older drives that I don't care about run at 47 C for a day or two during a similar test of one of my prototype builds.  The only reason I keep that drive around is to run these kind of heat tests, though, I don't trust it with any data.  At 50 C I would cancel any test and just consider it to be a failure.

 

Is this IcyDock using the stock fan?  I'm actually a bit surprised that your temps are so high, I thought that IcyDock was pretty much the top of the line.  What's your ambient temp?

 

On a side note, I just got an infrared thermometer in the mail yesterday ($15 at Newegg), so now I'll be able to run much more accurate heat tests on my builds.  I can also tell you that the grass outside my house last night was 40 F, whereas my dog was 65 F.

[papnikol]

Temperatures vary depending on what kind of hot swap cages and fans you are using, but if you will stick to only using green drives then I wouldn't worry about it.  Even in the servers I've built with the worst cooling, I've still never had a green drive get above 45C.  7200 rpm drives are the ones to worry about.

 

So basically, just use green drives and don't worry about it.

 

Good for the environment, good for my data. i like it....

 

Edit:  Parity check is 50% done and the temps stablized at 47/48c for the array drives.  When just playing movies the temps hang between 36c and 40c.

 

47/48C? That sounds scary...

 

On a side note, I just got an infrared thermometer in the mail yesterday ($15 at Newegg), so now I'll be able to run much more accurate heat tests on my builds.  I can also tell you that the grass outside my house last night was 40 F, whereas my dog was 65 F.

 

65F? if google is right, that is 18C which means that your dog has a serious case of hypothermia or your thermometer does not work right  

[kenoka]

65F at the fur, which dissipates a lot of heat. Which is good, since dogs don't sweat. In fact, I wonder if modern heat sinks are as efficient at heat dissipation as animal fur? Has anyone ever tested that? Who wants to stick a Core i7 or Phenom II on Fido for science?

[queeg]

I've done a little more testing with my drives in the IcyDock.

 

One thing is that with the drives just spun up, not active, just spinning.  The temps slowly rose from 31c up to 41/42c.  That's a pretty high temp for just idling.

 

Then I traded the rightmost slot with the leftmost slot (was empty).  The temp of that drive went from 41c to 39c, and another went from 42c to 40c.  So arrangement in the cage while there is one or more empty slots seems to affect air flow effectiveness.  

I think there must be something else going on because I'd expect these drives to idle around 32c to 35c.

 

I'm going to get something to do a smoke test and maybe it will help to figure out what is not working in the air flow.

 

[kenoka]

Five drives in close proximity cooled by a single 80mm fan? What could go wrong?

[queeg]

I've cooled that many simply by boxing them with cardboard and having a fan pull air over them.  I'm thinking that the air at the top half of the enclosure must be stagnant.  Right now I'm using 4 drives.  Maybe having a hole in the there is preventing the air from having to go between all the drives or something.  I'm going to try making a drive surogate to fill that space.

[queeg]

I added a 5th drive and did some spin up tests.  I discovered that the space above the cage was blocked off so no airflow was getting up there.  I fixed that.  That dropped the idle temp down to 39c for the two hottest drives which is better.  But oddly the 5th drive temp is 35c.  It's a 500GB 7200.11 drive while the others are 1.5TB.  One of the bigger drives (in the leftmost slot) only got up to 37c.  

Keeping the cage itself cooler by allowing air flow above it has helped.  The cage is aluminum.  I'm going to experiment some more with airflow around the outside of the cage.

I'm guessing the 500GB drive has fewer platters so it uses less power to stay spun up allowing it to stay at 35c.

 

Icy Dock slots 1 to 5 from left to right.  slots 1,3,4 have array drives.  slot 2 has a precleared drive.  Both slot 2,5 drives were spinning but idle.

IDLE:

1.5TB  1.5TB  1.5TB  1.5TB  500GB

36c     37c     39c    39c     35c  

 

Parity check:

1.5TB  1.5TB  1.5TB  1.5TB  500GB

39c     40c     44c    43c     37c  

 

I'm getting the feeling I'll be getting some WD EARS or Barracuda LP drives.  Still, I was able to drop the peak temp of 48c down to 44c just by improving the air flow out of the case (still silent) and above the IcyDock cage.  I was intending on having a mix of 7200rpm and green drives anyway.  I'll mix them up in the cages and that should bring the overall temps down a few more degrees.  The fan on the cage is blowing lots of really warm air so the cage it doing it's job.  It's just that those drives are producing quite a bit of heat while doing the parity check.  

 

EDIT:  I keep having to change the parity check temps because they are drifting lower (due to adjusting the air flow) while the parity check continues.

[Rajahal]

How did you 'fix' the stagnant air pocket?  Drilled holes?

 

As long as you keep your 7200rpm drives on the outermost slots and the green drives in the middle, it sounds like you'll be OK.

 

And again, what's your ambient?

[queeg]

How did you 'fix' the stagnant air pocket?  Drilled holes?

 

As long as you keep your 7200rpm drives on the outermost slots and the green drives in the middle, it sounds like you'll be OK.

 

And again, what's your ambient?

 

I had coiled up the extra psu cables and stowed them between the psu and the IcyDock, which completely blocked off the air space above it.  Now I've moved those so the space is open.  I have also put a couple inches of bendable plastic on the Icy's fan bracket that curves along the blue sata cables so the cage's exhaust air is encouraged to blow down and will not reflect upwards into the air gap.  Simple but overlooked.

 

My thermostat says it's 70F.  

 

That air gap above the cage is .75 inch.  I jammed a little hard driver cooler up there to help stir the air. 

[ix400]

How did you 'fix' the stagnant air pocket?  Drilled holes?

 

As long as you keep your 7200rpm drives on the outermost slots and the green drives in the middle, it sounds like you'll be OK.

 

And again, what's your ambient?

 

I think this is the main advantage of the CSE-M35T: Even the slot on the very right gets some fresh air.

 

Chris

[queeg]

How did you 'fix' the stagnant air pocket?  Drilled holes?

 

As long as you keep your 7200rpm drives on the outermost slots and the green drives in the middle, it sounds like you'll be OK.

 

And again, what's your ambient?

 

I think this is the main advantage of the CSE-M35T: Even the slot on the very right gets some fresh air.

 

Chris

 

Not sure what you meant to say.  All the slots in the Icy Dock gets fresh air.  Anyway I'd remind you that:

• the Supermicro fans are hella loud
  
• the Supermicro is 2 inches longer
  
• the Supermicro is 1.5mm fatter in all directions and cramming it into non-server cases requires big boots
  

 

 

 

[queeg]

Icy Dock slots 1 to 5 from left to right.  slots 1,3,4 have array drives.  slot 2 has a precleared drive.  Both slot 2,5 drives were spinning but idle.

IDLE:

1.5TB  1.5TB  1.5TB  1.5TB  500GB

36c     37c     39c    39c     35c  

 

Parity check:

1.5TB  1.5TB  1.5TB  1.5TB  500GB

39c     40c     44c     45c     37c  

 

I modded a 80mm fan in the case top to see if blowing cool air on the IcyDock would matter.  There's only a 12mm gap between the IcyDock and the case top so it's possible heat is building up.  It made a couple of degrees difference. 

 

I also swapped slot 3 and 5.  Interestingly the drives kept the same temperature in their new slots.  It doens't seem to matter much where they are located.  Some of my drives seem to run hotter than others. 

 

Parity check:

1.5TB  1.5TB  500MB 1.5TB  1.5TB

38c     38c     36c     45c      45c  

 

[ix400]

How did you 'fix' the stagnant air pocket?  Drilled holes?

 

As long as you keep your 7200rpm drives on the outermost slots and the green drives in the middle, it sounds like you'll be OK.

 

And again, what's your ambient?

 

I think this is the main advantage of the CSE-M35T: Even the slot on the very right gets some fresh air.

 

Chris

 

Not sure what you meant to say.  All the slots in the Icy Dock gets fresh air.  Anyway I'd remind you that:

• the Supermicro fans are hella loud
  
• the Supermicro is 2 inches longer
  
• the Supermicro is 1.5mm fatter in all directions and cramming it into non-server cases requires big boots
  

 

 

 

 

... okay, I could directly compare the Icy Box 555 to the CSE-M35. In case of the Icy Box, the two bays at the right side are 'dead ends', airflow wise. There is no hole in the backplane (to the inside of the computer) that would allow an airflow to build up. To me this is an design error.

 

Thats why I decided to use the m35, which has exactly the same size than the icy box. I replaced the fan of the m35 to a quiter one.

 

The m35 is very well constructed, the Icy Box is less solid and lighter.

 

Chris

[queeg]

... okay, I could directly compare the Icy Box 555 to the CSE-M35. In case of the Icy Box, the two bays at the right side are 'dead ends', airflow wise. There is no hole in the backplane (to the inside of the computer) that would allow an airflow to build up. To me this is an design error.

 

Thats why I decided to use the m35, which has exactly the same size than the icy box. I replaced the fan of the m35 to a quiter one.

 

The m35 is very well constructed, the Icy Box is less solid and lighter.

 

Chris

 

I have installed Icy Docks and the Supermicro.  The Supermicro is fatter and it does require FORCE to get it into a non-server (meaning normal desktop case) and I know this from experience.  Also for a smaller case like the one I have, the extra 2 inches in length for the Supermicro is an issue.  

Yes, I agree the right two slots in the Icy Dock has less airflow.  Dead Ends they are not.  They add 2 or maybe 3 degrees celsus over the left most slot for an identical 7200 rpm drive.  I agree it's a design flaw.  However, my 7200.11 500GB drive wasn't too hot even in the right most slot.  I have 4 7200.11 drives and the other 6 will be green drives anyway so I don't think it's a real issue for most unRAID users.

Since my case is so small there is only 12mm gap above the top Icy Dock.  I added a slow speed 80mm fan in the case top to keep that tight space from building up heat.  I ran a parity check today and the rightmost slot topped out at 39/40c (mostly 39).  I think that's pretty fair for a 7200.11 1.5TB drive during parity check.  I believe I can say that the Icy Docks will perform as well as this for virtually anyone else and I say that because I'm using the smallest case possible that 10 drives will fit into.  Close cramped quarters with probably the hottest drives anyone is likely to use for unRAID and I'm getting acceptable temps.  I'm willing to say right now that with green drives (WD Ears) and the two right most slots would probably top out at 37c.

 

Everyone will have their preferences.  The Supermicro's are built like tanks.  They are designed to be used in heavy-use server rooms.  The Icy Docks are very substantially built and don't appear flimsy or weak to me.  The Icy Dock cage has thick aluminum walls.  The Supermicro are sheet metal.

 

I'd like to try the Chenbro next.  The length is the same and the air holes leading to the fan appear better designed with a hole between each of the drives.  I'm watching for the next sale on them to do a comparison.  

[ix400]

Since my M35-replacemnet fan is also not 'Mr. Quiet', I simply disconnected it. The temperatures went up from 26-27 to about 34C. At the moment the array consists of 3 WD20EARS, and I'm copying movies to it since a couple of hours now.

 

What do you think? Is it dangerous to keep the fan disconnected? Is anyone of you doing the same?

 

Chris

[Joe L.]

34C is a very nice temperature.  If it stays below 40C you should be in great shape.

[queeg]

Is 34c the idle temp?