So, as a gift to myself for my Birthday, and for paying off my Credit Cards I decided to use my Tax money to upgrade my FreeNAS server into something truly special [/Snoke Voice]
One of the problems I've had with it wasn't as much storage anymore, but the ability to expand or perform drive maintenance. Desktop Cases just aren't designed to be servers and its hard/annoying to get at the drives. And there isn't enough room for drive expansion later on.
So I went and decided to purchase a bigger case. I looked around at Desktop cases, even full towers. But then someone pointed out the NORCO RPC-4224 server chassis which works with ATX style components. It offers 24 3.5" hot-swap bays connected via 6 SFF-8087 SAS3 backplanes. Each backplane supports SAS3 which gives 12Gbits/s throughput for each drive.
To connect those drives I needed SAS controller cards. So I bought used SAS controllers (cause these things are EXPENSIVE).
I ended up with a SAS 9201-16i which supports 16 drives via 4 SFF cables. I needed another two so I bought an additional SAS 9211-8i controller. So now all 6 backplanes are functional.
To keep cables need and tidy I bought right angle SAS cables in the shortest length I could, but thats .75 Meters, which is still too long. However, without custom cables that will have to do.
I also didn't want a Rats nest of power cables I wasn't using so decided to change out to a fully modular power supply. I bought a Corsair RM750x modular power supply so I could install only the cables I need.
When I first got the case, I found that while it wasn't what I would call Server Loud, it wasn't quiet enough for me. So I bought 3x 120mm Noctua PWM fans, 2x 80mm Noctua PWM fans, and a Noctua U9S heat sink cooler which is very quiet and very efficient. It also fits nicely in the 4U chassis.
The parts list to build this server is below. Some of the parts are inherited from the previous desktop case. Some I bought new to make it work in the new chassis.
One of the problems I've had with it wasn't as much storage anymore, but the ability to expand or perform drive maintenance. Desktop Cases just aren't designed to be servers and its hard/annoying to get at the drives. And there isn't enough room for drive expansion later on.
So I went and decided to purchase a bigger case. I looked around at Desktop cases, even full towers. But then someone pointed out the NORCO RPC-4224 server chassis which works with ATX style components. It offers 24 3.5" hot-swap bays connected via 6 SFF-8087 SAS3 backplanes. Each backplane supports SAS3 which gives 12Gbits/s throughput for each drive.
To connect those drives I needed SAS controller cards. So I bought used SAS controllers (cause these things are EXPENSIVE).
I ended up with a SAS 9201-16i which supports 16 drives via 4 SFF cables. I needed another two so I bought an additional SAS 9211-8i controller. So now all 6 backplanes are functional.
To keep cables need and tidy I bought right angle SAS cables in the shortest length I could, but thats .75 Meters, which is still too long. However, without custom cables that will have to do.
I also didn't want a Rats nest of power cables I wasn't using so decided to change out to a fully modular power supply. I bought a Corsair RM750x modular power supply so I could install only the cables I need.
When I first got the case, I found that while it wasn't what I would call Server Loud, it wasn't quiet enough for me. So I bought 3x 120mm Noctua PWM fans, 2x 80mm Noctua PWM fans, and a Noctua U9S heat sink cooler which is very quiet and very efficient. It also fits nicely in the 4U chassis.
The parts list to build this server is below. Some of the parts are inherited from the previous desktop case. Some I bought new to make it work in the new chassis.
- NORCO RPC-4224 24 3.5" bay Hot-Swappable 4U Server Chassis
- Corsair RM750x Modular power supply
- Noctua NH-U9S 92mm Silent CPU HSF
- Intel i7-4790k Socket 1150 CPU
- Gigabyte GA-Z97X-SLI Motherboard
- 32GB Crucial Ballistics Sport DDR3-1866mhz ram
- 6x right angle SFF-8087 to Straight boot cables
- LSI SAS 9211-8i Host Bus Adapter Card
- LSI SAS 9201-16i Host Bus Adapter Card
- 3x Noctua NF-S12A 120mm PWM fans
- 2x Noctua AF8 80mm PWM fans
- 6x WD Red 8TB drives (32TB RaidZ1 Array)
- 5x WD Green 4TB drives (16TB RaidZ1 Array) WDIDLE'd
- 1x Sandisk X400 128GB SSD (FreeNAS OS Boot Drive)
- 1x Samsung 850 EVO 256GB SSD (Plex VM and Plex Database)
Last edited: