? For those of you that have the norco RPC-4020 case (WARNING: lots of images)

[Sandon]

Do you have any issues with the caddy activity lights not working? I heard it uses the SATA signaling to show HD activity and thus doesn't need any additional cables (and I don't see any on the back plane) but i also got a different version from the one I normally see (with two sets of data cables, one for SATA one for SAS) so maybe something is messed up with this model?

Basically I only get HD activity lights on two (of the 12) caddies that are currently hooked up.

I also didn't like the fact that port one on the case is the far right port instead of the far left =( I didn't want to rehook up all the SATA back plane cables so I will just live with that.

The controller I am using right now is an ARC-1231ML. I was going to upgrade to the ARC-1680ix-24 but I heard from people on forums and from areca that the 1680ix-24 has issues with seagate AS series 1 TB drives so I ordered a ARC-1280ML but it wont come until next week.

Here are some pics of my setup
























































Yeah I know the cable job is not pretty/sucks but I didn't want to spend th money *just* to buy a modular power supply to save myself some cables which are in the way.

As soon as I get the ARC-1280ML next week I will be offloading all my data to two other raid6 servers at work so I can re-create the array from 12x1TB in raid5 to 20x1TB in raid6 (18 TB useable), woot!

Also if anyone has a cheap 1280ML they can sell me please let me know. I know the order won't be processed until after the weekend so I can cancel my order if need be since sadly the 1280ML is only $50 cheaper than the 1680ix-24 =(

And for those curious the temps on my drives went up only slightly (1-3 C) from my old CM stacker case and my CPU temp dropped about 13C! My CPU/mobo now runs at around 37C which is very good IMHO for a 2.4 Ghz core 2 duo OC'd to 3.5.

[snipper_cr]

Cable management generally is inversely proportional to the amount of cables that need to be managed. I've seen some cases that you dont see ANY cables cause they are tied back so well. Yet that case had 1 optical drive, 1 harddrive, no PCI accessories and maybe a video card that required 1 (or no) power cables.

As you start getting more stuff (say...12 harddrives?) you have to start sacrificing looks for what you want. Sure you can still manage but your options get more and more limited.

Given what you have in your case and stuff, yours turned out pretty well. Just make sure those 12 harddrives stay cool and you get air flow through your entire case!

12 TB... you trying to digitally store the entire works of shakespear ?

[XS Janus]

D A M N nice!!

Those back planes look pretty closed, though... how's the airflow to the hdd's?
I mean I see all the fans but the back planes concern me...

[Sandon]

It actually has all 20 drives in it right now it just doesn't have the last 8 hooked up to anything (ATM) since my current raid controller only supports 12 drives. I am waiting on my new raid controller I will be getting next week.

The temps are definitely higher my cooler master but still not bad at all IMHO:

Hdd#1 Temperature 39 ºC
Hdd#2 Temperature 40 ºC
Hdd#3 Temperature 38 ºC
Hdd#4 Temperature 39 ºC
Hdd#5 Temperature 40 ºC
Hdd#6 Temperature 41 ºC
Hdd#7 Temperature 40 ºC
Hdd#8 Temperature 41 ºC
Hdd#9 Temperature 39 ºC
Hdd#10 Temperature 40 ºC
Hdd#11 Temperature 40 ºC
Hdd#12 Temperature 41 ºC

That case pushes an amazing amount of air considering how quiet is (I am used to supermicro cases) and it is only slightly louder than my CM stacker was. I am definitely satisfied with the HD temps. My CPU temps went down a lot more than I expected though.

Other than the fact the disk activity lights are only working on two caddies I am very happy/satisfied with the norco RPC-4020 case which I got for about $320 shipped.

[XS Janus]

Thats not bad temps. But I assume this is idle.
Try and run raid initialization procedure see how far they go.
I can run passive in my 5in3 cages but heavy disk usage such as initialization sends the drives to 50-52C. And mine are WD GP RE2 drives.
Try it just to be on the safe side...

[Sandon]

Thats not bad temps. But I assume this is idle.
Try and run raid initialization procedure see how far they go.
I can run passive in my 5in3 cages but heavy disk usage such as initialization sends the drives to 50-52C. And mine are WD GP RE2 drives.
Try it just to be on the safe side...

I can't really test temps during initialization due to the fact that i have live data on it (from switching cases) and when I do re-initialize the volume it will be at the data center where I work which won't be a fare comparosin. For example on my server at work I get:

CLI> hw info
The Hardware Monitor Information
===========================================
Fan#1 Speed (RPM) : 3267
Battery Status : Not Installed
HDD #1 Temp. : 24
HDD #2 Temp. : 23
HDD #3 Temp. : 24
HDD #4 Temp. : 27
HDD #5 Temp. : 25
HDD #6 Temp. : 25
HDD #7 Temp. : 25
HDD #8 Temp. : 26
===========================================
GuiErrMsg<0x00>: Success.

And that is under pretty high load, and CPU/mobo/cores:

w83627dhg-isa-0290
Adapter: ISA adapter
VCore: +1.13 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +1.74 V)
in1: +12.04 V (min = +3.85 V, max = +10.14 V) ALARM
AVCC: +3.20 V (min = +3.49 V, max = +3.66 V) ALARM
3VCC: +3.20 V (min = +0.21 V, max = +0.54 V) ALARM
in4: +1.24 V (min = +1.62 V, max = +1.81 V) ALARM
in5: +1.57 V (min = +1.17 V, max = +1.11 V) ALARM
in6: +3.94 V (min = +4.53 V, max = +5.17 V) ALARM
VSB: +3.20 V (min = +0.24 V, max = +2.24 V) ALARM
VBAT: +3.04 V (min = +0.94 V, max = +0.35 V) ALARM
Case Fan: 0 RPM (min = 958 RPM, div = 128) ALARM
CPU Fan: 6250 RPM (min = 11157 RPM, div = 1) ALARM
Aux Fan: 6553 RPM (min = 26470 RPM, div = 1) ALARM
fan4: 6250 RPM (min = 2033 RPM, div = 4)
fan5: 0 RPM (min = 1757 RPM, div = 128) ALARM
Sys Temp: +21.0°C (high = -120.0°C, hyst = -67.0°C) ALARM sensor = thermistor
CPU Temp: +22.5°C (high = +80.0°C, hyst = +75.0°C) sensor = diode
AUX Temp: +28.5°C (high = +80.0°C, hyst = +75.0°C) sensor = thermistor
cpu0_vid: +1.563 V

coretemp-isa-0000
Adapter: ISA adapter
Core 0: +31.0°C (crit = +100.0°C)

coretemp-isa-0001
Adapter: ISA adapter
Core 1: +28.0°C (crit = +100.0°C)

coretemp-isa-0002
Adapter: ISA adapter
Core 2: +30.0°C (crit = +100.0°C)

coretemp-isa-0003
Adapter: ISA adapter
Core 3: +28.0°C (crit = +100.0°C)

I did however just try to write 300GB of data to it and near the end of writing all the files temps only went up 1-2C. This of course was to the file-system so it wasn't quite as good as writing directly to the disks. I also tried reading data off it for 10 minutes and the temps went up about the same.

Interesting enough from this little experiment I realized that it looks like the activity LEDs are working on the case its just some of them are extremely dim =( That sucks. The power LEDs are really bright too... would have been better if those were the activity ones