24 Hard drive 4U case

Danny091 · 18 May 2014 at 14:49

Hi my current home server is running out of room for disks so i was looking at getting something like

4U Server Case w/ 24x 3.5inch Hot-Swappable SATA/SAS Drive Bays, 12Gb/s MiniSAS

It says;

JBOD Conversion

To use this case as a JBOD add the following

A PSU of your choice

1 x CK13801

1 x CK23601

1 x SFF-8088 to SFF-8088

6 x SFF-8087 to SFF-8087

24 Hard drives of your choice (We recommend Enterprise Drives for Mission Critical Environments)

I wish to move all my hard drives motherboard ect over to this case and then use Transparent raid (maker of flexraid) like i am currently. So would i need to do the JBOD conversion for this? Im very confused as to what i need to make this work. Any help would be appreciated!

Completed build : http://imgur.com/a/rcsQa

bremen1874 · 19 May 2014 at 12:49

As far as I can see you'd need all of the above, and also a suitable SAS adapter in the server to plug it into.

I fail to see why you'd need something like this for a home server, but that's a different argument.

leigh_boy · 20 May 2014 at 16:35

is this just a storage server for a separate server?
if so i would just buy a pre built solution like a Dell PowerVault MD3 or something similar maybe second hand.

Danny091 · 20 May 2014 at 22:22

I think im sorted now

Its going to be my home server but wanted this case for all the hard drives i am able to add easily

Ive ordered the bits and bobs hopefully its all coming tomorrow

Danny091 · 22 May 2014 at 11:36

Ok my next problem is my hard drives dont seem to be spinning down. I found this http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/ff561476(v=vs.85).aspx but don't completely understand what it wants me to do. Any help would be appreciated!

In its new home

leigh_boy · 22 May 2014 at 13:35

i like the case, what os are you using?
because that power setting option will basicaly turn off all disks at idle after 20mins but thats all of them as you cant specify what to do and not do.
what raid controller are you using?

Danny091 · 22 May 2014 at 16:21

Hey im running windows 7 the controller is a SUPERMICRO AOC-SAS2LP-MV8 Thanks

I managed to edit the files and run the install of drivers again and checked the registry and the entry is in there however they still don't go to sleep. Any ideas?

Essexraptor · 24 May 2014 at 15:40

do you not have a option to spin down the drives from within the tRAID console ?

I know nothing about it.... just curious

As you can see from my Sig ... I use another "drive pooling" application... never seen Transparent Raid before... so I'm keen to have a look

Danny091 · 24 May 2014 at 15:56

No options in tRAID as it just lets windows handle spin downs. It was working fine when i was using the onboard sata but doesnt with the SAS card. Which leaves me to belive the SAS card isnt letting them spin down or not passing the command to spin down to the drives from windows.

As for tRAID i think its really good

if you have any questions feel free to ask

Also you can see a little build log here http://imgur.com/a/rcsQa

Essexraptor · 24 May 2014 at 16:01

start > control panel > hardware and sound > power options > click "Change plan settings" next to your preferred plan > click change advanced power settings > this opens the advanced settings window > expand "Hard disk" tree > expand "Turn off hard disk after" > you can then adjust the time as required

I use this to spin down my "Games" drive in my gaming rig

Danny091 · 24 May 2014 at 16:06

Essexraptor said:
start > control panel > hardware and sound > power options > click "Change plan settings" next to your preferred plan > click change advanced power settings > this opens the advanced settings window > expand "Hard disk" tree > expand "Turn off hard disk after" > you can then adjust the time as required

I use this to spin down my "Games" drive in my gaming rig

This is already set. This is the problem i'm having they are not spinning down after the required time

Essexraptor · 24 May 2014 at 16:11

I've edited the route..... by default it's set at 20 minutes

I've got mine down to 5 mins... I normally do email and surf... before getting stuck into games

Glad I found this thread... it's a reminder to do the same in my WHS2011 as well... thanks

Essexraptor · 24 May 2014 at 16:13

mmmmmmm... do you have a service running that is keeping the disks active

the reasoning is that I have a torrent service running on my setup... within the pool... I may have to take a drive out and run the service on that to stop duplication and hence activity in the pool.... I'll keep an eye on it and let you know

....... your probably closer to the truth ... SAS card

Danny091 · 24 May 2014 at 16:16

Essexraptor said:
mmmmmmm... do you have a service running that is keeping the disks active

Nope they would spin down fine when they were conneted to the Mobo sata ports however now they are on the SAS card they dont

No programs or anything has changed.

Danny091 · 26 May 2014 at 17:02

So after looking in the card settings it seems the SAS address' are the same for all the ports? Is this correct any help would be appreciated!

bremen1874 · 26 May 2014 at 17:05

Presumably that's the address of the port expander the drives are connected to.

Danny091 · 26 May 2014 at 17:12

bremen1874 said:
Presumably that's the address of the port expander the drives are connected to.

the expander is not connected at the moment so i could rule it out. Thats with two rows 4 Drives a row connected straight to the SAS card.

BlizzardX · 27 May 2014 at 05:16

If you don't have much data on the drives and can back them up elsewhere for the moment you could try Unraid and see if that spins the drives down, I believe its free for up to 3 drives. If the drives spin down in Unraid then it must be a windows setting somwhere... Unraid can be installed on USB so you won't have to kill the host drive to test this, but Unraid will not recognised drives not formatted in its own format.

Danny091 · 1 Jul 2014 at 01:37

Sorry i forgot to update this thread the spin down is working now so for anyone who does get a SUPERMICRO AOC-SAS2LP-MV8 SAS card the solution was to install the older drivers. The ones for windows XP i believe.

http://imgur.com/a/rcsQa Build log

Its been up and running now for a few months and very pleased with it. If anyone has any questions about going into a bigger case like this feel free to ask

BlizzardX · 1 Jul 2014 at 02:58

How much did this cost you in the end? It seem as if the 5in3 HDD bays by Norco when you get 3 of them are almost the same price as the case itself...