[vox-tech] Computer case for lots of drives...

[Bill Broadley]

On Thu, May 08, 2003 at 05:20:57PM -0400, Mike Simons wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I'm looking for a computer case that can hold a lot of hard drives 
> (say 20 or so)... and a motherboard.

Er, scsi or ide?

>   What I have in mind is something that is wide enough to hold 2 columns
> of 3.5" drives, and give them at least 1/2" of clearance between drives,
> multiple large fans mounted mounted in front of the case to push air 
> across the drives...

IDE is a poor choice for this, spinning up 20 drives simultaneously
is not something normal power supplies are designed for.  I've seen
numerous cases where this works for a month or two, then the machine
fails to boot as the power supply ages a bit.

SCSI allows for delayed spinup (5 seconds * scsi ID or similar).

>   The case should be able to hold a motherboard and power supply and
> needs one or two 5.25" external bays...

Rack mount or not?

> Hot-swap and rack mountable is not a concern.  Price is
> - Has anyone seen something like this?  Who makes them?
> - Favorite sites to look at cases online, for this sort of thing?

www.rackmountpro.com (they sell rackmount and non).

BTW www.apple.com has 2.5TB raids for $10-$11k, not bad for turnkey,
fiber channel, redundant power supply, etc.  Will work the day you open
the box.

Oh btw hooking up 20 eide drives is non-trivial, the eide cables are great
at blocking airflow, I've seen serious problems with designs this large.
I speced a 3ware-6800 (8 channel) solution that was a complete failure
(unstable, many lost filesystems, etc).

I wouldn't automatically assume 3 8 channel controllers will "just work"
together in a single box.

I suspect serial-ata will improve this a good bit, I don't think it's
really ready for 20 drive arrays, and the selection of large drives
is rather limited at the moment (only the 80 and 120's seem to
be in wide availability at the moment).

Did you have a target price? target filesize? raid level?

-- 
Bill Broadley
Mathematics
UC Davis