[fional]

I've been looking for a case, similar to the Lian-Li 343B.

The Lian-Li 343B holds 18 drives upfront and you could get 2 modules for 40 pounds to bring it to 24 drives. (2x3 in the very back)

Problem with the Lian-Li 343B is I'm having a lot of difficulty sourcing a reliable provider that ships (duty free) to Ireland.

Amazon.co.uk doesn't sell it anymore and a lot of the other shoppes I tried have recently shut.

Plus, the Lian-Li 343B is a bit dear, because it doesn't have a PSU and requires the purchase of other modules.

I'd like at least room for 20 drives. Any ideas? I was thinking of maybe doing a custom fabrication, but I'm not sure I want to go through the trouble of drafting if I could just buy one pre-built.

[Quartermass]

I think you're into Mountain Mods territory there... there's not much in the way of full tower cases that do the job.

I have a A71FB which has 11 internal 3.5s and 5 5.25s... perhaps you could look at some kind of additional box to house more drives? When you go past what full towers offer the price really scales up.

[fional]

I think you're into Mountain Mods territory there... there's not much in the way of full tower cases that do the job.

I have a A71FB which has 11 internal 3.5s and 5 5.25s... perhaps you could look at some kind of additional box to house more drives? When you go past what full towers offer the price really scales up.

I was looking at overclock or over-clock, forget which, they used to supply UK with Mountain Mod, but a forum post said they are shut now. So was vespid suppliers.

I did see a couple Mountain Mods which were "similar" to a cube design that could hold 20+ drives, but to order it from the US is quite cost prohibitive.

[xecutionx]

Have you looked at rackmount cases?

Also, try looking here for ideas: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=7998.0

[eskro]

yes, im too slow this time

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.p...#msg113244

+ xecutionx

[PatrickVogeli]

The sharkoon rebel 12
http://www.sharkoon.com/?q=en/node/1126
http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.p...ic=10427.0

There's also a norco one, but it's rack mountable.. not sure if you could use it.
http://www.norcotek.com/item_detail.php?...no=ds-24dr

EDIT: eskro been faster! The antec 1200 what a beauty!

[spartan711]

norco 4220 or backblaze pod if your mechanically savvy. Cheapest case / bay. Use google to find.

[fional]

Thank you! This is a lot to look at, I have to sort through - but the lime-tech forum was very helpful...gave me some ideas on the motherboards. Now I have workable specs to go off of and find easily UK obtainable equivs.

Thanks!!

[spartan711]

I'd just like to reiterate, many people have used the norco 4220 in super storage builds and they loved it because all the bays are hot swappable. And the backblaze pod is the king of storage, with room for 45 hard drives. It shouldn't be too hard to make, especially because they provide a detailed part list and the CAD files required. You can find plently of builds in the overclocker forums.

[fional]

I'd just like to reiterate, many people have used the norco 4220 in super storage builds and they loved it because all the bays are hot swappable. And the backblaze pod is the king of storage, with room for 45 hard drives. It shouldn't be too hard to make, especially because they provide a detailed part list and the CAD files required. You can find plently of builds in the overclocker forums.

I'm definitely keen n the backblaze pod. I downloaded the autocad specs for it a couple weeks ago.

My only concern with that is sourcing the port multiplier backplane. It's my only issue with it. Now that backplane, I can get from the actual manufacturer - but they don't have any retailers in Europe. I can get them for about 38 Euros per one, with an MOQ of 9. Then shipping is another 30 euros. What's frightening me is the prohibitive duty on ~360E shipment from East Asia! (30% custom, +10 pound parcel fee, + 12.5% duty.)

Last time I did something like this, I had a 200 Euro item delivered from Hong Kong, including shipping. I ended up paying an additional 100 Euro after stamp got through with it.

I suppose if I could source it in America - I could get a relation to carry it back..

[spartan711]

http://www.chyangfun.com/contact.asp

If you look on the map, there is a blinking red dot in Europe, so it should be possible to source from them within the country. If not, sourcing from america may be an option. An extra checked suitcase is $50, so ~35Euros? Plus shipping from wherever your relation is. Or you can use a visit to them as an excuse to pick it up :-p

[fional]

http://www.chyangfun.com/contact.asp

If you look on the map, there is a blinking red dot in Europe, so it should be possible to source from them within the country. If not, sourcing from america may be an option. An extra checked suitcase is $50, so ~35Euros? Plus shipping from wherever your relation is. Or you can use a visit to them as an excuse to pick it up :-p

I've emailed them now, inquiring about that. Thanks

[PatrickVogeli]

uuuuh the backblaze looks awesome. However, I've come across this: http://www.bioteam.net/2011/08/why-you-s...blaze-pod/

It's an interesting point of view.

[fional]

uuuuh the backblaze looks awesome. However, I've come across this: http://www.bioteam.net/2011/08/why-you-s...blaze-pod/

It's an interesting point of view.

Thanks for the link, that was an interesting read.

He recommends getting the thing from protocase, assembled, but the mark-up there is quiet a bit. Even on the backplanes, the markup is quite high. Obviously it wouldn't be a solution for me, over here - but even if I was living in North America, I would think twice about it.

Also, the makers of the backplanes also have a barebone system for a lot cheaper, if you don't have access to a fabricator and so forth.



The Cons:

The system uses a single disk for hosting the operating system

I was thinking of using a small SSD. A single disk is fine, in my instance, because I'll be using FlexRaid and on there you can't include the OS anyway.

The system requires 2 power supplies to operate, both must be active and there is no redundancy, spare or failover unit

I thought about that, the two power supply yoke. But I don't think I'd, as a home user, sanely be able to incorporate otherwise.

The system has no hardware RAID capability

For myself, and my media system going over 20TB now, I think a software one will suffice a lot better than the absence of anything (which I have now).

The system only has 2 GigE network interfaces

To access/replace a disk drive you need to remove 12 screws

To access/replace a disk drive you need to remove the top cover

If you build this yourself totally DIY you will be required to create custom wiring harnesses

Any monitoring or health status reporting tools will have to be built, installed and configured by hand

For a media server, I'm not sure most of the rest matters. The poster of that blog does indicate that:

Backblaze has an unusual duty cycle. A normal backblaze pod is only “active” for the first few weeks of it’s life as it slowly fills to capacity with customer backup data. After a pod is “full” the system sits essentially idle while it waits for (much less frequent) client restore requests.

I think that be similar to my duty cycle as well. At least as far as writing is concerned. Then it be idle until it's requested to be read.

Now I can't pretend I fully understand all the elements of this, I'm very much a novice. But I figure if I can get a machine going with at least 24 drives...I'll be happy. With 24 drives, I think I can come close to getting away with 1 nice PSU.

Of course, I'm easily likely to be wrong. When I actually get it together, I'll do some sort of post on it, so others can improve on my many mistakes and errors.

I think, this weekend, I'm going to go and maybe CAD up my own design based off a tower I have at my parent's, and take it to the man down the road and see if I can't just "double" it. See how much in steel v aluminium it costs me

[drewy]

I'm in the process of "rolling my own". I wanted a case that could handle in excess of 22 drives and a pre-built one + caddies would have cost me £600+. So I decided to invest a little quality time in the man shed and see what i could come up with.

I don't need hot swap drive bays, so that saves a fair amount of dosh but it did take me a while to built the drive cages. The case is being built with 2 x 11 3.5" cages and has space for another 10 or so when I have the need to add more.

It's all built from various aluminum stock and hundreds of rivets, it may not end up being very pretty but should be functional, which is all I need. It should also cope with my space needs for a number of years to come.

To try and keep it as small as possible I'm mounting the 2x11 cages side by side at the front of the case, so it's a little fatter than the usual tower but isn't excessively tall.