• Introduction · Old Build/Hardware · Sanity Check · New Build Time · New Build Time/Hardware · Old Build Images · New Build Images · Random Notes

    • Fractal Define 7 48TB NAS Build

    Introduction

    I'm moving my Unraid NAS from a dedicated rack case, to a new, more normal case, here I tried to document my thoughts and progress.

    Hardware

    Sanity Check

    Inter-Tech IPC 4U-4408 vs Define 7
    Hot swap ✅ - ✅ Better HDD Temp
    Backplane ✅ - ❎ 3.3v Pin Problem?
    Simpler Cable Setup ✅ - ❎ Splitters / Many Cables
    MAX 8 HDD ⏺️ - ⏺️ MAX ~13 HDD
    80mm Fans ❎ - ✅ 120mm Fans
    Loud ❎ - ✅ Noise Dampened
    Rack mounted ✅ - ❎ Way to big

    1. Hot swap vs Better HDD Temp

    Well the nice thing about HDD cages with hot swaps is that you can just exchange the HDD without taking the system apart or even having to shut it down, before anyone comments about the fact that you can also hot swap normal attached SATA Drives... well yes and no, first off its way to cramped inside the case to even try to pull this off without accidentally pulling the wrong cable.
    Then there is the problem that some Motherboards really do not understand what you just did and will not recognize the newly plugged in HDD, you can kinda solve this by using a Server board like my Supermicron one, but this hassle is not worth it in my opinion.

    I understand that if you need 100% uptime, shutting down a system is no viable option, but in most home users cases this should not be a problem.

    2. Backplane vs 3.3v Pin Problem

    Okay so my thoughts about this are the following, most Backplanes will run shucked drives without problems, if you attach them directly to a normal Power supply via SATA Power Cable, and you are (unlucky) to have an "Enterprise" HDD it will not spin up, now you can cut off the pin or tape it over, but It's still a bit of a hassle and if you don't already know about it, you will be dumbstruck.

    On the other hand, if the backplane breaks, you are kinda fucked, at least for my Inter-Tech IPC 4U-4408 - 4U I can not find any reliable spare backplane, I could try the support or in the worst case buy the same case again, but the aftermarket support is really lackluster.

    3. Simpler Cable Setup vs Splitter / Many Cables

    Did you also notice that most features that a Server/Rack mounted case brings is the backplane?
    Well whatever wiring up a backpanel is really nice, most take Molex or SATA Power and connect the drives via a breakout cable like the SFF 8087.
    Buying this is hell online because these cables are not bidirectional so, you have to find one with a good description Reversed Cable Mini SAS 36Pin (SFF-8087) Male to 4 SATA 7Pin female Cable, Mini SAS (Target) to 4 SATA (Host) Cable so that it will do what you want.

    This makes wiring this all up so much easier, for my 8 drives right now I only needed 2 Molex Cables and 2x of these SFF 8087 to SATA Cables and everything is neatly connected.

    If I wire this all up in a normal case, I would need right now 8 SATA Cables, 8 SATA Power Cables and the biggest problem here is that these SATA Connectors, mostly on those 4x Splitter Cables either are too far apart from each other, or too stiff to nicely fit when trying to wire up all these disks, it is doable not question but all in all way more work / messy than the backplane solution.

    4. MAX 8 HDDs vs MAX ~13 HDDs

    Size matters, if you have 8 cages for hot swaps that is your limit, I'm personally running 8 x 8 TB HDDs right now and would not increase this number, if anything i would go with bigger and less drives if possible.
    So yeah does not really matter, of course you can stuff way more HDDs into a case if you do not have to worry about the hot swaps.

    5. 80 mm Fans vs 120 mm Fans

    Like before, size matters!
    Out of the box the Inter-Tech IPC 4U-4408 - 4U can only handle 2x 80 mm fans in the rear as exhausts, you could DIY some fans under the HDD cage but also not bigger than 80 mm, the problem here is that if you are running the server in an unideal environment (so not in an AC cooled server room) you will slowly start to cook the disks, in warmer months the ambient temperature can reach around 30° - 35° Celsius.

    This has lead to HDD temps of around 50°, even in times when it was only around 20° the disk stayed around 40°, some like to argue that disks have an acceptable around 40° - 50°, if you look at the specs sheet they mostly will even work till 65°... but I really do not like these numbers, the CPU inside the case is colder than that... I would love to reach around 35°, the only solution?

    🌀🌀🌀FANS!🌀🌀🌀

    That is how this ghetto fixed solution came about.
    Server Straped up with Noctuas

    It works, not the best because I'm kinda blowing air against a wall and trying to force airflow between the tightly packed Cages + HDDs + Backplane, this right now manages to keep the drives under 45° in the hotter months, not perfect but was at least a stop gap solution.

    Which leads us into the next point!

    6. Loud vs Noise Dampened

    No surprise, this is loud, the fans need to run at a high speed so even with the Noctua fans you can still hear them at 50%, soundwise the whole blowing against a wall is also not helping...
    Did you ever notice how silent laptops and computers became since SSD exist and became more common, well you learn to appreciate it when you hear 48 HDDs spinning and clicking at the same time, okay my case is not that bad with only 8 HDDs, but it is the loudest piece of equipment in my living room.

    I may sound like a broken record, and you will probably think "No Shit Sherlock!" but these server cases are really not designed to be in the same room as you... but here we are I do not have any other option, the hope is that the Define 7 with its dampening and better airflow design will not only reduce the temperature of the disk but also the noise level.

    Will this work out? Well, I fucking hope so... the cooling will be 100% better because the drives will have more room and the fans are spinning more freely combined with the wider possibility of mounting up to 9 fans there are way more options to create a good heat funnel.

    7. Rack mounted vs Way to big

    This is a chronic disease, I want to rack mount everything but not everything wants to be rack mounted, or it will be extremely expensive, custom-made or suck ass in comparison with not rack mounted solutions, like server cases... they are expensive, big and suck...
    I always wanted to transplant my gaming pc into one of these, but they all suck... just to get this out of my system.

    *There are special cases like these cases, but they are mostly designed for liquid cooling because again not really any exhaust fans or any other way to mount fans than the 3x in the front.

    I mean, look at my current setup...
    Oversize for 2 Post Rack

    Okay I only have a 2 post rack but no chance in hell I can get this mounted in... so this point should have been neutral, the biggest impact would be that there are only a handful of cases which you could lay on the side to fit inside a 19-inch rack and those have their own limitations, so this means that I will lose a lot of mounting space the moment I add the Define 7 which is 475 mm in height.

    New Build Time 🔥

    Yeah, we are doing this, I reused most of the components that I already had except that I upgraded the RAM to 16 GiB, mostly because I found the RAM randomly on eBay, and it otherwise was kinda hard to find an identical stick, and my guess is that it only gets harder because its EOL.

    Hardware

    1. LSI SAS 9217-4i4e Cooling

    It's not the biggest problem in the world, but when you are redoing a system, why not fix or improve something?
    These raid cards like to get hot, mostly because they normally expect to be run in a server environment, so how do we fix this?


    🌀🌀🌀Right more FANS!🌀🌀🌀

    The hardest part was finding screws that were long enough and which would fit in between the heat sink fins, then I just started screwing, in my defense I could have cut the screws to the appropriate length, but I was lazy... this still holds very tightly and does not move.

    2. Setting everything up

    The rest of the build went smoothly, first I replaced the 3-PIN fans at the front with my own Noctua NF-F12 PWM, I like these anti vibration pads from Noctua but with this slot mounting solution they do not really have any grip, so they basically all stack on each other.

    I then installed the motherboard and started to route the cables down to the power supply, after this all fans and the front panel I/O was connected, at last I inserted all data HDD drives + SSD cache drives.

    I looked for a better place to keep track of which drive is located where, and could not really find any better location than on the side of the HDD trays, so if I ever have to replace one and forgot where it was, I have to open both sides of the case to find it, well not that bad but I would have liked a way to mark them at the connector side.


    At least I managed to mark the SATA Ports accordingly to their layout, the real MVP here were the SilverStone SST-CP06-E4 Adapter they helped so much with easily connecting all the SATA power connectors, the CableCreation SATA data connectors
    were also really nice to work with.

    (Fuck these, they were the reason HDDs were throwing CRC errors out of nowhere, back to normal SATA Cables, also they changed the listing)


    Time for the first test run, lucky me, all disk showed up without any problem!
    All looks good except... the fans, which are spinning at maximum RPM.

    I actually know this problem from the first time i set up this server, you can controll the fans via the IPMI Interface but the Supermicro X11SSM-F has preconfigured fan thresholds that are kinda useless for "normal" fans, they either run at 100% or in other modes spin down, but get so slow that the motherboard thinks its a fan faliure and spins all fans up to 100%... this then loops endlessy.

    So there are many ways to fix this now, redo the thresholds set new fan speeds etc. but I was lucky and found this GitHub repo with a very nice script for Unraid which does all the heavy lifting and adjust the fan speeds depending on predetermine values.

    What can i say, after some modifications it works perfectly for me, i mostly had to change the PERIPHERAL FAN ZONE DUTY CYCLES and CPU FAN ZONE DUTY CYCLES because in my case any duty cycle under 0x32 = 50% speed caused the fans to again spin up and down wildly, I partly blame this on me connecting all fans to the preinstalled nexus fan hub and falling below the min. RPM of the small Noctua fan.
    So yeah this IPMI fan control shit is always a pain in the ass, but once it works you are set for life.

    3. Conclusion


    This is how it looks all together, well kinda blank but exactly what I wanted.

    Well with this the project is done, I like the new setup, and it is definitely way quieter than the old one, the only time I can now hear the system is when the fans spin up to 100% but even then it needs to be really quite for me to notice.
    The HDD temps are also way better now, with the fans now directly in front of the disks + the slight gap between them establishes a so much improved airflow, true in the hottest summer days the fans will now spin up to 100%, but this is not completely avoidable... when your room reaches 35 degrees ambient temperature...

    All in all, this project is now done!

    Well with this the project is done ✅

    Old Build Images



    New Build Images






    Random Notes