Hey all,
I recently put together a little server build out of mostly used parts purchased from these boards, HWC and craigslist. I figure I'd make a post about this case to provide my thoughts during the build and additional thoughts about the project for anyone curious about getting one or a similar 4U chassis.
In addition to that I have the actual build specs and pictures
General Feel
The RSV-R4000 came in from Newegg double boxed. One outside box for the internal chassis box.
It feels very solid and the locking mechanism is also very sturdy.
I am a little confused as to how I can clean the dust panel in the front, however I think this is covered in the manual. Once it gets dusty I'll figure that out or just vacuum the cover/door from the inside.
Cable management
Cable management was for the most part very easy. All of the case cables provided adequate length and room to tuck under the drive cages. Speaking of which the drive cages are really easy to take out. Which is a plus considering the 120mm fans rest inside them. You need to remove the cage and remove the front cover to gain access to the 120mm fans.
This particular build did not require any fancy cabling, though I can imagine some issues if I had 8 10krpm drives and a dual CPU mobo which would need as much cooling as much as possible. In which case I'd want to tuck away as many SATA cables as possible to give the least resistance. But that's not exactly this use case
Fan, Noise and Cooling
The stock fans are rather loud at 12v. To the point that I did not leave it on overnight in my bedroom until a permanent solution was found.
That solution was a simple 5v mod to each set of fan cable molexes and suddenly the case is extremely quiet without the need for a fan controller or the purchase of expensive fans or the use of fan resistors.
With the Noctua HSF my CPU avg. core temps never pass 45c even during very long snapraid sync jobs and the box is quiet enough to leave in the bedroom. I was extremely pleased with how quiet it is using stock fans @ 5v.
Drive Cages and Storage
I was reading up on a few reviews of the RSV-R4000 and most people seemed to have an issue with the drive cages. Particularly because the clip used when sliding and locking the drives in and out got in the way of SATA and Power cables. To alleviate this I used this black Bitfenix Molex->4x SATA cable that's very soft and easy to work with. It fits nicely from drive to drive without interfering with the drive cage clip.
Regular SATA cables would be difficult to work with because of the way the drive cages work. This video explains the clip issue very well.
No real issues with storage.
Closing Thoughts
In general I am very happy with my purchase. This chassis is very well priced, comes with 2x120mm and 2x80mm fans that work just fine @ 5v and also includes 8x3.5" drive bays and a good amount of space.
If you're buying this specific chassis remember to perform your due diligence and ensure it's what you want after researching reviews or watching the appropriate videos. The drive bay issue can be problematic for those that are unaware of it.
Specs and Pictures below:
CPU: FX 8150 @ stock
Cooling: Noctua NH-L12, 2x120mm fans 5v mod, 2x80mm fans 5v mod
RAM: Kingston 4x8gb 1600mhz non-ecc unbuffered (now all delivered and installed, but not in the pics)
Mobo: AsRock 970 Extreme 3
Video: Generic PCI video card for first install, ssh there-after
NIC: onboard gigabit
Boot/SQL: Crucial M4 64gb
Sata controller: Highpoint 640L HBA card (Rocketraid 2640 pictured, had to switch to an HBA card due to drivers not supported linux kernel 3.8)
Drives: 1x3TB Seagate (parity), 2x2TB WD, 1x1TB WD, 2x500GB WD
OS: Ubuntu 13.04 Server
Storage Mgmt: Snapraid
General Service Stack: nginx, mysql, postfix, samba, etc. The usual.
VM mgmt: single node Openstack Grizzly w/ Horizon, Glance, Nova, Quantum, VM storage is an NFS share on the box itself. I could not get Cinder working with my devices, iscsi was not cooperating.
I recently put together a little server build out of mostly used parts purchased from these boards, HWC and craigslist. I figure I'd make a post about this case to provide my thoughts during the build and additional thoughts about the project for anyone curious about getting one or a similar 4U chassis.
In addition to that I have the actual build specs and pictures
General Feel
The RSV-R4000 came in from Newegg double boxed. One outside box for the internal chassis box.
It feels very solid and the locking mechanism is also very sturdy.
I am a little confused as to how I can clean the dust panel in the front, however I think this is covered in the manual. Once it gets dusty I'll figure that out or just vacuum the cover/door from the inside.
Cable management
Cable management was for the most part very easy. All of the case cables provided adequate length and room to tuck under the drive cages. Speaking of which the drive cages are really easy to take out. Which is a plus considering the 120mm fans rest inside them. You need to remove the cage and remove the front cover to gain access to the 120mm fans.
This particular build did not require any fancy cabling, though I can imagine some issues if I had 8 10krpm drives and a dual CPU mobo which would need as much cooling as much as possible. In which case I'd want to tuck away as many SATA cables as possible to give the least resistance. But that's not exactly this use case
Fan, Noise and Cooling
The stock fans are rather loud at 12v. To the point that I did not leave it on overnight in my bedroom until a permanent solution was found.
That solution was a simple 5v mod to each set of fan cable molexes and suddenly the case is extremely quiet without the need for a fan controller or the purchase of expensive fans or the use of fan resistors.
With the Noctua HSF my CPU avg. core temps never pass 45c even during very long snapraid sync jobs and the box is quiet enough to leave in the bedroom. I was extremely pleased with how quiet it is using stock fans @ 5v.
Drive Cages and Storage
I was reading up on a few reviews of the RSV-R4000 and most people seemed to have an issue with the drive cages. Particularly because the clip used when sliding and locking the drives in and out got in the way of SATA and Power cables. To alleviate this I used this black Bitfenix Molex->4x SATA cable that's very soft and easy to work with. It fits nicely from drive to drive without interfering with the drive cage clip.
Regular SATA cables would be difficult to work with because of the way the drive cages work. This video explains the clip issue very well.
No real issues with storage.
Closing Thoughts
In general I am very happy with my purchase. This chassis is very well priced, comes with 2x120mm and 2x80mm fans that work just fine @ 5v and also includes 8x3.5" drive bays and a good amount of space.
If you're buying this specific chassis remember to perform your due diligence and ensure it's what you want after researching reviews or watching the appropriate videos. The drive bay issue can be problematic for those that are unaware of it.
Specs and Pictures below:
CPU: FX 8150 @ stock
Cooling: Noctua NH-L12, 2x120mm fans 5v mod, 2x80mm fans 5v mod
RAM: Kingston 4x8gb 1600mhz non-ecc unbuffered (now all delivered and installed, but not in the pics)
Mobo: AsRock 970 Extreme 3
Video: Generic PCI video card for first install, ssh there-after
NIC: onboard gigabit
Boot/SQL: Crucial M4 64gb
Sata controller: Highpoint 640L HBA card (Rocketraid 2640 pictured, had to switch to an HBA card due to drivers not supported linux kernel 3.8)
Drives: 1x3TB Seagate (parity), 2x2TB WD, 1x1TB WD, 2x500GB WD
OS: Ubuntu 13.04 Server
Storage Mgmt: Snapraid
General Service Stack: nginx, mysql, postfix, samba, etc. The usual.
VM mgmt: single node Openstack Grizzly w/ Horizon, Glance, Nova, Quantum, VM storage is an NFS share on the box itself. I could not get Cinder working with my devices, iscsi was not cooperating.