Hi, could you say what exact model Sans Digital you have, and what type/model of fan you installed? And was the installation easy? Thanks...
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SILENT external raid enclosure needed - recommendations?
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Hi, could you say what exact model Sans Digital you have, and what type/model of fan you installed? And was the installation easy? Thanks...
I have this unit...
http://www.sansdigital.com/mobilestor/ms2c1.html
And replaced the fan with this...
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=45883&vpn=IXP-34-08&manufacture=SilenX Corporation
I had to splice the stock fan's connector onto the replacement fan since the replacement fan's connector was not the same as the header on the Sans Digital circuit board.
You may be able to find a 60mm fan that would not require changing connectors... something with a GPU style fan connector is what you would need.
Fanless:
WD MyBook Studio Edition II + WD Green drives = VERY VERY quiet
Comes with USB, eSATA and FW800 and FW400 ports too!
WD MyBook Studio Edition II + WD Green drives = VERY VERY quiet
Comes with USB, eSATA and FW800 and FW400 ports too!
Have you considered moving your system into another room and just get extensions for your Monitor and usb for mouse and keyboard? That's what I'm going to be doing in my new studio. That way you can just focus on getting the best gear and not worrying how loud it is.
Given the date this thread was started, I think its probably safe to say the OP's needs have long since been met so why not continue to share ideas for silent external enclosure options - of any kind?
I live in a tiny little studio apartment and am sensitive to noise. I have two Drobos (4 bay, Firewire), a 4 bay Sans Digital SATA to eSATA enclosure, and an Intel SS4200. All are silent.
I also have a Linksys NSS4000 but had to take it offline because after being in use for a bit over half a year, the began hearing fan noise.
I also have a Linksys NSS4000 but had to take it offline because after being in use for a bit over half a year, the began hearing fan noise.
Well either there's a large variance between units or we have very different acceptance levels of noise because my drobo (fw800 v2 unit) was very far from silent. It was noisy enough to be downright annoying (fan noise).
I use my mac pro as the baseline - it is at the very upper edge of what I consider appropriate noise levels: I can hear it (barely). The drobo was definitely noisier than the mac pro at idle.
I use my mac pro as the baseline - it is at the very upper edge of what I consider appropriate noise levels: I can hear it (barely). The drobo was definitely noisier than the mac pro at idle.
Ha.... I take back what I said!
(My appologies to fhall1!)Did you ever investigate the Sans Digital products I mentioned early in this thread? As mentioned, I have one of their dual drive enclosures and replacing the fan with a low speed quiet alternative was not difficult. Perhaps you could even replace the fan on a Drobo with something quieter without much effort?
EDIT: This product looks like it would make swapping the fan trivial... http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/MEQX2KIT0GB/
It appears the above is just an OEM of Sans Digital new 4-bay enclosure they released in Feb. (it says the fan is 90mm - should be easy to find lots of silent replacements if it's not already quiet enough)...
http://www.sansdigital.com/towerstor/ts4ct.html
The Proavio S4 line is supposedly designed to be as quiet as possible for small studio use. I have no firsthand knowledge of their gear though.
http://www.proavio.com/s4fr.html
I've seen variances in fan noise from even Enhance Technologies. Fortunately, those use larger fans and are easily replaced with quieter models (i.e. Noctua).
So I don't think it unreasonable to have similar outcomes with Sans Digital,... Basically "Luck of the Draw", so the user has to decide to return the unit or replace the fan (sometimes soldering is required, so it may not be for everyone).
So I don't think it unreasonable to have similar outcomes with Sans Digital,... Basically "Luck of the Draw", so the user has to decide to return the unit or replace the fan (sometimes soldering is required, so it may not be for everyone).
I think there are large variances. There are some who swear their Drobos are silent (like me) and some who say their Drobos are noisy. When compared to my Mac Pro, my Drobos are every bit as quiet, if not quieter. The only time I hear my Drobos are when the drives are waking and that's drive noise, not noise from the Drobos themselves.
Virtual - I bought one of those Mercury Elite-AL Pro Qx2 units for my server in the basement. It's actually fairly quiet, but I haven't tried to modify the fan on it.
I actually ended up using that via a new mini running Mac Leopard Server so I'm putting off the raid system for my main unit right now.
I actually ended up using that via a new mini running Mac Leopard Server so I'm putting off the raid system for my main unit right now.
To the OP:
I am using an EnhanceBox 8-bay unit with Hitachi enterprise grade SATA drives in raid 5 connected to an Areca 1221x card. I use the storage for photo and video archiving, also backup from the MP. I find the unit quiet, but it looks easy to replace the fan if need be.
I dont understand the criticisms against RAID 5 leveled by certain posters. Performance is excellent (I get 300MB/s) and there is 1 drive redundancy. Sure there is a small risk of 2nd drive failure during a rebuild- that is why you use enterprise grade drives on the manufacturers HCL, UPS, and backup your data. With this card RAID 6 performance is only about 10-15% off that of RAID 5 so that is an option if you are very concerned about redundancy. Other forums I frequent highlight excellent fault recovery of the Areca cards.
I believe you can never have too much storage. One thought would be to grab an 8 bay unit and allow yourself the option of later expansion.
I am using an EnhanceBox 8-bay unit with Hitachi enterprise grade SATA drives in raid 5 connected to an Areca 1221x card. I use the storage for photo and video archiving, also backup from the MP. I find the unit quiet, but it looks easy to replace the fan if need be.
I dont understand the criticisms against RAID 5 leveled by certain posters. Performance is excellent (I get 300MB/s) and there is 1 drive redundancy. Sure there is a small risk of 2nd drive failure during a rebuild- that is why you use enterprise grade drives on the manufacturers HCL, UPS, and backup your data. With this card RAID 6 performance is only about 10-15% off that of RAID 5 so that is an option if you are very concerned about redundancy. Other forums I frequent highlight excellent fault recovery of the Areca cards.
I believe you can never have too much storage. One thought would be to grab an 8 bay unit and allow yourself the option of later expansion.
You can swap out the fans in the EnhanceBox E-8ML.
How long have you had that setup running?
I ask, as I've had problems with Hitachi's drives in the past, notably the consumer models, and issues with Support (obtaining firmware), so I've lost confidence in their SATA products as a result.
SAS OTOH is a different story.
As per 300MB/s (slow for an 8x disk RAID5), so how many drives total, and how are they setup?
Areca makes some of the best RAID cards out there though, and it's great with parity based arrays if paired with a proper UPS, and perhaps a card battery as well (UPS first though, as the battery may not be worth much in situations where the file is larger than the cache
).The 300MB/s is a rough figure based on some large file copies from an SSD, not from a benchmark program. It 'feels' fast when processing large raw digital files and video.
I have had the system up for 18 months. The distributor I got the card from recommended the Hitachi enterprise drives as working best with the Areca cards.
The drives are set up up as one RAID 5 volume with multiple logical partitions using the Areca drive utility.
I have had the system up for 18 months. The distributor I got the card from recommended the Hitachi enterprise drives as working best with the Areca cards.
The drives are set up up as one RAID 5 volume with multiple logical partitions using the Areca drive utility.
The feet are probably rubber. Is that right? Do you think it would be possible to take off about 0.1" from the height of that enclosure by shaving off a bit of the feet? I have a height restriction in a particular cabinet.
They are kind of hard plastic. I didn't measure but they look about 0.25" or so. I would bet you could file them down, but are hard, not soft.
OK, so the SSD is the bottleneck in this case.
I've never heard of Areca mentioning this in my contact, so I'd guess it's because that particular distributor deals with Hitachi.
Lately, it's been exclusively WD for enterprise SATA drives for me (Caviar Blacks or Greens for backup/archival storage).
Thanks for the info.
The reason I assumed the feet were at least somewhat soft was because that would really help dampen vibration. But I'm not a mechanical engineer. Maybe hard plastic is just as good as soft.
I'm back to the same issue again - hard drive space is never enough, and SSDs are not keeping up size-wize to what I need to store so my mac pro just can't stuff enough drives inside.
Anyone with any recent recommendations for either fanless (ideally!) or super quiet external array?
Anyone with any recent recommendations for either fanless (ideally!) or super quiet external array?
Why don't you just upgrade your existing external storage solution (I presume the Drobo), with 3TB drives. In case that it's a 4 bay Drobo it gives you 9TB of usable space.
I got rid of the drobo as it was just maddeningly slow. I have a Qx4 from OWC that I have 2gb drives in attached to my mac mini server downstairs, but looking for an external unit that could do raid6 ideally.
At this point, I'm probably doing to pull a cd out of my lower mac pro bay, install more hard drives there and update my SSD. I just can't seem to find a silent external array, i don't understand why there isn't a market for it.
At this point, I'm probably doing to pull a cd out of my lower mac pro bay, install more hard drives there and update my SSD. I just can't seem to find a silent external array, i don't understand why there isn't a market for it.