Looking for a short-depth rackmount JBOD DAS

[retnikt]

I'm looking for a Just-a-Bunch-Of-Disks Direct Attached Storage chassis with the following criteria:

• minimum 12 hot-swap 3.5" drive bays
• rackmount 2U or 3U
• max depth 500mm
• redundant psu would be nice
• under £1000
• available easily in the UK

Can you help me?

[dalekphalm]

I have a Dell MD1200 which serves almost all your needs. It’s about 600mm deep though. 

http://i.dell.com/sites/doccontent/business/solutions/whitepapers/en/Documents/storage-powervault-md1200-specsheet.pdf

 

I also have a old RackableSystems SE3016. I don’t use it anymore for various reasons, but it’s very short. 

[retnikt]

Thanks for the input, but <400mm is important because my rack is only that deep.

[retnikt]

Oops, it's actually 500mm deep. Still, 600 > 500

[retnikt]

Ok, since I realised that my rack is 500mm, I have found this:

SilverStone RM21-308

Specs are:

• 8x 3.5" Hot-Swap bays
• 6Gbps SAS backplane
• Redundant PSUs
• MicroATX/Mini-ITX
• 2U 19" Rackmount, 480mm deep

It's only got 8 drive bays but that was the most flexible requirement. Also it's an actual server chassis rather than a DAS but it's cheaper than almost all DAS's I've found - just £300 on SCAN. 12Gbps SAS would be nice but that's perhaps too much to ask for. USB 3.1 is a plus too!

[dalekphalm]

38 minutes ago, retnikt said:

Ok, since I realised that my rack is 500mm, I have found this:

SilverStone RM21-308

Specs are:

• 8x 3.5" Hot-Swap bays
• 6Gbps SAS backplane
• Redundant PSUs
• MicroATX/Mini-ITX
• 2U 19" Rackmount, 480mm deep

It's only got 8 drive bays but that was the most flexible requirement. Also it's an actual server chassis rather than a DAS but it's cheaper than almost all DAS's I've found - just £300 on SCAN. 12Gbps SAS would be nice but that's perhaps too much to ask for. USB 3.1 is a plus too!

Keep in mind that's a full server chassis - not specifically a DAS. You can make it work, but you might need to get a bit creative with your parts list and how you install stuff.

 

You could try and find a Dell MD1000 - they're older, but they're only 480mm deep. They're not great units anymore though.

[retnikt]

11 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

You can make it work, but you might need to get a bit creative with your parts list and how you install stuff.

Well now I've found the RM21-308 I think I might settle on just a server. I need a new storage server, and I was going to buy a DAS and expand my existing 2U 6-bay server but I might as well just buy another separate server. Cheaper too, given DAS's are £Ks

[dalekphalm]

4 hours ago, retnikt said:

Well now I've found the RM21-308 I think I might settle on just a server. I need a new storage server, and I was going to buy a DAS and expand my existing 2U 6-bay server but I might as well just buy another separate server. Cheaper too, given DAS's are £Ks

They can be quite expensive. The piece of crap SE3016 I bought off eBay was probably around $400+ after shipping and taxes.

 

My Dell MD1200 I got for free - I definitely wouldn't have paid the price I see them go for on eBay.

 

You can turn a server chassis into a DAS, the tricky part is jury rigging the PSU to kick on when you want without a motherboard installed - doable. Other then that, you'd need a SAS expander (and possibly a backplane if you want to get fancy).