Comments on: Hands On: Norco RPC-4220 Rackmount Chassis

By: George

George — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:56:00 +0000

great review guys very detailed and hepful. Please let us know if you find any good power supply with 12 molex connectors.

By: myangeldust

myangeldust — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 04:26:12 +0000

Nice work! What make and model PSU did you ultimately use in your Norco 4220 build?

By: steve

steve — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:45:50 +0000

So, I can connect each backplane to a single SATA port on either my motherboard or 1/many PCI SATA card, etc.?
does the system then still see each drive individually?

thanks!

By: Anthony

Anthony — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 08:13:16 +0000

Thanks for the detailed pics and review! Just what I was after

By: Ryan

Ryan — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 01:48:37 +0000

So what about a motherboard with SAS built in?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N...
and then 5 SAS cables
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N...

Is this all I would need? I think that would be cleaner than a bunch of add in cards and cables.

By: smadge1

smadge1 — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 02:12:22 +0000

SFF-8087 is cool

By: __Miguel_

__Miguel_ — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 22:34:21 +0000

Also, Addonics (their 4-port PCI and 2-port PCIe SiI-based cards are widely copied) also makes some interesting options for WHS users who might not need/want SAS connectivity.

Their most popular products are the 4-port, port-multiplier aware, SATA2 PCI card (up to 20 drives with a single PCI card, plus 4 port multipliers), but for those who might think "20 drives through a single PCI bus might be a little too much", you can get the same thing from 2 PCIe 1x slots, with the 2-port, port multiplier aware, SATA2 PCIe card (also available in 2xeSATA variant, and some other manufacturers also make a 2/2 port version, with two simultaneous ports available at one time).

Those SuperMicro controllers seem much better, though. The Addonics stuff is only for SATA connectors.

Cheers.

Miguel

By: Jim_Clark

Jim_Clark — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 22:14:57 +0000

I have a request in to Norco asking for information. And from Norco:

"We do not have resellers in Europe, but we can do int’l shipping directly. Now, we have an int’l flat rate shipping @$185 each, ETA 5-7 days. They can place order from our online store http://www.ipcdirect.net the item for shipping is http://www.ipcdirect.net/servlet/Detail?no=198.&q...

By: Jim_Clark

Jim_Clark — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 15:28:05 +0000

We have a winner!

By: Jim_Clark

Jim_Clark — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 15:27:46 +0000

From posts over at the [H]ard, it is my understanding that they are very similar with the major differance being as the connectors. I do have to admit tho, 5 cables would be alot nicer to to manage than 20…

Especially for a non-cable management guru like myself!

By: Jim_Clark

Jim_Clark — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 15:23:40 +0000

That is a great find! I like the non-RAID spec. It would be nice to have a 4-port version (16 drive capacity) for use mATX boards.

Anyway, all I was doing was looking for a quick 4-port solution as an example. This was not a controller review…

By: Emil

Emil — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 14:51:26 +0000

So Norco's the Timex of the 21st century, eh?____I'm wondering if the only difference between the 4220 and 4020 is the 4 SAS conectors vs. 20 SATA.