Silverstone CS380 any input??

[Dave304]

So I've been thinking about building a NAS for a while...
First thing to decide is the case....

I was looking at the DS380 because of all its extra bays, when I came across the CS380....

It's probably a little bigger than what I need. But it offers expansion and some extra room for cables and cards.
Its just fairly new in the market, but Silverstone has been around for a long time.




Silverstone CS380 info
http://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=709&area=en

Purchase info I couldn't find any other sellers

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...3omgD2itCk1qy6fqKn7AhBoCEE_w_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

Thanks
Dave

 

[cods69]

It looks like it uses exactly the same backplane as the DS380, but fortunately seems to have much better positioning of the fans on the side of it.
I use the DS and had to do the cardboard trick directing the flow better, to keep the drives cooler.
I also like the PSU being down the bottom for thermal design too, so I'm tempted to upgrade everything from the guts of my DS to this.

The DS has been very good, and compact, but after a previous (phantom) drive issue I now have two extra drives which I could use those extra bays for :)

 

[GreenDolphin]

I'm also very much interested in this case -- I want one than can hold 8-10 3.5" hot-swap disks and two 2.5" SSDs, for a NAS (and eventually general-purpose home server) than can grow over time and last 5-6 years. Once I exhaust the 8 hot-swap bays (each of which supports either a 2.5" or 3.5" drive -- nice), I intend to install a 3-into-2 hot-swap cage into the top two 5.25" bays, something like the iStarUSA BPN-DE230SS .

I was also looking at the DS380 originally, but once I saw than it supported mini-ITX mobos only, crossed it off my list -- I want more than one PCIe slot for future expansion.
The DS380 will support DTX mobos, which in theory can have two slots, but after a lot of searching, it turned out that there actually aren't any such mobos in existence, let alone storage-oriented ones.
The CS380 is for ATX / micro-ATX, so there's a wide range of mobos that will fit. I'm currently considering a dual-Xeon one.
My other alternative is using one of the very few mid-size case that still exist with top-to-bottom 5.25" bays (like the Sharkoon T9), and install three 5-into-3 or 4-into-3 hot-swap cages in them, but that ends up being fairly expensive, even using the cheapest cage (from Rosewill).

I wrote to Silverstone a few weeks back, and more retailers (including Amazon) should be selling the CS380 "soon".
There are several online retailers in Europe that already show it in stock, incl. all the European Amazon shops .

I'm not pulling the trigger quite yet, however -- the reviews on the DS380 were mixed, so I want to wait until I see several on the new case. I've only found one review so far, on a Thai site; as far as I could gather from Google Translate, it's favorable.
I'm particularly concerned about noise.

I'll update here if/when I find any reviews.

 

[Dave304]

GreenDolphin,

Is there a reason your are looking at a MB that can do Dual Processors.. From everything, I've read Dual Processors don't do much for NAS. But I could be wrong..

Here are some links I found:

https://www.techpowerup.com/226540/silverstone-announces-the-case-storage-series-cs380-chassis
https://www.pcper.com/news/Cases-and-Cooling/CES-2016-SilverStone-CS380-and-CS280-Enclosures
http://www.eteknix.com/silverstone-releases-cs380-storage-chassis/

I'm also very much interested in this case -- I want one than can hold 8-10 3.5" hot-swap disks and two 2.5" SSDs, for a NAS (and eventually general-purpose home server) than can grow over time and last 5-6 years. Once I exhaust the 8 hot-swap bays (each of which supports either a 2.5" or 3.5" drive -- nice), I intend to install a 3-into-2 hot-swap cage into the top two 5.25" bays, something like the iStarUSA BPN-DE230SS .

I was also looking at the DS380 originally, but once I saw than it supported mini-ITX mobos only, crossed it off my list -- I want more than one PCIe slot for future expansion.
The DS380 will support DTX mobos, which in theory can have two slots, but after a lot of searching, it turned out that there actually aren't any such mobos in existence, let alone storage-oriented ones.
The CS380 is for ATX / micro-ATX, so there's a wide range of mobos that will fit. I'm currently considering a dual-Xeon one.
My other alternative is using one of the very few mid-size case that still exist with top-to-bottom 5.25" bays (like the Sharkoon T9), and install three 5-into-3 or 4-into-3 hot-swap cages in them, but that ends up being fairly expensive, even using the cheapest cage (from Rosewill).

I wrote to Silverstone a few weeks back, and more retailers (including Amazon) should be selling the CS380 "soon".
There are several online retailers in Europe that already show it in stock, incl. all the European Amazon shops .

I'm not pulling the trigger quite yet, however -- the reviews on the DS380 were mixed, so I want to wait until I see several on the new case. I've only found one review so far, on a Thai site; as far as I could gather from Google Translate, it's favorable.
I'm particularly concerned about noise.

I'll update here if/when I find any reviews.

 

[GreenDolphin]

GreenDolphin,

Is there a reason your are looking at a MB that can do Dual Processors.. From everything, I've read Dual Processors don't do much for NAS. But I could be wrong..

For a pure NAS they don't, you're right. However, I want to use this machine eventually as a more general server, both for serving video as well as running several VMs, probably in parallel. That means some more computer power; I do want a Xeon-based system for the ECC memory.
Still, to answer your question, I wasn't originally looking at dual-CPU systems at all, figuring they'd require large mobo & case and be pretty expensive overall.

However, it turns out that at the beginning of the year, some large commercial server farms traded in many dual-CPU Xeon E5s (26xx-series), so they're available for very cheap from reliable sources -- there were forum threads about it here and elsewhere. A pair of such CPUs, with 16 cores/32 threads total, costs me $130 less than a single new Xeon E3 with 4 cores/8 threads (I'm outside the US so have to factor in shipping & Customs), and has a Passmark score of ~17500 vs. 10000 . Used ECC memory from the same source is also pretty cheap.

Downside is that there isn't a large selection of appropriate mobos (LGA2011-1 socket), but there are some, including ATX form-factor duals, so I can still use a desktop-type case.
One mobo I'm considering ends up costing only 5 Euros more than the single-CPU version, and is fully functional with one CPU installed -- a 2nd can be simply added later with appropriate cooler. I really like than type of potential path.

 

[wblock]

Please include power costs in your price calculations. You might find that a higher-priced but more power-efficient CPU will pay for itself in power savings, possibly in less than a year.

 

[GreenDolphin]

Please include power costs in your price calculations. You might find that a higher-priced but more power-efficient CPU will pay for itself in power savings, possibly in less than a year.

That's obviously a consideration. I did try to estimate that, and should have mentioned it (-:
It turns out that the Sandy Bridge Xeons (E5 v1) are where Intel made a big jump in efficiency. It's quite difficult to find power usage numbers for motherboards in various states, but given my expected usage patterns (NAS idle most of the time), my calculation gave the break-even time in power costs of around 6-7 years, which is a bit more than the expected lifetime of the system.
And of course, the newer, weaker CPU would have a harder time running multiple VMs while doing NAS duties, so it's not quite an apples-to-apples comparison.

There's also a good chance that I'll be able to completely eliminate a computer from the home inventory: I'm thinking of running OS X in emulation, which will allow me to avoid replacing my current MacBook Pro with another physical Mac (I've been less and less happy with Apple's HW offerings for years, and they've now crossed my red lines).

Also, I personally really like the idea of recycling HW this way, when it makes sense.

 

[Dave304]

Well, I decided to buy this case.. My first purchase piece in building my own NAS....

I must say this is a pretty sturdy case and built well.. Only part that is weird is the front cover.. You an lock it, but it has USB ports.... But if you close the door and lock it.. You can't plug anything into those ports..

I totally overlooked and forgot that it didn't come with a power supply.. SO I'm looking for one now...

 

[Stux]

Please include power costs in your price calculations. You might find that a higher-priced but more power-efficient CPU will pay for itself in power savings, possibly in less than a year.

Haswell is where the massive idle power savings came in (Ie v3 and above Xeon CPUs). Anything older is a massive power suck, even sandy bridge.

 

[GreenDolphin]

Haswell is where the massive idle power savings came in (Ie v3 and above Xeon CPUs). Anything older is a massive power suck, even sandy bridge.

Sure, but it all depends; on whether you're counting in kWh or in money, and if the latter on the local tariffs, and on the specific usage profile. As I said, my setup will be idling most of the time, and at idle the power dissipation difference is fairly small (going to a Atom-based NAS or even better, ARM CPUs, would be a lot more significant).
I even took into account in my RoI estimte the additional A/C costs -- I'm in a locale that requires A/C more than half the year.

 

[Chris Moore]

Silverstone CS380 info

Did you end up getting this case? How did it work out for you?

 

[HELLiON]

I'm using this case. I did quite a bit of work to the HDD cage before I built the system to seal the fan side of t he HDD cage the best I could. I added two Noctua NF-F12 2000 PWMs to the HDD cage and a Noctua NF-F12 PWM Chromax to the rear of the case. My HDD temps were sitting around 32-34C but other temps were sitting a little high. I added two Noctua NF-A12x15 FLX fans to the left side of t he case. HDD temps are sitting around 30-31 and other temps are looking much better. Definitely recommend adding additional thin fans to the left side of the case otherwise air just seams to recirculate in the case.