Forum member “cavediver” has been busy working on his DIY Home Server (aka Andromeda) and he’s recently shared with us his latest modification. He developed a new fan board for his Norco RPC-4220 case that accommodates 3 x 120mm fans instead of the stock 4 x 80mm fans, with the end result being a significant reduction in the noise output of the server. Here’s some images of the original and the new fan board installed in the case.
Original 4x80mm fan board
New 3x120mm fan board
In order to get a decent price on the fan board, he had to place an order for 10 units, and is selling the extras to recoup some of the cost of the design and manufacture of the boards. The installation process appears to be quite simple:
The only thing you have to do is move the power backplane from the 80mm fan board to this board. All of the screws connecting the board to the box can be re-used. The 120mm fan board is wider so the SFF-8087 and sata cables need to feed through the holes in the bottom of the board.
Cavediver is charging $40 plus shipping for the boards, and has already sold several of them. If the interest is high enough, he’s told me that he’ll order a second run of the boards to fill demand. If you’ve got a Norco RPC-4220 case and are interested purchasing a fan bracket, stop by the Andromeda forum post and send a Private Message to cavediver.
Article by Alex Kuretz
I'm Alex Kuretz, and I'm the founder of MediaSmartServer.net. I was the Lead Test and Integration Engineer at HP for the MediaSmart Server until April 2008 when I moved on to other opportunities outside HP. I've kept active in the Windows Home Server community, creating several add-ins and helping users make the most of their Home Servers.
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Just wanted to say I bought one of his fan boards and had it within a few days. I just need to pick out some fans now.
Please drop me an email as I am interested in this 120mm fan adapter for the Norco 4220 case. Thanks and greetings!
Hi Gugi,
Cavediver has asked that people contact him via PM in the thread linked in the article above, I’m not sure if he’s monitoring the comments here.
The link above just links me to this page and not a forum page where I can send a PM?!
Thank you, I’ve updated the post and here is the link.
Alex,
Have a Norco RPC-4220. I have the 80MM fan speed cranked down by using resisters but would like to keep the drives cool without all the noise.
I read a review that mentioned a fan board conversion that I tracked to you. I may be interersted in purchasing your 120MM fan board upgrade. Do you have any available?
Like your picture of your rack.
BTW – have mine loaded with 19-2 TByte Hitachi hard drives under WHS. 16 are in RAID-5 config running WHS – SYS (C): and another huge partition for WHS – DATA (D:) which I use for my DVD collection and other multimedia stuff with WHS file duplication turned off. The remaining hard drives are in standby until I get the 20th drive.
Glad to hear that there are others pushing the WHS limit like me!
Let me know about the panel.
Regards,
Stan
Hi Stan,
Thanks for your comments. Forum member “cavediver” is the one who has these for sale, you can reach him here in the forums.
Hi. I’d like to buy your…. Kidding! Thanks for the info