Ok, Well "Protocase" has some free design software on their website, if you use it, it will also generate a quote for them to fabricate it, or you could fabricate it yourself.. Might be worth playing with the free software, to give you some ideas. The BackBlaze case uses rubber gaskets around the midsection of the HDD's (where the bracket holds them) to cut down on vibration, and then they use a foam gasket at the top between the drives and the top cover to hold them in securely. The drives are really not designed to be hot swappable, they where trying to make the lowest cost, largest possible storage solution. I did note that they are using the same SATA Port Multiplier backplanes you found, they just use 9 of them, thats why I thought, hey, you could use that case and only populate it with 6 of them, which is 2 rows of 15 drives, the fully built out BackBlaze is 3 rows of 15, with 3 5 drive backplanes per row. They also jamm 2 PC power supplies in it, and the 2nd one seems to pretty much block the mobo, but they are trying for density, and keeping the size/cost down. I imagine a fully loaded one weighs at least 110 pounds, with (45) 1.5TB drives, just the drives weigh 72.45 #'s (1.61 #'s each)... it has to take 2 people to lift it and install it in the rack.

Here is the link for their designer software: http://www.protocase.com/design/protocase_designer.php

WD 15EADS 1.5TB drive specs: http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=575

Mitch

cavediver:
I was going to argue that the Chenbro case is a monstrous 8U while the blackblaze only 4U until I saw the redundant powersupplies (the lack of which I consider a major detractor to the blazeblaze design). A proper backplane is a nice benefit though... it does however come at a cost: That chenbro goes for ~$3500 for the complete chassis

Your point is a valid one. It would be easier to just go out and buy the Norco case and then add in other cases and be done with it. However I do not mind working on this at all infact its fun.



Thats quite abit of money to pay out for something you cant fully use.



I have CAD software to use to do the design work. Right now I am just waiting on evaluation components to arrive to determine if they will work for my build or not.

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Migrated from WHS2011 to WS2012E: HIGHLANDER

~ Norco 4220 Enclosure
~ Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5
~ AMD Phenom II X4 995 3.2 GHz
~ 8 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
~ 3 Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8

ymboc, you can get redundant PC power supplies that are the same size/form factor as a standard ATX power supply, so you can have the dual PC power supply design of the BackBlaze with redundant power supplies (probably not tripple redudant, as the Chenbro is). The goal of BackBlaze is to keep the cost down, they are all about the Petabytes per $ cost, and the cost amortized over 3 years. They conclude the electricty costs more than the internet bandwidth over time. You have to admit 67TB for under $8,000 is impressive. It could be 90TB with 45 2TB drives, but they are not at the best cost/byte compared to the 1.5TB drives currently.

Mitch

The powersupplies in the BlackBlaze are not actually redundant. One powers the System/motherboard etc, the other powers the hard drives... there are two, but they're not redundant.

I like the blackblaze approach (in that its actually quasi-affordable and you get huge bang for your buck)... there's just things that scare me about it.

Yes, if you use Standard ATX Power Supplies, nothing is redundant. I have seen redundant ATX power supplies that fit in an ATX PS form factor, you would have to use 2 of those, 1 in each position on the BackBlaze. You would really have 4 separate supplies, 2 in each standard ATX form factor mount. Thats what I meant by you could make it have redundant power...

Really when you think about it.
There are so many single points of failure in a home system.

I haven't had too many Power supplies go bad.
More HDD's than anything.

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Current DIY server DL380 G6 2xquad core 2.8ghz 32GB rdimm ram 512mb 2xHP 410 raid with 2x sas expanders (2 X norco RPC-4220) 48 slots stacked with room to grow.
30TB (Movie/File/Music)Win 2012 essentials 64bit Storage spaces
Ex490 E6400 4gb ram