Pro/Forums - View Single Post

Stupid · 07-07-2011, 01:55 PM

Add me to list of "believers".

I upgraded my SNAP 4500 server a few months back, using these same adapters. I've been meaning to post something here, but it kept slipping my mind. sorry about that. Here are my comments:

I saw someplace that the tray mod was "so simple a child could do it". I don't know what kind of kids you are hanging out with, but this was definitely not something I would trust the average seven-year old with. Having said that, I wouldn't say it was -difficult- (it wasn't) just that it was more than I would trust the average technician with. I know several people who have a degree in Computer Science that have difficulty plugging in expansion cards into their computers without assistance. Anyone who has enough thought to find this forum is almost guaranteed to be able to do it without any assistance. I went really slow for the first one; it took about 45 minutes to mod the first tray. Once I knew the procedure it was easy to do the remaining trays in less than ten minutes each. The hardest part was the power connector; bending the wires back on themselves and fitting the "cap" on back of the molex plug required quite a bit of force to accomplish. I had to use a small pair of channel-lock pliers to press it back on. Definitely more force than one could generate with one hand.

The tolerances to get these inside the SNAP 4500 case is REALLY tight. I had no idea how close they were before this. After the mod, tray #1 is no longer "hot swappable". The little plastic support for the cover sticks down just far enough to stop the power molex from sliding past. You can actually see this in the photo in the post above this. In my server, the molex plug -just- hits the black plastic piece that is directly above it in the photo. I had to remove the case cover and put just a tiny bit of pressure on the support (it only needed to move about 1/2mm!) to move it out of the way and insert that tray. It's such a small amount that it springs right back into place as soon as I release the pressure. The end result is that I will need to remove the cover whenever tray #1 needs to be removed or replaced. I could probably trim the plastic bit in the case to make tray #1 fit better, but it isn't that big of a deal. My SNAP lives on a shelf in my (dry and air-conditioned) garage, not in a server rack; I can easily remove the top cover if needed. This may be unique to my SNAP unit.

I did make one "goof" during the installation process, but it was not a fatal one. I mistakenly hot-swapped one SATA drive in to the SNAP while the old array was still running in degraded 3-disk mode. The SNAP tried to add that drive to the array and rebuild it. Of course, that ended with the SATA drive being formatted to only 250GB (instead of 1TB). My point is that, these adapters ended up being so robust that they were able to deal with an actual hot-swap. I'm almost certain that the designers didn't intend for the adapter to be used under those conditions, but they DO work.

After I discovered this error, I powered down the SNAP, pulled all four drives, then inserted one SATA drive in bay 2 and my "spare" 80GB drive in Bay 1. (I keep a spare 80GB drive formatted with GOS5.0.144... just in case.) About 4 minutes later I had a 1TB SATA drive with GOS ready to go. 30 minutes a after that, the SNAP 4500 was running with four 1TB SATA drives.

It took about 12.5 hours for the RAID5 to format and rebuild. The total size is 2.73TB, a bit less than four times as much space as I had before this procedure. It took another 16 hours for all of my data to copy back from the 2T portable drive I "borrowed" from Best Buy.

I used consumer-grade Seagate SATA drives. I know they are not super reliable, but the original drives in the SNAP were Maxtors and I know that the Seagates will be a step up from those! I was able to sell the original Maxtor 250GB drives on eBay for enough to pay for the adapter purchase, making this a very economical upgrade!!

I had been toying with the idea of buying a used 14000 or 15000 from eBay and filling it with 250GB drives for additional storage, but this allowed me to get much more space at a much lower cost. I'm still thinking of that 15000, but after this mod, I'm sitting at 17% usage and will probably not have to worry about space concerns for at least five more years.

I fervently endorse these adapters for use in any modern SNAP drive. It was worth every penny!!

07-07-2011, 01:55 PM	#2
Stupid Cooling Neophyte Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: Whine country, CA Posts: 8	Re: SATA Adapter Review in 4200/4500 Add me to list of "believers". I upgraded my SNAP 4500 server a few months back, using these same adapters. I've been meaning to post something here, but it kept slipping my mind. sorry about that. Here are my comments: I saw someplace that the tray mod was "so simple a child could do it". I don't know what kind of kids you are hanging out with, but this was definitely not something I would trust the average seven-year old with. Having said that, I wouldn't say it was -difficult- (it wasn't) just that it was more than I would trust the average technician with. I know several people who have a degree in Computer Science that have difficulty plugging in expansion cards into their computers without assistance. Anyone who has enough thought to find this forum is almost guaranteed to be able to do it without any assistance. I went really slow for the first one; it took about 45 minutes to mod the first tray. Once I knew the procedure it was easy to do the remaining trays in less than ten minutes each. The hardest part was the power connector; bending the wires back on themselves and fitting the "cap" on back of the molex plug required quite a bit of force to accomplish. I had to use a small pair of channel-lock pliers to press it back on. Definitely more force than one could generate with one hand. The tolerances to get these inside the SNAP 4500 case is REALLY tight. I had no idea how close they were before this. After the mod, tray #1 is no longer "hot swappable". The little plastic support for the cover sticks down just far enough to stop the power molex from sliding past. You can actually see this in the photo in the post above this. In my server, the molex plug -just- hits the black plastic piece that is directly above it in the photo. I had to remove the case cover and put just a tiny bit of pressure on the support (it only needed to move about 1/2mm!) to move it out of the way and insert that tray. It's such a small amount that it springs right back into place as soon as I release the pressure. The end result is that I will need to remove the cover whenever tray #1 needs to be removed or replaced. I could probably trim the plastic bit in the case to make tray #1 fit better, but it isn't that big of a deal. My SNAP lives on a shelf in my (dry and air-conditioned) garage, not in a server rack; I can easily remove the top cover if needed. This may be unique to my SNAP unit. I did make one "goof" during the installation process, but it was not a fatal one. I mistakenly hot-swapped one SATA drive in to the SNAP while the old array was still running in degraded 3-disk mode. The SNAP tried to add that drive to the array and rebuild it. Of course, that ended with the SATA drive being formatted to only 250GB (instead of 1TB). My point is that, these adapters ended up being so robust that they were able to deal with an actual hot-swap. I'm almost certain that the designers didn't intend for the adapter to be used under those conditions, but they DO work. After I discovered this error, I powered down the SNAP, pulled all four drives, then inserted one SATA drive in bay 2 and my "spare" 80GB drive in Bay 1. (I keep a spare 80GB drive formatted with GOS5.0.144... just in case.) About 4 minutes later I had a 1TB SATA drive with GOS ready to go. 30 minutes a after that, the SNAP 4500 was running with four 1TB SATA drives. It took about 12.5 hours for the RAID5 to format and rebuild. The total size is 2.73TB, a bit less than four times as much space as I had before this procedure. It took another 16 hours for all of my data to copy back from the 2T portable drive I "borrowed" from Best Buy. I used consumer-grade Seagate SATA drives. I know they are not super reliable, but the original drives in the SNAP were Maxtors and I know that the Seagates will be a step up from those! I was able to sell the original Maxtor 250GB drives on eBay for enough to pay for the adapter purchase, making this a very economical upgrade!! I had been toying with the idea of buying a used 14000 or 15000 from eBay and filling it with 250GB drives for additional storage, but this allowed me to get much more space at a much lower cost. I'm still thinking of that 15000, but after this mod, I'm sitting at 17% usage and will probably not have to worry about space concerns for at least five more years. I fervently endorse these adapters for use in any modern SNAP drive. It was worth every penny!!