WEBVTT 00:00:00.640 --> 00:00:07.440 So today we're going to be unboxing something a little bit different. I 00:00:04.480 --> 00:00:13.360 don't think we've done anything like this. Okay, so this is a computer case. 00:00:11.120 --> 00:00:19.400 This is probably the largest computer case we've unboxed on the show before. 00:00:15.759 --> 00:00:21.920 It comes in a stylish brown box which 00:00:19.400 --> 00:00:29.199 includes no information about the product inside whatsoever except for a 00:00:25.840 --> 00:00:31.199 part number. So, 10 points if you know 00:00:29.199 --> 00:00:36.480 what this is already, although I really doubt it because it's a brand new 00:00:32.960 --> 00:00:39.000 product from Norcco Tech. Now, Norcco 00:00:36.480 --> 00:00:45.200 Tech is a little bit different from Norcco that makes bicycles. 00:00:42.399 --> 00:00:50.960 Now, Norcco is not really focused on uh you know what kind of high-end video 00:00:47.760 --> 00:00:54.640 card fits in their case or you know how 00:00:50.960 --> 00:00:57.199 many uh you know stylish plastic bezel 00:00:54.640 --> 00:01:03.680 designs they have or what kind of aluminum chassis they're using. Norcco 00:01:00.480 --> 00:01:08.080 is all about functionality on the cheap. 00:01:03.680 --> 00:01:09.760 So, this is a 4U ATX case that is 00:01:08.080 --> 00:01:13.080 designed. You know, I'm just going to have to bring this down to the ground 00:01:11.119 --> 00:01:20.720 because there's no way I can uh it's so heavy. It's a 4U ATX standard 00:01:18.080 --> 00:01:27.840 case that is designed to load up with as many hard drives as you could pretty 00:01:23.680 --> 00:01:29.600 much need as a home user. So, let's just 00:01:27.840 --> 00:01:35.360 uh keep working on getting this box open. You can see it is double boxed to 00:01:32.240 --> 00:01:38.479 protect it during transit. And here is 00:01:35.360 --> 00:01:40.960 the case itself. So, this thing weighs 00:01:38.479 --> 00:01:47.200 like about as much as I do. So, I'm going to have to find some way to unbox 00:01:43.799 --> 00:01:47.200 it. And 00:01:47.240 --> 00:01:55.600 uh this may be my most difficult unboxing yet. So, we're going to go 00:01:52.799 --> 00:02:06.399 ahead and tilt it this way and then tilt it this way. And finally, there it is. 00:02:01.920 --> 00:02:09.520 The RPC 4224. 00:02:06.399 --> 00:02:11.599 So, four, it is a 4U case. I don't 00:02:09.520 --> 00:02:17.680 remember what the first two stands for, but the 24 means it holds 24 hard 00:02:15.520 --> 00:02:21.959 drives. So, let's go ahead and put this down over 00:02:19.239 --> 00:02:27.120 here. Okay, like I said, steel construction. 00:02:25.280 --> 00:02:31.840 It's not going to fall apart. They actually have a wide variety of uh rack 00:02:30.000 --> 00:02:36.959 mountable chassis that are designed for just building little file servers. And 00:02:34.239 --> 00:02:42.400 what makes them great for home users is the fact 00:02:38.200 --> 00:02:45.680 that unlike enterprise level chassis or 00:02:42.400 --> 00:02:49.840 um or barebones, they're cheap. This 00:02:45.680 --> 00:02:51.519 case only costs in the midunds versus 00:02:49.840 --> 00:02:56.480 what you might pay for something from a super micro or from another rack 00:02:54.000 --> 00:03:01.519 mountable chassis brand which might be as much as $1,000 just for the chassis 00:02:58.959 --> 00:03:06.400 itself. So, like I said, 24 hot swappable, uh, 3 and 1/2 in, also 2 and 00:03:04.480 --> 00:03:12.239 1/2 in compatible. You can see it has 2 and 1/2 in mounting holes, hard drive 00:03:08.680 --> 00:03:13.920 bays. Okay. And these all run off a very 00:03:12.239 --> 00:03:18.720 large back plane. Now, I might have to run inside and get a uh screwdriver. So, 00:03:16.879 --> 00:03:22.319 just pause that video. Okay. So, we got the case open. That was step number one. 00:03:20.720 --> 00:03:26.800 So, I want the cameraman to come have a look at the inside of the case, which is 00:03:24.640 --> 00:03:33.680 where we will find all of the things that make this otherwise very plain 00:03:29.440 --> 00:03:36.159 steel box uh worth a lot of money and uh 00:03:33.680 --> 00:03:39.920 what make this one a particularly good value compared to the other stuff out on 00:03:38.080 --> 00:03:49.360 the market. So, first I want you to have a look at the inside here. The interface 00:03:43.599 --> 00:03:54.239 that actually runs that 24 drive 00:03:49.360 --> 00:03:56.239 um hot swappable like massive storage 00:03:54.239 --> 00:04:00.640 compartment here. So, this this whole part of the case is dedicated to this 00:03:58.239 --> 00:04:04.640 back plane. Okay. So, you can see here there are actually uh two redundant 00:04:03.120 --> 00:04:08.400 power inputs. I'm not talking about the fans yet, cameraman. There are two 00:04:06.480 --> 00:04:12.640 redundant power inputs. So if you're using a redundant power supply, it means 00:04:10.159 --> 00:04:16.239 you take one Molex from each redundant power supply and plug it into each of 00:04:14.159 --> 00:04:21.840 these two Molex here. So you can see there's a total of six. Okay? So that's 00:04:18.959 --> 00:04:26.320 6 * 4 is 24. All right? So that means 12. Six on each power supply. And then 00:04:24.400 --> 00:04:30.400 over a little bit further, you can see there are 00:04:27.560 --> 00:04:35.840 SFF887 connectors. So there's a total of six of those, each of which runs four 00:04:33.120 --> 00:04:40.720 drives on each one of these PCBs here. You can actually remove these. Although 00:04:37.840 --> 00:04:43.919 it's not really necessary to do so, and I can't really think of a reason to do 00:04:42.160 --> 00:04:50.240 it, but I'm going to do it anyway because that's what unboxing is all 00:04:47.160 --> 00:04:52.320 about. Like, you know, just taking stuff 00:04:50.240 --> 00:04:58.800 apart for the Oh, there it is. Okay. So, you can see here we've got activity 00:04:55.160 --> 00:05:02.240 LEDs. We've got the actual SATA or SAS. 00:04:58.800 --> 00:05:04.400 You can run either SATA 2 or SAS drives 00:05:02.240 --> 00:05:08.000 off of this back plane. So we you can see we got the four interfaces here. 00:05:06.560 --> 00:05:13.360 There's the connector I was talking about. Here's the power inputs. So this 00:05:10.800 --> 00:05:17.199 distributes data to all four drives and this distributes power to all four 00:05:15.520 --> 00:05:21.280 drives redundantly. So even if one of your power supplies fails in a case like 00:05:19.680 --> 00:05:25.840 this, if you're using a redundant power supply, the other one will continue to 00:05:23.120 --> 00:05:30.400 power the drives. The case does not or the u the system does not even need to 00:05:27.680 --> 00:05:35.800 be shut down. So now if I can figure out how to get this back in there, that 00:05:32.800 --> 00:05:38.400 would be 00:05:35.800 --> 00:05:44.479 tremendous. And my battery ran out. Okay, now let's talk fans. So this case 00:05:41.039 --> 00:05:45.919 includes six what appear to be 80 mm 00:05:44.479 --> 00:05:50.160 fans, although the ones at the back might be No, I think these are all 80 00:05:47.520 --> 00:05:55.160 mm. So these ones here, the four that are mounted on kind of a a mid plate, 00:05:53.039 --> 00:06:01.360 those are all a single set of blade fans. 00:05:58.280 --> 00:06:03.360 Now, they're normal fans, okay? As 00:06:01.360 --> 00:06:08.600 opposed to the counterrotating fans at the back. I'll get more into those uh 00:06:05.360 --> 00:06:13.199 when we talk about them. But these eight 00:06:08.600 --> 00:06:14.720 eight four 80 mm fans draw air through 00:06:13.199 --> 00:06:21.680 the front of the case. So, if you look at the front of the case, we have ventilation holes over every single hard 00:06:18.800 --> 00:06:27.360 drive. So they pull air through there and then all the way through the entire 00:06:25.120 --> 00:06:31.840 interface back here and then push it into the case. So these are all about 00:06:30.479 --> 00:06:36.400 static pressure. These are going to be high RPM fans. They actually all run off 00:06:34.639 --> 00:06:41.199 a single Molex connector though, which is very convenient. They've already gone 00:06:38.639 --> 00:06:46.720 and wired all of the fan. Don't move around so much. They've gone and wired 00:06:43.759 --> 00:06:49.520 all of the fans into a little PCB down at the bottom of the case. So, I'm going 00:06:48.000 --> 00:06:52.800 to tilt this so you can have a look down there. See? Just like that. So, the 00:06:51.360 --> 00:06:57.039 power goes in there and then gets distributed to all four fans. So, these 00:06:54.800 --> 00:07:01.919 are going to be quite loud for you cases. In fact, any rack mountable case 00:06:59.440 --> 00:07:05.199 is generally not designed with silence in mind. So, that's something you have 00:07:03.680 --> 00:07:09.199 to bear in mind. If you wanted to build yourself a file server based on a case 00:07:07.440 --> 00:07:13.199 like this, you would either want to replace the fans with something quieter. 00:07:11.199 --> 00:07:17.919 Mind you, remember there's loud fans in here for a reason. There's a lot of heat 00:07:15.759 --> 00:07:20.880 being generated if you actually have 24 hard drives running in here. So, you 00:07:19.759 --> 00:07:24.880 want to make sure you're removing it effectively. Or alternately, you can go 00:07:23.120 --> 00:07:28.479 ahead and throw it in like some closet somewhere where you don't have to listen 00:07:26.240 --> 00:07:31.759 to it. All right, let's move into the actual motherboard compartment. You can 00:07:30.000 --> 00:07:36.240 see this is an EATX motherboard compartment. That means you can put in 00:07:33.840 --> 00:07:40.960 up to an EATX motherboard. Although the beauty of Norcco's cases is you can just 00:07:38.639 --> 00:07:44.639 use a standard ATX power supply, a standard ATX board if you want to build 00:07:42.800 --> 00:07:48.639 yourself a simple home server, and boom, you're done. 00:07:46.039 --> 00:07:52.639 So, you've got seven PCI expansion slots, and I want to have a closer look 00:07:50.319 --> 00:07:55.599 at these counterrotating fans. You can't really see it too well from the Oh, 00:07:54.080 --> 00:07:59.680 maybe you can. Maybe you can. Okay, so there's actually two full sets of 00:07:57.280 --> 00:08:04.160 blades. The reason for that is because at the back of the case, you've only got 00:08:01.599 --> 00:08:08.639 three fans. So, one power supply fan, two 80 mm fans here that actually have 00:08:06.800 --> 00:08:13.599 to move out all of the air that those four at the front drew in. So, that's 00:08:11.360 --> 00:08:16.800 why we're using a very advanced design where it's going to be high RPM. It's 00:08:15.360 --> 00:08:20.319 got two sets of blades which are spinning in opposite directions, counter 00:08:18.560 --> 00:08:23.599 rotation, because if you actually spin the blades in the same direction, you 00:08:21.759 --> 00:08:27.840 don't get any additional benefit. So, those are going to be very high static 00:08:25.280 --> 00:08:32.800 pressure, very high air flow fans, and extremely loud. I think we've talked a 00:08:30.639 --> 00:08:36.080 lot about the features of the case in general. Let's talk about why you'd 00:08:34.240 --> 00:08:40.000 actually buy one. If you have a ton of storage space and you don't you're not 00:08:37.599 --> 00:08:46.560 content with just a simple NAS, then you can buy one of these. You don't have to 00:08:43.159 --> 00:08:48.959 run all 24 drives. They've actually got 00:08:46.560 --> 00:08:54.040 two U cases, three U cases, and other four U cases that take fewer drives. And 00:08:51.760 --> 00:09:00.160 not all of the cases they have have the SFF887 connector. So many of them uh 00:08:57.040 --> 00:09:02.399 including the I believe it's the 4020 00:09:00.160 --> 00:09:07.279 although I may be wrong. That one I believe uses simple SATA 2 connectors. 00:09:05.600 --> 00:09:11.760 So you could run SAS drives, SATA 2 drives. You could just take a standard 00:09:09.200 --> 00:09:15.360 desktop motherboard, fill it up with PCI uh four port SATA cards and then run 00:09:14.080 --> 00:09:19.360 them to drives. And I mean, if you're not running a high-end RAID array, if 00:09:17.920 --> 00:09:23.200 you're just running like a Windows home server or something like that, that kind 00:09:21.120 --> 00:09:28.880 of setup could be perfect versus spending a ton of money on like a more 00:09:26.320 --> 00:09:32.000 expensive rack mountable case or trying to find a desktop case that's really 00:09:30.560 --> 00:09:36.640 going to hold an appropriate number of drives cuz I believe the 4020 holds 20 00:09:34.720 --> 00:09:41.360 drives. Now, if you are doing something high-end, you can take this case and you 00:09:38.959 --> 00:09:46.080 can turn it into something really file server worthy with just a RAID card. So, 00:09:44.080 --> 00:09:52.240 this is about a $1,500 RAID card. This is an ARA RX1680 EX 24. So, if you 00:09:50.160 --> 00:09:57.519 wanted to use this particular case to its full potential, meaning you're 00:09:54.080 --> 00:09:59.680 running 24 drives in RAID six or 00:09:57.519 --> 00:10:06.480 hopefully not RAID 5, if you got 24 drives, or if you're running uh several 00:10:02.399 --> 00:10:08.000 arrays in varying levels of RAID, this 00:10:06.480 --> 00:10:11.519 is exactly the kind of thing you'd want to use. So, you go ahead, you put like a 00:10:09.600 --> 00:10:16.079 nice reliable motherboard in there, or maybe you buy a cheap uh cheap tie or 00:10:14.320 --> 00:10:21.360 super micro board. You go ahead and throw a card like this in there, and 00:10:18.160 --> 00:10:24.720 there are your six 8087 connectors. You 00:10:21.360 --> 00:10:26.720 can actually run up to 24 drives off a 00:10:24.720 --> 00:10:31.279 card like this. So, for two grand, you can have the case and the card. All you 00:10:28.800 --> 00:10:34.560 need to do is throw in some valuepriced hardware for all I care. I mean, if it's 00:10:33.279 --> 00:10:42.640 just going to be a file server, you don't have to be too worried about that. and you can run basically any hard drive 00:10:39.360 --> 00:10:45.200 setup that you could pretty much want in 00:10:42.640 --> 00:10:50.959 a case like this. So, I think that covers everything I wanted to say about 00:10:47.440 --> 00:10:52.399 the 4224 from Norcco. And thank you for 00:10:50.959 --> 00:10:56.720 checking out my video blog. I will actually be doing a build in this case 00:10:54.399 --> 00:11:00.000 just to show it and uh for the fun of it, I guess we might see what kind of 00:10:58.160 --> 00:11:04.959 numbers we can pull out of 24 hard drives and RAID six or whatever it is we 00:11:03.120 --> 00:11:08.399 decide we want to do. So, thank you for checking out my video blog, and I hope 00:11:07.040 --> 00:11:13.079 you've learned something useful about Norcco and their uh I mean, it sounds 00:11:11.120 --> 00:11:18.160 expensive, but believe me, these are inexpensive rack mount cases. Oh, one 00:11:15.920 --> 00:11:23.440 last thing I did want to explain for our viewers who aren't really up on all of 00:11:19.920 --> 00:11:27.279 the server terminology, what 4U means. 00:11:23.440 --> 00:11:30.560 4U is 4* 1 U, which is the height of a 00:11:27.279 --> 00:11:32.959 rack. Okay, so a 1U rack mountable case, 00:11:30.560 --> 00:11:37.200 you're using lowprofile heat sinks, low power hardware. It's going to be about 00:11:34.399 --> 00:11:41.600 this thin. A 2 U is like this. A 3U is like this. And a 4 U is like this. So, 00:11:39.120 --> 00:11:44.640 it just means how many rack spots that one case takes up.