ICY DOCK Announces 24 Drive ToughArmor MB924IP-B Backplane

[Uskompuf]

The ToughArmor MB924IP-B supports 24 x 2.5" SAS/SATA SSD/HDD up to 7 mm in height and only uses 3x 5.25" device bays. It has 6x MiniSAS HD (SFF-8643) connectors in the rear to support 24 x drives with up to 12 Gbps transfer speed per drive, significantly reducing the cable clutter to improve system airflow and offer easy cable management. The large 80 mm fan with 3-Mode fan speed control working along with intelligently placed ventilation holes keeps your drives in optimal temperature. To further improve reliability and security, the housing and trays are made with ruggedized full metal construction to ensure long-lasting durability. Moreover, with the removable EZ-Slide Nano trays, you can interchange drives within seconds without open the PC case.

MB924IP-B connects 24 x 2.5" SAS/SATA SSD/HDD with only 6x MiniSAS HD (SFF-8643) & 6x SATA 15 pin power connector for easy cable management and better system airflow. These are essential for high-performance PC builds. The MB924IP-B supports data transfer speed up to 12 Gbps per SAS drive and 6 Gbps per SATA drive.





With the removable EZ-Slide Nano 2.5" drive trays, managing drives couldn't be easier. Whether you are upgrading new drives, replacing a failed drives, or performing a simple maintenance routine, the removable tray design lets you replace drives within seconds through the frontal 5.25" bay without shutting down the system or opening the computer case. The EZ-Slide Nano tray supports 2.5" SAS/SATA SSD/HDD up to 7 mm in height. The eagle-hook tray latch system makes sure the drives will lock in place once inserted into the enclosure, making it suitable for enterprise and industrial's mission-critical applications.

Ensuring the enclosure can be relied upon for many years, the ToughArmor MB924IP-B can hold up in the harshest environment. It comes equipped with rugged full-metal protection throughout the entire device and tray, making it perfect for industrial devices that may require a flammability rating. The high build quality is suitable for various enterprise systems, including the medical, military, law enforcement industries, and manufacturing conditions such as embedded control and factory automation systems.

Powering up 24 x drives at once can accumulate excessive heat. Therefore, we have strategically placed a large 80 mm cooling fan in the rear to provide airflow throughout the cage. With 3-Mode fan speed control (H, L, and OFF), users have the flexibility to change the speed depending on the workflow and preferences. For further expandability, the stock fan can be easily replaced with most aftermarket 80 mm cooling fans, giving your preferred fan options for improved cooling performance or quieter operation. For most of the applications, drive status light is an important feature to monitor drive's activity. Each drive LED's brightness can be adjusted 100%, 50% or 0% per user's preference.

The MB924IP-B comes with a drive activity LED light in each of the trays to give you the current status information with a glance. With Active Power Technology, the enclosure turns on when the drives are inserted and automatically shuts off when all drives are removed.

Never forget which drives belong in which bays. With drive ID plugs, you'll always know which drive tray belongs in your RAID array or which drives contains specific files. Freely unplug and rearrange them to better suit your configurations or remove them for a simplified look.

With the support of locking latches for both the miniSAS HD and 15-pin SATA power cables, never worry about connectors unintentionally disconnecting from the enclosure. Once the connectors are connected, they will lock into place.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[kayjay010101]

That's potential for a lot of heat in a very small area, with only a 80mm fan (also seemingly only a 2W fan, which doesn't really seem very powerful to me) to cool it.
Imagine filling this with 24x 15K RPM HDDs, for example. At load that's about 9W per drive, totaling about 216W. The amount of SATA power ports also does line up with that figure, with the capacity to deliver 324W of power at SATA's speced 54W per plug. But that's a lot of heat that I'm very unsure that fan will be able to handle. I have a couple 24x 2.5" drive bays in my rack and they're full 19" units with pretty powerful fans and they still get quite toasty when the drives are pushed, and I only use 10K RPM HDDs. I don't think these would support a full stack of 15K's... not that either of those are that popular anymore with SSDs on the market.

 

[Valantar]

That's potential for a lot of heat in a very small area, with only a 80mm fan (also seemingly only a 2W fan, which doesn't really seem very powerful to me) to cool it.
Imagine filling this with 24x 15K RPM HDDs, for example. At load that's about 9W per drive, totaling about 216W. The amount of SATA power ports also does line up with that figure, with the capacity to deliver 324W of power at SATA's speced 54W per plug. But that's a lot of heat that I'm very unsure that fan will be able to handle. I have a couple 24x 2.5" drive bays in my rack and they're full 19" units with pretty powerful fans and they still get quite toasty when the drives are pushed, and I only use 10K RPM HDDs. I don't think these would support a full stack of 15K's... not that either of those are that popular anymore with SSDs on the market.

It only supports 7mm thick drives, i.e. either SATA SSDs or slim HDDs. 10-15k rpm HDDs are 12-15mm thick. So no need to worry about that.

Hey, @iBruceypoo, want to replace your RAID box with one of these instead?

 

[londiste]

What is the cheapest usable controller (or controllers) to run all these drives?

 

[metalslaw]

What is the cheapest usable controller (or controllers) to run all these drives?

Search for artofserver on youtube. He covers everything related to sas cards, sas connections, etc. He also runs an ebay store for genuine used cards etc.

 

[Valantar]

What is the cheapest usable controller (or controllers) to run all these drives?

Most HBAs are 8-channel, so you'd need three of those, though a port expander like this or this can fix that for you. Most enterprise HBAs support port expanders or port multipliers (those are common in many server backplanes, so support is near mandatory), which allow you to run several drives per port at the cost of peak bandwidth not increasing. So you'd need either three HBAs or a HBA+port expander, and if using SSDs you need a HBA that supports TRIM and other SSD-related features (i.e. LSI SAS3000-series and above).

Search for artofserver on youtube. He covers everything related to sas cards, sas connections, etc. He also runs an ebay store for genuine used cards etc.

I bought the HBA and matching cables for my NAS from there, and I have nothing but praise for that store. Fantastic service, great guides, quick to respond to questions and great at suggesting solutions. Not the cheapest source of that hardware, but having them flashed to IT mode and guaranteed working is more than worth it.