 Home Members Only Membership Donations Reviews Store Mail List Legal  |
||
October 20, 2006
12 Bay Dual SATA Port Multiplier Enclosure
A Review of the Norco DS-1220 12-Bay SATA Hard Drive Enclosure with Dual Port Multipliers
By Arthur Whalem
Norco is shipping the DS-1220, which is a 12-bay 3U SATA hard drive storage subsystem with dual port multipliers for $799.99. The Norco DS-1220 features 12 hot swap SATA hard drive bays enclosed in a black heavy duty rack mountable 1.2mm steel case. This SATA PM storage subsystem has four eSATA ports on the rear of the enclosure which support all 12 hard drive bays. A quiet internal power supply model DS-360 is provided inside the Norco DS-1220. Three powerful 70mm exhaust fans are mounted on the rear of the enclosure to keep the hard drives cool. The DS-1220 supports both SATA I and SATA II hard drives and it even includes a PCI-X four port host adapter that can connect this storage system to a computer with an empty PCI slot. Each SATA
hard drive tray has a green drive presence LED and an activity light. Each drive bay has its own locking mechanism which can be unlocked by placing a small screwdriver into the release hole of each tray. The enclosure measures 19.75" deep, 5.9" high and 19" wide. The Norco DS-1220 weighs 33 pounds empty and approximately 53 pounds with twelve SATA hard drives installed. The enclosure is compatible with Macintosh, Windows or Linux computers.System Requirements
Works with any computer with an external SATA PM interface.
Supports Mac OS X 10.4.x or higher, Windows and Linux.
Supports up to 12 external SATA 3.5" hard drives.
PCI slot is required to use the included SATA host adapter.
Utilizes an eSATA external connection.
What's Included?
The Norco DS-1220 includes a 3U rack mountable case, twelve 3.5" hard drive trays, drive mounting screws, a small screwdriver, power cord, four one meter eSATA data cables, a 4 port eSATA host adapter, a PS2 cable/ bracket and a mini CD with a users guide and software drivers.
Rear Connections
The Norco DS-1220 has a power cord outlet on the right side of the rear of the case with a power on/off switch just below it. A power standby switch is provided in the top right corner. Both switches must be on to power the hard drives. On the bottom left side a PS2 connection is available for providing activity lights to hard drive bays 11 and 12, using the included SATA host adapter. To the right of the PS2 connection are four eSATA data ports. SATA1 connects with the hard drive in bay 12 using the direct connect method. SATA2 provides a direct connection with the hard drive in bay 11. SATA3 uses a 5 drive port multiplier built into the backplane that connects the hard drives mounted in bays 6-10. SATA4 is another 5 drive port multiplier setup that uses the hard drives in bays 1-5. The backplane SATA PM board mounted inside the Norco DS-1220 provides activity lights for hard drive bays 1-5 and 6-10. The back of the case has three 70mm case fans which keep the hard drives cool in the Norco DS-1220.
Interface
The Norco DS-1220 utilizes a circuit board on the rear of the drive tray. To mount a SATA hard drive into the drive tray users will need to slide the SATA hard drive data and power connections onto the rear circuit board. Placing the hard drive into the tray opening and pulling back on it will snap the connectors into place. Next, use two screws on each side of the tray to secure the hard drive. Hard drive screws are provided with the Norco DS-1220. The screws need to be tightened sufficiently so that the head of the screw is flush or below the side blue plastic molding. This is required to allow the tray to properly slide into the enclosure. In general, I find hot swap drive trays that use screws on the bottom for attaching hard drives, are a little easier to use. However, these drive trays are easy to install hard drives into as well.
The circuit board on the back of each drive tray works with the SATA PM backplane board to provide activity lights to the front of each tray. Bays 11 and 12 do not use a SATA PM interface. As such, they are wired to utilize the PCI card LED pins instead via a PS2 cable for hard drive activity lights. Some users will decide not to waste a PCI slot for this purpose. If you already have 10 bays with activity lights it may not be necessary to add them to bays 11 and 12 unless you have a free PCI slot that you want to designate for this purpose. Personally, I like the hard drive trays that come with the FirmTek enclosures better. They do not require an additional board on the back of each tray to provide activity lights.
Once your hard drives are mounted into the Norco DS-1220 drive trays you can insert them into the twelve available hot swap bays. To insert a Norco DS-1220 tray into the enclosure you simply push it all the way in and then push the blue tray tab in. The drive tray will lock into place with a gentle push on the blue tab.
To eject a drive tray from the Norco DS-1220 you simply insert a small Phillips screwdriver into the hole that is located below the blue locking tab of the drive tray. A slight clicking noise will be heard as the drive tray unlocks. You can then pull the blue tab open and eject the drive tray. The screwdriver that is supplied
with the Norco DS-1220 works well, but I also found that the WiebeTech SilverSATA white keys work great too. If you already own a SilverSATA product the key comes with it. WiebeTech does not sell the keys separately. The WiebeTech white plastic key is a lot smaller and looks good sitting next to the DS-1220. You can put a string or a chain through the hole in the back of the white plastic key and attach it to the handle of the Norco DS-1220. There is nothing wrong with using the supplied screwdriver for ejecting hard drives in the Norco DS-1220. I just find the SilverSATA key is a nicer interface. You can also improvise and use a paper clip or any thin object that is about an inch long.
Activity Lights
The Norco DS-1220 provides a yellow activity light at the bottom of each drive tray. These lights are on when the unit is turned on. They flash when the SATA PM circuits (bays 1-10) or the PCI card (bays 11-12) detect that the hard drive is being accessed in that bay. A green drive presence light is located immediately above it. The drive presence light only comes on when a hard drive is mounted in that particular bay. The green drive presence lights are bright, while the power/activity lights are a little more subdued. When you have several hard drives in a single enclosure, it is very nice to have hard drive activity lights available for trouble shooting purposes.
The Storage Subsystem
The Norco DS-1220 combines two five bay SATA PM enclosures using bays 1-5 and 6-10 with a dual direct connect enclosure using bays 11 and 12. I have not seen a storage enclosure before that combines both SATA hard drive mounting methods. AMUG classifies the Norco DS-1220, as a hybrid storage subsystem. From tests performed in AMUG labs, we found that creating a striped RAID set using both SATA PM and direct connect methods together usually provides lower performance than staying with just SATA PM or only using direct connect enclosures. However, the Norco DS-1220 offers some interesting hard drive mounting options that may not be immediately apparent.
A ten drive SATA PM enclosure using ten identical model hard drives can provide a high performance striped RAID set with over 400MB per second read and write speeds. A great use for this type of high performance striped RAID set is for working with large digital video or audio files. The striped RAID set provides high performance for editing and playback, but users still need a method for backing up important files. This is where the two hot swap direct connect drive bays located in bays 11 and 12 come into use. Once a user reaches a stopping point or a final edit they can use bays 11 and 12 with large hard drives for backup. Can you imagine using Seagate 750GB SATA hard drives in these two bays to backup the days work? This is a nice way to use a fast striped RAID set for editing and still have one or two SATA hard drive bays available for backup or bringing in new content. The ability of the Norco DS-1220 to support a ten drive striped RAID set and still have two drive bays available is an awesome feature.
Design
The exterior design of the Norco DS-1220 provides the capability to utilize the unit in a U3 rack mount enclosure. It has a nice black enamel finish on all sides of the enclosure. Many rack mount devices only provide a finished look on the front panel. The heavy steel 1.2mm case provides strength and weight to the Norco DS-1220 design. Four 1" round rubber feet are mounted on the bottom of the enclosure to provide airflow, an easy way to get your fingers under the unit to pick it up and to protect the enclosures finish when sliding it into place. The blue plastic drive tray locking tabs add a quality appearance to the design of Norco DS-1220 along with the aluminum handles. Each bay is numbered above the drive tray. Ventilation air slots are provided in the front of each drive tray to allow cool air to enter the enclosure as the three 70mm exhaust fans push air out of the rear of the enclosure.
While the Norco DS-1220 is designed to be inserted into an equipment rack, I have found that it can also be placed on its side next to a PowerMac or a Mac Pro. For users that do not have a rack to install the Norco DS-1220 into this may be an option to consider. Placing the unit on its side is not as stable as it would be when sitting horizontally on its feet, but I had no problems using it in this position while 12 hard drives were mounted inside working as fast as they could. If you mount it on its side, make sure the unit does not rock in that position. I simply placed a small cloth under the rear of the enclosure to balance the weight. In my opinion, the Norco DS-1220 looks very nice sitting on its side next to an Apple computer.
Internal Design
The top cover of the Norco DS-1220 comes off with two screws on the back, one screw on each side near the front and one screw in the front top part of the cover. Inside the Norco DS-1220, the front compartment houses twelve SATA hard drive bays. A steel cage holds the 15" backplane circuit board in place that the SATA hard drives connect to. Drive bays 1-5 on the right side in front of the power supply, make up the first five drive SATA PM group. Drive bays 6-10 make up the second SATA PM group. The SATA PM circuitry is built directly into the backplane design for both groups. No separate SATA PM boards are utilized in the Norco DS-1220 design.
SATA PM bays 1-5 are connected to the SATA4 external port. SATA PM bays 6-10 are connected to the SATA3 external port. Direct connect SATA bay 11 is connected to the SATA2 external port and bay 12 connects to the SATA1 port. An 18" internal SATA cable is used to connect the backplane to the rear eSATA port. At first, I found the SATA1 port designation for bay 12 confusing, but if you think of the SATA1 and SATA2 ports as being the direct connect eSATA ports it makes more sense. In addition, simply following the order of the ports on the back with the SATA bay groupings on the front makes sense too.
The Norco DS-1220 provides a 360 watt power supply model DS-360 which is modified from a standard ATX power supply. The 12V and 5V outputs are enhanced to 22A and 19A. The 3.3V and other outputs are adjusted to be able to handle no load without shutting down the power supply. Five 4-pin molex connectors are provided from the power supply. Four of the power connectors plug into the backplane to provide power to the SATA hard drives and three 70mm exhaust fans. A fifth power adapter connector is available for future expansion inside the enclosure.
Exposed Backplane View
If you take all twelve hard drive trays out of the Norco DS-1220 and look inside the enclosure you will see the backplane mounting connectors that supply SATA data and power connections to the hard drives. As you can see in the image above air ventilation is provided below the backplane and where holes are cut into the circuit board near the SATA power connections.
If you look closely at the top of each of the one inch ventilation openings on the backplane board (near each SATA power connector) you will see the Norco DS-1220 temperature sensors. The image on the right displays an enlarged view of one of the drive bay temperature sensors circled in white. There are twelve temperature sensors mounted on the backplane. They are labeled on the circuit board as R356, R357, R358, R359, R372, R373, R374, R375, R388, R389, R390 and R391. The alarm temperature trigger for these sensors is set by resistor R351. It has a fixed value from the factory. The Norco DS-1220 temperature alarm will be set off when the air blowing out of the exhaust fans reaches a temperature of 105 degrees Fahrenheit. The Norco DS-1220 provides a high powered cooling system that allows the temperature alarm to trigger at such a low ambient air temperature setting.
Two separate groups of circuits on the backplane board provide the SATA PM functions. You can see a close up of one of the SATA PM sections of the backplane circuit board below.
Providing SATA PM on the backplane board adds quite a bit of detailed work, but it also saves space inside the enclosure. The only downside to SATA PM on the backplane is that users will not be able to customize the Norco DS-1220 to increase SATA PM performance. For instance, if the SATA PMs were not built into the backplane, users could add two Addonics 5X1 port multipliers inside the enclosure and set it up so that each SATA PM utilized three hard drives. This would provide more performance bandwidth for the SATA hard drives attached. You can see in the chart below from the AMUG Sonnet Tempo SATA E4P review, that 12 drives in 4 five bay SATA PM enclosures can provide high performance. This same performance could be duplicated with 12 drives mounted on four SATA PM boards using three drives per SATA PM.
Norco-4618 Host Adapter
The new Norco-4618 SATA host adapter is bundled with the DS-1220. It is a PCI-X host adapter that utilizes the Silicon Image SiI 3124-2CB364 controller chip. According to Silicon Image, the SiI 3124 comes in two versions: the SiI 3124-1 which operates at 1st Generation SATA speeds of 1.5Gbps and the SiI 3124-2 chip which integrates Serial ATA II PHY technology capable of running SATA 2nd Generation speeds of 3Gbps. The first batch of Norco-4618 SATA host adapters utilized the Silicon Image SiI 3124-1CB364 controller chip which performs slower with striped RAID sets. However, all of the new Norco-4618 SATA host adapters utilize the SiI 3124-2CB364 controller which provides excellent SATA II striped RAID set performance. According to Bin Lin of NORCO Technologies Inc. the new NORCO-4618 is included with each new DS-1220 enclosure now being sold.
The Norco-4618 works with SATA I and SATA II hard drives and is compliant with SATA 1.0, and ATA, SATA II extensions to SATA 1.0. The SiI 3124 chip provides port multiplier compatibility with FIS-based switching, native command queuing and four independent DMA channels with 2KB FIFO per channel. It also supports hot swapping SATA devices. In addition, the Norco-4618 supports spread spectrum clocking to reduce EMI.
When using the Norco-4618 SATA host adapter with the SiI-3124 Mac driver it can support up to twenty hard drives using four 5-bay SATA PM enclosures. If the SiI-3124 version 2.0.1 Mac driver is installed, the Norco-4618 can support both SATA PM and individual (direct connect) hard drive connections but it's SATA PM striped RAID set performance is about 12% slower than when using the Sil-3124 version 0.42.4 Mac driver.
I like to use the FirmTek SeriTek/1eVE4 external PCI-X SATA host adapter with the DS-1220 bays 11 and 12 as it provides boot capability as well as fast performance. I use the Norco-4618 SATA host adapter with bays 1-10 while using the SiI-3124 version 0.42.4 Mac driver. The Sonnet Tempo X4P and E4P are also a great option for using with the Norco DS-1220.
Sonnet Compatibility
The Norco DS-1220 uses two Silicon Image 3726 chips. One for bays 1-5 and another for bays 6-10. The unit that was used in this review contained older firmware on the SiI-3726 chips that would not work with the Sonnet Tempo X4P or the Sonnet Tempo E4P SATA host adapters. If this happens to you the hard drives in the DS-1220 will not mount when using the Sonnet SATA PM host adapters. You can determine if you have the old 3726 firmware by searching the Mac OS X system log for the word "Port Multiplier". The old firmware will display Port Multiplier 0x1095 0x4726 0x00 0x06 0x06 in the log file. The key to finding the old firmware revision is 0x00 in the third number. Sonnet is shipping an addendum with each Tempo SATA E4P and X4P card explaining this compatibility issue.
Firmware On-lineYou can upgrade the Sil 3726 firmware on the two chips in the DS-1220 by downloading the new firmware from the Silicon image web site along with the SiI3726 Firmware Update Utility. It requires a PC to upgrade the firmware, using the command prompt. I was able to upgrade the Norco DS-1220 using the command: "3726FWDownload -w -d1 3726_1.0114.bin". Your setup may require a different command for the drive (-d1, -d2 and so on). The DS-1220 needs to be connected to an on board SATA port on the PC with at least one drive in bays 1-5 and one drive in bays 6-10. Attach the PC SATA data cable to the DS-1220 SATA4 port first and upgrade the firmware. Next, move the SATA data cable to port SATA3 and upgrade that firmware too. Once the new Sil 3726 firmware is installed the port multiplier will display "Port Multiplier 0x1095 0x3726 0x17 0x06 0x06" in the Mac OS X system log and hard drives installed in the DS-1220 will mount with the Sonnet Tempo SATA E4P or X4P. It took me about five minutes to do this. If any AMUG members need help with this process send email to sales@amug.org and AMUG will be happy to help you make the Norco DS-1220 compatible with a Sonnet Tempo E4P or X4P.
Bin Lin of Norco Technologies has informed AMUG that current shipments of the Norco DS-1220 have the new firmware installed. However, if you get a unit that does not work with your SATA PM compatible Sonnet host adapter these instructions will allow you to upgrade the firmware.
Energy Usage
According to the Kill-a-Watt electricity usage monitor, the Norco DS-1220 enclosure uses 4 watts when it is in standby mode. Standby mode is in effect when the enclosure is turned off but the bottom power switch is left turned on. Turning both power switches off reduces the power usage to zero. Mounting a single Maxtor 300GB SATA hard drive inside the Norco DS-1220 increases the energy usage to 38 watts while idle. Once five Maxtor 300GB SATA hard drives are mounted inside the enclosure the power usage increases to 81 watts while idle. When a five drive striped RAID set begins copying lots of data the power usage rises to between 87-93 watts.When ten Maxtor 300GB SATA hard drives are mounted inside the Norco DS-1220 enclosure the power usage increases to 128-129 watts while idle. When a ten drive striped RAID set using bays 1-10 begins copying lots of data the power usage rises to between 148-153 watts.
If you add two more 300GB hard drives using the direct connect bays 11 and 12 the power usage of the Norco DS-1220 enclosure rises to 146-147 watts with all twelve hard drives mounted while idle. Once all twelve hard drives are copying lots of data the power usage rises to between 165-175 watts.
The power requirements of the Norco DS-1220 enclosure with twelve hard drives installed can be as much as an idle desktop computer. However, when you compare two Sonnet 500P SATA PM enclosures with ten hard drives installed against the Norco DS-1220 with ten hard drives installed, there is only a 4-8 watts difference in energy usage. Yet, the Norco DS-1220 still has two direct connect hard drive bays available. If you normally only mount five hard drives in the Norco DS-1220, this setup will require approximately 20 watts of additional energy, than if you had used a standard SATA PM five bay enclosure instead.
Stability
A ten drive RAID mounting stability test was completed with the Norco DS-1220 enclosure using the Norco-4618 SATA host adapter with the Silicon Image Mac driver and a PowerMac G5 2.0GHz Dual. Ten Maxtor 300GB SATA hard drives were used in a striped RAID set configuration. The ten drive striped RAID set was dismounted from the desktop and all ten SATA hard drives were ejected and placed back in the enclosure in a different order. This test was done twenty times. In this hot swap stability test, the ten drive RAID set mounted each time without turning off the PowerMac G5 or the computer. The ten drive RAID set usually mounted within 11 seconds after the last hard drive was inserted into the Norco DS-1220 enclosure.Individual Drives
When testing the ability of individual SATA hard drives to hot swap inside the Norco DS-1220, the Silicon Image Mac driver SiI-3124 version 2.0.1 was utilized with the Norco-4618 SATA host adapter. During twenty individual hard drive hot swap tests, the hard drives mounted 20 out of 20 times. Usually, individual hard drives mounted within 8 seconds after inserting the drive tray. No restart of the enclosure or of the PowerMac G5 was required. When using the SiI-3124 version 2.0.1 Mac driver with the Norco-4618, all twelve SATA hard drive bays of the DS-1220 were able to be mounted at the same time.
CoolingThe Norco DS-1220 cooling system includes a quiet power supply fan and three aggressive Colorful 70mm rear exhaust fans model CF-12725B. The three 70mm fans have an RPM of 3500 and can move as much as 33.5 cubic feet of air per minute each. These fans are rated at a noise level of 33.5 dBA. In the stock cooling configuration, the Norco DS-1220 keeps hard drives very cool. However, this 12-bay enclosure creates more fan noise than any other hard drive enclosure that AMUG has tested.
As a test, twelve 300GB hard drives were mounted in the Norco DS-1220 using a Sonnet Tempo X4P SATA host adapter. The Sonnet Tempo X4P passes SMART temperature data so that Hardware Monitor 3.95 could be used to display the internal temperature of each hard drive. All twelve hard drives were worked very hard duplicating a 4.2GB folder of video files up to twenty times simultaneously for 90 minutes. At the end of 90 minutes the twelve 300GB hard drives reported temperatures of 98.6 to 104 degrees Fahrenheit. The next process of the cooling test was to leave the enclosure turned on with the hard drives mounted for an hour, but with no usage other than temperature monitoring. I wanted to see how well the hard drives might cool down inside the Norco DS-1220 enclosure. After resting for an hour, the twelve hard drives reported temperatures of 96.8 to 102.2 degrees Fahrenheit.
Custom Cooling
In order to see how the temperatures might change if the fan speeds were reduced to decrease noise, three Zalman Fan Mate 2, fan speed controllers were installed in the Norco DS-1220. One controller was placed on each fan and the controllers were screwed into the mounting holes in the bottom of the Norco DS-1220 case. The Zalman Fan Mate 2 has a knob that allows the user to increase or decrease the fan speed. After the controllers were mounted, the Norco DS-1220 was turned on with the top cover still off. The controllers were used to turn down the fans to the point where the DS-1220 fan alarm started to sound. Once the alarm started, the fan speed was increased just enough to turn off the alarm for each fan. This allowed the enclosure to operate a little quieter without having to reset the jumpers that turn off the fan alarm. The temperatures produced by this setup after the 90 minute copy test are shown in the table below under the Fan Mate 2 column. As you can see, the temperatures recorded while using the Fan Mate 2 are still very good and this modification has the benefit of leaving the fan alarm intact. While this setup is a little quieter, the DAT Optic Sbox-P and the Sonnet Fusion 500-P enclosures are still quieter.Hard Drive Temperatures in Fahrenheit
| Stock | Fans | Fan Mate 2 | & Alarm | FM2 Turned | Down | |
| Location | After 90 min. | Hour idle | After 90 min. | Hour idle | After 90 min. | Hour idle |
| Top Bay | 98.6 | 96.8 | 100.4 | 98.6 | 105.8 | 104 |
| Bay 2 | 100.4 | 98.6 | 102.2 | 100.4 | 109.4 | 107.6 |
| Bay 3 | 102.2 | 100.4 | 104 | 102.2 | 111.2 | 109.4 |
| Bay 4 | 102.2 | 100.4 | 104 | 102.2 | 111.2 | 107.6 |
| Bay 5 | 100.4 | 98.6 | 102.2 | 100.4 | 109.4 | 105.8 |
| Bay 6 | 100.4 | 98.6 | 102.2 | 100.4 | 107.6 | 104 |
| Bay 7 | 100.4 | 98.6 | 102.2 | 100.4 | 109.4 | 105.8 |
| Bay 8 | 100.4 | 98.6 | 102.2 | 98.6 | 107.6 | 104 |
| Bay 9 | 100.4 | 98.6 | 102.2 | 98.6 | 107.6 | 104 |
| Bay 10 | 98.6 | 96.8 | 102.2 | 98.6 | 107.6 | 104 |
| Bay 11 | 104 | 102.2 | 104 | 102.2 | 109.4 | 107.6 |
| Bay 12 | 104 | 102.2 | 105.8 | 104 | 111.2 | 107.6 |
If using the Fan Mate 2 controllers at an RPM speed fast enough to satisfy the on board fan alarm circuits is still louder than you want the enclosure to be, it's time to change the fan alarm jumpers. If you open the Norco DS-1220 and look inside, facing the drive bays, you will see three, 3-pin fan connectors on the left side near the rear of the drive bays. This is where the Fan Mate 2 controllers were connected to reduce the RPM of the fans. Just in front of each 3-pin connector is a fan alarm jumper. As per page 12 of the Norco DS-1220 manual you will move the jumper setting from pins 1-2 to pins 2-3.
Once the fan alarm jumpers are changed to connect pins 2 and 3 the Norco DS-1220 will no longer monitor fan performance and the fan alarm will be disabled. Now turn the three Zalman Fan Mate 2, fan speed controllers all the way down. The fans will still spin, but at the lowest setting. You can see the temperature results of this setting in the table above under the "FM2 Turned Down" columns. In this configuration the fan noise produced by the Norco DS-1220 is significantly reduced.
Another low noise fan option for the Norco DS-1220 would be to use a Zalman Fan Mate 2 on the middle original fan and replace the two outside fans with Arctic 3 fans using 70-80mm adapters. This provides a little more airflow than if the stock 70mm fans are turned all the way down with the Zalman Fan Mate 2. This fan modification turns the Norco DS-1220 into a very nice, relatively quiet device.
Acoustics
The Norco DS-1220 enclosure uses three aggressive 70mm exhaust fans with a 33.5 dBA noise rating and a quiet power supply fan. When the enclosure is running in the stock configuration it produces more wind noise than any other enclosure AMUG has tested so far. While the powerful fans keep the hard drives below 105 degrees Fahrenheit even under a heavy load, the wind noise is more than many users will consider acceptable. The Norco DS-1220 cooling system is great for a server room but audio and video users may want a quieter device.
Bin Lin of Norco Technologies, Inc. has informed AMUG that a new fan controller board is being developed for the Norco DS-1220 enclosure that will reduce the fan speeds based on the temperatures of the hard drives. This should allow the Norco DS-1220 enclosure to operate much quieter. For my own use, I have found that using the Zalman Fan Mate 2 on the middle stock fan and mounting Arctic 3 fans with 70-80mm adapters where the two outside fans use to be is a good solution. I also switched the alarm jumpers so that they would not monitor the fans. This provides a quiet operating 12-bay SATA enclosure. In this configuration, if the enclosure is five feet away behind the PowerMac G5 2.0GHz, I can hear the Norco DS-1220 quiet fans while the PowerMac G5 is in sleep mode. Once the PowerMac G5 Dual is turned on the DS-1220 fans blend in with the PowerMac G5 sounds. I would classify the Norco DS-1220 as medium to quiet with this fan modification. Ten to twelve hard drives working at full speed can generate noise as well.
Without the fan modification I would classify the Norco DS-1220 as loud, based on the amount of wind noise that it produces. The Sonnet Fusion 500P and the Sbox-P are both quieter than the Norco DS-1220 but they only hold five SATA hard drives not twelve.
Sleep
The Norco DS-1220 was tested for Macintosh sleep capability with the Norco-4618 host adapter using the SiI3124 2.0.1 driver. While this is a function of the SATA host adapter, its nice to know how the Norco-4618, PowerMac G5 Dual and the Norco DS-1220 work together in sleep mode. The Norco-4618 allows the PowerMac G5 to go to sleep. You can put the Macintosh to sleep while the hard drives are mounted and they are active within 5-10 seconds after waking from sleep. If you have ten Maxtor hard drives in the enclosure while in sleep mode, the Norco DS-1220 energy usage drops from 131 watts to 56 watts. However, the fans in the enclosure continue to spin. If you dismount the hard drives in the Norco DS-1220 and then place the PowerMac in sleep mode, the drives can be mounted again using Disk Utility once the computer is awake.
PerformanceA Norco DS-1220 enclosure was tested with several Macintosh SATA host adapters and with different SiI-3124 Mac drivers. A PowerMac G5 2.0GHz Dual, running Mac OS X 10.4.8 was used for the PCI-X tests and a PowerMac G5 2.5GHz Quad was used for the PCIe test. A Norco DS-1220 with ten Maxtor 300GB model 7V300F0 SATA hard drives installed as a striped RAID set was used in this test. DiskTester 2.0 10GB read and write tests were performed using a run area test so that this article could display how the RAID performs with each host adapter. DiskTester is a Terminal application that measures the combined performance of a volume and the Mac OS X operating system. Using the command: ./disktester run-area-test --chunk-size 128M --test-size 10G --delta-percent 10 DriveName, puts DiskTester to work testing how the RAID will perform when empty, 10% full, 20% full and so on. The table below displays how the Norco DS-1220 compared using several SATA host adapters with the same exact hard drives.
10 Drive Striped RAID Performance - SATA PM Bays 1-10
 Norco-4618 2.01 Driver |
Norco-4618 0.42.4 Driver |
 Sonnet X4P 2.0.3 Driver |
 Sonnet E4P 2.0.3 Driver |
| Area Full | write | read | write | read | write | read | write | read |
| empty | 379 | 421 | 428 | 477 | 417 | 475 | 381 | 451 |
| 10% | 381 | 421 | 437 | 476 | 420 | 469 | 389 | 449 |
| 20% | 382 | 421 | 436 | 478 | 422 | 474 | 387 | 457 |
| 30% | 381 | 421 | 437 | 477 | 419 | 475 | 389 | 457 |
| 40% | 381 | 421 | 436 | 478 | 422 | 474 | 389 | 455 |
| 50% | 381 | 421 | 437 | 477 | 421 | 474 | 389 | 455 |
| 60% | 381 | 420 | 436 | 477 | 423 | 473 | 389 | 451 |
| 70% | 381 | 421 | 437 | 476 | 421 | 476 | 390 | 456 |
| 80% | 381 | 422 | 436 | 474 | 421 | 478 | 391 | 457 |
| 90% | 381 | 415 | 437 | 444 | 422 | 441 | 390 | 442 |
| Average | 380.9 | 420.4 | 435.7 | 473.4 | 420.8 | 470.9 | 388.4 | 453 |
| MSRP | Included | Included | $299.95 | $299.95 | ||||
| Type | PCI-X | PCI-X | PCI-X | PCIe |
If you are thinking of buying a 12-bay SATA enclosure you are probably interested in how it performs configured as a striped RAID set. As you can see above the Norco-4618 that is included with the DS-1220 performs very well with the SiI-3124 version 0.42.4 Mac driver. The 2.0.1 driver seems to be optimize for direct connect performance rather than SATA PM striped RAID sets. However, it still provides over 380MB/sec performance with a ten drive SATA PM striped RAID set. The 0.42.4 Mac driver is over a year old and is no longer supported by Silicon Image. In addition, it does not support direct connect SATA hard drives. I am hoping that the Silicon Image 2.0.1 Mac driver will be updated in the future to provide SATA PM performance similar to the 0.42.4 Mac driver.
PowerMac G5 and Mac Pro PCIe Users
For Macintosh users that only have PCIe expansion slots, the Sonnet Tempo E4P is the only Macintosh SATA host adapter currently available that provides fast SATA PM connections. As you can see in the table above, PCIe users will find that SATA PM striped RAID set write performance is slower on the Quad and Mac Pro using the E4P than when using an older PowerMac G5 Dual that supports PCI-X host adapter options.
Single Seagate 7200.10 320GB Performance - Bay 12
Norco-4618 2.01 Driver |
 Addonics ADS3GX4R5-EM |
Sonnet X4P 2.0.3 Driver |
Sonnet E4P 2.0.3 Driver |
| Area Full | write | read | write | read | write | read | write | read |
| empty | 75.6 | 76.1 | 75.6 | 76.1 | 75.7 | 76.1 | 75.5 | 76.1 |
| 10% | 75.2 | 75.3 | 75.2 | 75.3 | 75.2 | 75.3 | 75.1 | 75.3 |
| 20% | 74.2 | 74.4 | 74.2 | 74.4 | 74.2 | 74.4 | 74.2 | 74.4 |
| 30% | 71.5 | 71.6 | 71.4 | 71.6 | 71.4 | 71.6 | 71.3 | 71.6 |
| 40% | 68.7 | 68.8 | 68.7 | 68.8 | 68.6 | 68.8 | 68.6 | 68.8 |
| 50% | 65.9 | 66.1 | 65.9 | 66.1 | 65.9 | 66.1 | 65.8 | 66.1 |
| 60% | 62.1 | 62.3 | 62.1 | 62.3 | 62 | 62.3 | 62.1 | 62.3 |
| 70% | 57.5 | 57.7 | 57.5 | 57.7 | 57.5 | 57.7 | 57.4 | 57.7 |
| 80% | 52.6 | 52.8 | 52.7 | 52.8 | 52.6 | 52.8 | 52.6 | 52.8 |
| 90% | 45.8 | 46 | 45.8 | 46 | 45.8 | 46 | 45.8 | 46 |
| Average | 64.91 | 65.11 | 64.91 | 65.11 | 64.89 | 65.11 | 64.84 | 65.11 |
| MSRP | Included | $85 | $299.95 | $299.95 | ||||
| Type | PCI-X | PCI-X | PCI-X | PCIe |
In the test above, the Sonnet Tempo X4P and the E4P SATA host adapters were tested using firmware 2.03, which supports both SATA PM and direct connect SATA hard drive mounting. The Norco-4618 and the Addonics ADS3GX4R5-EM utilized the Silicon Image SiI3124 2.0.1 Mac drivers which support both SATA PM and direct connect also. As you can see, the Norco-4618 SATA host adapter with the SiI 3124 controller chip does very well when mounting individual hard drives. In fact, all four host adapters performed amazingly similar in the single hard drive performance test.
DiscussionThe Norco DS-1220 ($799.99) enclosure provides twelve hot swap SATA hard drive bays at a great price. It includes drive presence lights for all 12-bays and activity lights for bays 1-10 by using the internal backplane SATA PM circuit board. The hard drive trays are easy to slide into the enclosure and easy to mount hard drives into. While the unit is designed for a rack mount, I found placing the DS-1220 on its side with a small cloth tucked under the back bottom section of the case provided balance and helps distribute the weight. The DS-1220 worked well in this position with twelve hard drives running as fast as they could for hours. The Norco DS-1220 provides a cool hard drive
subsystem for any PowerMac or Mac Pro user and looks very nice sitting next to the computer.The Norco DS-1220 comes with a SATA host adapter that will work in a PowerMac with an empty PCI slot using the Silicon Image driver. The SATA host adapter provides excellent individual hard drive performance. In addition, Norco has upgraded the chip on the host adapter to the SiI-3142-2 controller which provides nice RAID performance. The DS-1220 is built for cooling first and acoustics second. However, I was able to modify the DS-1220 for quiet operation for less than $20. Norco Technologies is in the process of addressing the fan noise with a new fan controller board that they have designed. I look forward to testing it soon and plan to update this review with the results.
Not everyone needs a twelve bay enclosure. If you find that a 5-bay meets your needs then a 12-bay will be over kill. For those users that want an inexpensive way to setup two 5-bay port multipliers and still have two individual SATA drive bays available the Norco DS-1220 is a great value. Media labs, large servers and digital video creators will find a 12-bay enclosure at this price is worth considering.
If you are looking for a quiet SATA enclosure and are not willing to modify the fan setup inside the Norco DS-1220, then this enclosure is not for you. In addition, this 12-bay enclosure weighs 33 pounds empty and 53 pounds with 12 hard drives inside. I will not be moving it without removing the hard drive trays first. A 5-bay enclosure can be easily moved in comparison.
If you look at other 12-16 bay SATA hard drive enclosures that sell for thousands of dollars you start to realize the value that the Norco DS-1220 provides. Temperature and fan alarms, activity lights, two 5-bay SATA PM setups and two individual SATA drive bays, twelve hot swap trays plus an easy to open case for possible fan modifications makes the Norco DS-1220 a very interesting choice for large SATA subsystem users.
Pros
12-bay hot swap SATA enclosure under $800.
Includes SATA PCI-X host adapter.
Includes two 5-bay SATA PM configurations.
Includes two direct connect bays.
FIS-based Port Multiplier-aware hardware.
User-upgradeable firmware.
Fan and temperature alarms.
Rack Mountable.
Fans can be modified.
Easy access enclosure for modifications.
LED activity lights.
Easily mounts single drives or a RAID configuration.
Works with Sonnet Tempo E4P with PCIe PowerMac G5 models.
Well designed, good looking, heavy duty quality hardware.
Cons
No power switch on front panel. (Only on the rear)
Included SATA host adapter does not pass SMART drive data.
Port multiplier may be slower than direct connect method.
Activity lights for bays 11-12 require using a 2nd PCI slot.
Uses more energy than a 5-bay enclosure, if just using 5 drives.
Stock configuration produces significant wind noise.
Unit is heavy with 12 drives installed.
No PCIe host adapter option is available with this bundle.
Norco DS-1220 gets 4 AMUGs out of 5!
The Norco DS-1220 provides a large SATA hard drive subsystem at a very reasonable price. Users that discover a 5-bay SATA PM enclosure is not enough for their needs may want to consider the Norco DS-1220. Having two 5-bay SATA PM setups and two direct connect SATA drive bays in a single enclosure provides users with a lot of hard drive mounting options. The Norco Technologies
DS-1220 provides a high quality 12-bay SATA hot swap value option for computer users with large hard drive needs. The DS-1220 is definitely worth considering for large RAID or media lab environments. AMUG members can save 10% on the purchase of a Norco DS-1220 enclosure by reading the special offer listed below.Contact Information:
NORCO Technologies Inc.
9950 Bell Ranch Drive, Unit 101
Santa Fe Springs, CA 90670
Phone: (562) 906-5900
Fax: (562) 906-5200
http://www.norcotek.com
Norco Special Offer - (Requires AMUG Membership)
AMUG Members can save $80 on the Norco DS-1220 ($799 retail). Visit the AMUG Members Only area and print the Norco DS-1220 order form. Once you fax the order to Norco Technologies, you will be charged $719 for the DS-1220 instead of $799. AMUG membership is required for this discount to apply.
Copyright 2006
Arizona Macintosh Users Group, Inc. (AMUG). Visit AMUG at www.amug.org for news, discounts and friends. JOIN AMUG!