TLDR: If you were building a NAS for 8 HDDs and 1 SSD today, what case would you use?

I’m going to be rebuilding my system soon (currently using an old PowerEdge T610) using one of my other older (R5 1600) systems and I’ve basically hit a road block on picking a case.

I’ve got 8 HDDs that need to fit in the system after it’s rebuilt (plus at least one SSD) so I’m kinda limited in that regard.

The rest of the system is planned out (mostly because I’m reusing old parts) it’s just the case I’m stuck on.

I’m wanting to avoid rack mounting currently mostly due to space (and wanting to keep it under $200)

I was thinking maybe the Fractal Design Define R5, the Fractal Design Node 804, or the Phanteks Enthoo Pro 2 but I’m open to suggestions.

    • Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zoneOPEnglish
      2·
      10 months ago

      18 HDDs into it plus 5 SSDs

      Sweating intensifies

      That’s a lot of drives, I’ll have to look into that one for sure

      • NarrativeBear@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        10 months ago

        I run TrueNAS myself in this case. I have two v-devs of 8 drives each in raid 2.

        Both v-devs have a extra spare each. 4 SSDs are used for quick read and write and the 5th SSD for os boot.

        • JGrffn@lemmy.worldEnglish
          3·
          10 months ago

          How’s performance on that setup? I own the case and am looking to do the exact same vdev setup this next year, but am wondering if the wider vdevs negatively impact performance in any noticeable way. Also wondering if 128gb of ram is too little for that kind of setup with 20tb drives, I feel like I might have to find out the hard way…

          • NarrativeBear@lemmy.worldEnglish
            3·
            10 months ago

            Performance is great IMO, I store all my Plex media on this setup as a network share and never have any issues or slowdowns. I only use the setup as a strict NAS nothing else.

            I started with 9 drives at 12tb first, about 3 years later (mid this year) i added the second vdev to my main pool. 9 drives 20tb each.

            V-devs do not require to be the same size between v-devs, but they do require to have the same amount of drives in each.

            I have unraid and proxmox setups on other machines running independently. Plex and other software for example all access my TrueNAS over the network.

            For the TrueNAS system IMO you don’t need much “horsepower”. I run it on a 12 year old motherboard, 12gb ram and a 60gb SSD to boot. Nothing special at all. Unraid and proxmox on the other hand is where I spend the money on ram and processing power.

            My Network is gigabit and I get full speed on network transfers, looking to do 10gb in the future, but that would require 10gb NIC’s in all my PC’s and new network switches. Don’t see it effecting my TrueNAS sytem setup. Besides your network transfer is only as fast as the read/write of the drives.

  • charles@lemmy.caEnglish
    7·
    10 months ago

    Highly recommend cases by Fractal.

    For self hosting I’d recommend either one of the Meshify 2 or Define 7, depending on local price and your specific needs. I personally went with the Meshify 2 XL and was blown away by the quality of the case. It’s built well and allows for a variety of configurations. It also makes maintenance very easy as the filters and side panels can all be removed without any tool to handle dust build up.

  • Lunch@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    10 months ago

    Fractal seems far superior at least in the budget range. Personally just bought a R5 second-hand for roughly 40euros. Totally worth it imo 😁

  • hperrin@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4·
    10 months ago

    I’m using a Fractal Meshify 2. It’s big, but I highly recommend it. It can hold 11 HDDs. I’ve only got 6 in mine, and it’s quite roomy.

  • turkishmonky@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4·
    10 months ago

    I’m using a NetApp ds4246 to hold 24 drives, and it’s glorious - embrace the rack mount life. Although my computers themselves are all HP Prodesk minis, which are tiny and amazing, 1 u high and can fit two across on a shelf.

    • Dalraz@lemmy.caEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      I have been looking to do this as well, I’m just not 100% sure how it all connects together. Do you have the disk shelf connect to a server with lots of sas cards?

      • turkishmonky@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        10 months ago

        You just need one it mode hba sas controller with an external out, and probably a conversion cable from 8088 to netapp’s 8436.

        You can daisy chain shelves if needed, and I think you can use a second sas card for active failover but I haven’t tried it.

        • Dalraz@lemmy.caEnglish
          1·
          10 months ago

          Oh, i thought a single sas port could only do 8 sata drives. Interesting

  • lemmyng@lemmy.caEnglish
    4·
    10 months ago

    I used a Fractal Design case for a home server in the past. Pretty happy with them.

  • Codilingus@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    3·
    10 months ago

    I know you said you’re against rack mounting, but JUST in case:

    I love the look and tidiness of a nice rack mount system. So I got a Chenbro 4U case. It’s perfect for reusing my old components, and it has a standard size area on the front to install a hot swap HDD cage.

  • dan@upvote.auEnglish
    3·
    10 months ago

    I really like the Node 804 even though the design is quite old - probably close to ten years old now. Fractal Design are still manufacturing it, which is rare for case designs that old.

    I recently built a NAS using an 804. I had to fit mine into my server closet which isn’t deep enough to fit a regular PC case, so the 804 fit my use case well.

    I’ve only got three drives in it (2 x 20TB Seagate Exos X20 for data and 1 x 14TB WD Purple Pro for security cameras) but I wanted the ability to expand in the future, and I wanted to use a Micro ATX motherboard rather than a smaller one.

    A Noctua NH-D15 fits fine, even though the spec sheet says it won’t fit.

  • SeriousBug@infosec.pubEnglish
    2·
    10 months ago

    I can vouch for the node 804, although I haven’t used the others so I can’t say which is the best.

  • SayCyberOnceMore@feddit.ukEnglish
    2·
    10 months ago

    I have both Fractal Design and SilverStone cases… love them… but the internal layout is not 100% of the consideration

    Have a think about airflow and cabling… some of them have weird air flow designs and if you’re putting the machine inside something, or next to something, then that can make more impact on day-to-day use.

    For example, I have a Node 304 (not enough drive space for you) because it fits nicely inside Ikea shelving. But the front air flow under the front bezel did mean I keep that machine near the front of the shelf, not pushed back.

    And also consider hotswap drive bay caddies that fit smaller drives into large drive bays. Sometimes these have weird power connections, but if you don’t have them do you have enough PSU leads? So, are they absolutely essential? Possibly. Possibly not…

    Maybe not the answer you were lookong for, but those are my main considerations now…