Those who are self hosting at home, what case are you using? (Looking for recommendations)

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.

EDIT: And for those that want to know why I want to move away from the PowerEdge T610, it’s primarily due to repairability. Primarily the PSU, I don’t want to have to buy used PSUs in case mine dies again.

lemmyvore,

Fractal Design, definitely. The model I’m using is no longer made but they have very good ones today too. Look into the Define and Meshify lines. They have models that can utilize the full height of the case for HDD/SSD slots with openings on both sides for maximum ease of cable routing.

The Define 7 or Meshify 2 is most likely what you want. They only come with 6 HDD brackets included but you can buy more and they have slots for up to 11.

The R5 is another good choice, I like those brackets more, but it’s not so flexible as the others I mentioned, and the 5.25" bays will most likely go unused and just take up space.

Don’t get the Node 804, it’s much larger than it seems (check out yt videos) and is cramped and hard to work in.

humancrayon,
@humancrayon@sh.itjust.works avatar

I second the R5 case. I have one for my NAS and it’s been a dream to work in.

Gormadt,
@Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

I’ve currently got the Meshify C (not the 2) for my main gaming rig and I’ve dug it the whole time I’ve had it; looking at the drive mounting for the Meshify 2 makes me really want it for sure as that looks really convenient

The more I looked at the Node 804 since I made this post the less I liked it

NGL I wish their North line of cases had more slots for HDDs

EncryptKeeper,

I have the Meshify 2 and I highly recommend it.

LufyCZ,

The R5 is amazing, though yeah the 5.25" bays are kinda a waste.

I found a thingy though that fits into the bay and houses 6 2.5" SSDs, it’s pretty cool!

lemmyvore,

Yeah I expect acting as SSD bays could become popular in the future if SSD prices drop low enough. Although they might be M.2 bays by then.

I have a bunch of old 60 GB 2.5" SSDs around but they’re so small it’s not worth bothering to set up an array of them. Plus they’re more useful individually for stuff like upgrading an old laptop, portable USB storage or installing Windows the one time in three years I need it.

In the meantime I’ve liberated the 2x HDD cage from a Define C Mini’s shroud and mounted it on the floor in a fan slot.

turkishmonky,

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,

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,

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,

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

Lem453,

Used to have a node 304. Very happy I got a hot swap Roswell 4u case

JustEnoughDucks,
@JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl avatar

Have a node 304. Extremely happy with it. Literally unbeatable hard drive and CPU cooler compatibility for its size.

That being said, it only fits 6 drives.

charles,

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.

NicestDicerest, (edited )

+1 for Fractal Define R5 - Absolute Beast

NarrativeBear,

Fractal Design Define 7 XL

You can fit 18 HDDs into it plus 5 SSDs at the same time without custom mount points.

Though you do need to buy the extra brackets and trays.

Not my build exactly but a example.

…unraid.net/…/97612-fractal-design-define-7-build…

Gormadt,
@Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

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,

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, (edited )

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,

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.

Sup3rlativ3,

So I recently went through all of this headache. I started really wanting hotswap that didn’t look like it was from the 90’s. I also needed like 8 drives capacity which rules a lot of the popular cases out.

I thought about it for a while and I don’t really touch the drives at all on any of my previous Nas builds so that meant I didn’t need hotswap.

Eventually I decided that rather than try to hide the case away I would make it a feature of my living room and I went with the tower 500 and I really love it and everyone that has gone over has mentioned how cool it looks

phrogpilot73,
@phrogpilot73@lemmy.world avatar

That looks an awful lot like what I have. I’m using the Lian Li PC-D600. I think I’ve managed to get my hands on one of the last ones in the wild. They aren’t even available used on eBay anymore.

What I like most about it (and the Tower 500 that you linked) is that the motherboard is on one side, and the drives are on the other. Keeping the drives cool is easy, I just upgraded the fans on my SATA backplanes and the case, and even under load the drives run very cool.

You can have this case when you pry it from my cold dead fingers.

Sev5000,

Jonsbo N3 sounds like a good fit

Gormadt,
@Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

If only there was an ATX or mATX version

Looks hella nice though

Gooey0210,

Lenovo thinkcentre m710q 🫡

Codilingus,

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.

blazeknave,

804

colin, (edited )

Just because it’s a bit different to what you asked, and no one else has said it, I’ve found great results with the Terramaster D5-300 and D4-300. Make sure you get the USB 3.1 type Cs, but I’ve been fine with the plain rather than ones loaded with RAID.

For every USB 3.1 socket on the back I get 5 drives, I can increase capacity incrementally, and for spinning rust they are faster than they could transfer anyway.

I’ve replaced my machine with a Dell USFF box now and it all works great.

Completely understand if it’s not your thing but you can add a drive box to your existing system without replacing anything. I’m currently up to 16 drives.

terminhell,

I’m using an old HP z420 box. It supports up to 128gigs of ecc ram (which I have), has tons of drive and SATA options.

It could be possible to repurpose the chassis for custom builds too.

hperrin,

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.

sxt,

I went with this www.silverstonetek.com/en/product/info/…/cs382/. It’s pretty decent but you are putting a hard cap on expansion. Also the fans it comes with are pretty loud so I’d replace them.

patchexempt,

I got out of the “surplus hardware” a while ago; way too expensive and noisy to run, so super recommend ditching the poweredge. for home use, I ended up just going with a USB3 JBOD for storage, and a Intel NUC (which I think they don’t make anymore). it runs a ton of virtualized servers under kvm, a virtualized NAS, all without issue because it honestly spends most of its time nearly idle. point is: it’s definitely nice to have it all in one case and with high speed storage but maybe having to find something that can house a ton of drives isn’t a strict need if you aren’t actually going to put a ton of load on it.

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