looking small facor case with multiple drive bays

what?

Hi folks,
Looking to reuse some old components to make a linux based NAS box
Anyone know off top of their head or preferably recommend an mico ATX case with a good number of 3.5 drive bays?

Summit like this one
https://www.cclonline.com/product/132540/AVP-EL03B/Cases/AvP-Viper-Mini-Tower-Black-2-x-12cm-Fans-USB-3-0/CAS1076/

Ta very
Stay safe and sane

smuggler.ie

Many disks you are looking for?
Budget?
Aesthetics?
DYI skils?

Your selected case + https://www.ebay.ie/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=5.25+to+3.5+cage&_sacat=158817 gives you 5 + whatever case was designed for (+5 if second cage DIY fitted in front of main case fan)
Not sure if you can get MoBo to support that many disks, unless PCIe expansion/RAID controller
Cooling for upper disks might be bit of a challenge...
There are ready made storage cases if €€€ allow...

what?

smuggler.ie wrote: »

Many disks you are looking for?
Budget?
Aesthetics?
DYI skils?

Your selected case + https://www.ebay.ie/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=5.25+to+3.5+cage&_sacat=158817 gives you 5 + whatever case was designed for (+5 if second cage DIY fitted in front of main case fan)
Not sure if you can get MoBo to support that many disks, unless PCIe expansion/RAID controller
Cooling for upper disks might be bit of a challenge...
There are ready made storage cases if €€€ allow...

cheers,
have 3 oldish 3.5 1TB and 2 TBx2
oldish athlion and mini atx with am4 socket, has ran 3 disks
this time one small ssd for OS and 3 for file system. have the SATA ports, m.2 if really pushing the boat
550 w psu
Wont bother with a graphics card, if needed use on-board, otherwise SSH into it for the most part


Reasonable at DIY, just finished a ryzen 7 build with not too many nervous breakdowns
Currently in it's old case now, want to scale it right down to fit in a cupboard as a bespoke NAS
Budget, little as possible really
Aethetics, not important at all

I'm at that dangerous point where I kinda know enough to royally break stuff but not enough to un-bork myself

smuggler.ie

DIY part would/might involve riveting/other fitting drive cage to the bottom of case if you place it in front of main case fan, for cooling
All in-to smaller case makes small footprint, but convoluted fitting/cabling, cooling management. Full ATX allow more play - is it no-go?

Placing machine in cupboard might further reduce cooling ...

I have one of them cages fitted just last weekend into ATX box - disks stood out from original 5.25 by ~25 mm (including cabling) for case face to fit in its place. This providing i have installed front fan. Without fan you could sink them completely inside 5.25, but cooling .....might give few images later...its still under "construction"...

what?

i haven't ruled out just leaving it all in the ATX case it is in now, preference is to scale it back, but the end of the world if no.
I have 3 disks now, like to eventually scale it up and get some redundancy in there.
I have a single 120 mm AIO or an AMD wraith, plus a few spare 120 mm fans.
Riviting/cutting/drilling etc.. kinda past me right now, but open to trying.
cheers and good luck with your own build

smuggler.ie

just note: these cages nowhere hot-swap or easy access. quality is poor, hence the price, it just allow to accommodate 5x3.5 drives into 3x5.25 space compact way...

Serephucus

Here ya go.

the_syco

what? wrote: »

Wont bother with a graphics card, if needed use on-board, otherwise SSH into it for the most part

I wouldn't rule out the PCI-E slots; they can be useful for a cheap upgrade at a later date. For example, this would give you a few extra SATA ports later down the line should you want to upgrade, but not replace the board.

the_syco

what? wrote: »

want to scale it right down to fit in a cupboard

Bit of advice; have it to the side of the cupboard, so you can install a fans for air flow.

Example; https://www.amazon.co.uk/AC-Infinity-MULTIFAN-Receiver-Playstation-Black/dp/B00JLV4BWC/

One fan for air in, one for air out, and both on the same speed switch.

Inviere

the_syco wrote: »

I wouldn't rule out the PCI-E slots; they can be useful for a cheap upgrade at a later date. For example, this would give you a few extra SATA ports later down the line should you want to upgrade, but not replace the board.

Not to hijack, but is there any advantage in using the above linked board to something like this? I need to add some more storage to my Unraid build very soon, and have my eye on this type of expansion

Serephucus

the_syco wrote: »

I wouldn't rule out the PCI-E slots; they can be useful for a cheap upgrade at a later date. For example, this would give you a few extra SATA ports later down the line should you want to upgrade, but not replace the board.

Inviere wrote: »

Not to hijack, but is there any advantage in using the above linked board to something like this? I need to add some more storage to my Unraid build very soon, and have my eye on this type of expansion

I would absolutely go with the LSI card Inviere linked over the Marvell one, for two reasons.

1) The LSI card uses a fare more robust controller that will actually give you full speed to all of the drives. The Marvell one is more targeted at consumers who just want a bunch of extra ports. If you actually start hitting it hard - say with a few SSDs or something - it can choke. Sometimes this leads to a performance drop-off, sometimes to the card just outright failing and needing the box to be rebooted. The LSI's are just a lot less flakey in general.

2) The LSI uses SAS ports, which means you have a 1x8087 connector on the card, going to 4x SATA connections at the other end, which makes cabling a lot nicer. You might think "they're just SATA cables, it'll be grand" but I've personally snapped a connector off an 8TB drive (rendering it completely useless) by trying to close a side panel with that many cables there.

the_syco

Serephucus wrote: »

I would absolutely go with the LSI card Inviere linked over the Marvell one, for two reasons.

To add other reasons to go for the LSI card that Inviere linked to would be how much data it'll get to the board.

It supports RAID; not many of the cards I saw support RAID.

From here, it says The LSI SAS 9211-8i HBA supports all major operating systems: Windows®, Linux® Red Hat®, Linux SUSE® Enterprise
Server (SLES), Solaris™, and VMware®. Refer to http://go.lsi.com/hbas for details on the software versions and device
driver support. For Solaris support, contact the LSI Technical Support team.

The one I linked to, like a lot that I found, only took advantage of the x1 PCI-E slot, whilst the LSI card uses x8. Look at the size of the slot connector of the one I linked to, compared to this one. The LSI card connection would handle a lot more bandwidth.

what?

thanks to everyone who gave their opinions
After sporadic searching I settled on this
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B009PIEMUC/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&psc=1
Can hold up to 6 HDD
From old pc psu, uATX ITX 1x 120 mm cooler master AIO + fan , got an m.2 SSD for OS , run it as a media storage

K.O.Kiki

The Fractal Node 304 is mini-ITX - your micro-ATX motherboard won't fit.

what?

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

The Fractal Node 304 is mini-ITX - your micro-ATX motherboard won't fit.

typo , mini ITX
cheers