3 Potential FreeNAS Solutions I'm Considering...

[fourpastmidnight]

Background/Context
I am a former Techus NAS owner with 5x1GB WD Gold drives using RAID 5 (technically, I still have it ). I hadn't seen the Dell article in 2009 declaring RAID 5 "dead". So in 2012, I happily set up a RAID 5 volume thinking my data was "safe". Sure, if a drive dies in 3 - 5 years, it's probably safe...maybe. The only trouble was, my first drive didn't die until last year, 8 years after putting the unit into service! Naturally, I turned off the NAS right away, ordered a 10TB HDD, and prayed to God that I'd be able to back-up the volume before another drive would die. Thankfully, everything went fine and I have a copy of my data. But, yeah, RAID 5 is not enough redundancy. (Oh, and silly me...no backup!) So I almost became a statistic.

The other huge reason I'm looking to use a TrueNAS solution is that Techus stopped providing software/firmware updates only a few years after I bought the unit, despite the fact I operated it for nearly 8 years. That's no security updates (it was using SMBv1), no OS updates, no bug fixes, and barely any plugin support (outside of the very few contributors that exist for that platform). That's unacceptable.

I've read a lot on these forums, looked at the current TrueNAS Mini XL offerings, and I'm hoping that a forum member would be kind enough to check/challenge me. Ultimately, I need to make my own decision, but I would be foolish to not avail myself of the many experts who can be found here.

Usage Scenario(s)
I have 4 potential purposes in mind for a new NAS system. Primarily:

• Storing the data that was contained on my old Techus NAS, plus other less frequently needed data to be stored over time
• Storing backups of the family laptops (Daily differentials, weekly incrementals (or possibly continuous backup in place of differentials/incrementals), and 6 monthly full backups for each laptop)

Secondarily, depending on the resources required and my budget:

• Holding rips of Blu-Rays/DVDs and possibly streaming them from the NAS, and/or...
• ...running some light Docker/Kubernetes loads.

Concerning Docker/Kubernetes, I'm thinking of TrueNAS SCALE here, as it may take me some time to acquire the parts, build the system, burn in the components, and finally install TrueNAS and play around with it before actually committing to a storage implementation. I'm hoping by that time TrueNAS SCALE will be released. So with that said, again, I recognize I may only be able to perform 3 of these functions adequately. (Perhaps even only 2 depending on the circumstances--but hey, that's what I'm here asking questions for!)

Why not just buy a Mini XL+?
Based on the parts I've priced and the capacity I'm looking to have available (for the small version I'm considering), I can actually build a comparable implementation with slightly better hardware than the Mini XL+ (OK, except for the chassis ) which comes in under the price I'd pay for buying a completed system. Then again, depending on how much I'm willing to spend to run the workloads I desire, I may build out a bigger system. So with those caveats in mind, here's what I've come up with.

Basic Storage Requirements
I did a lot of research on current hard disk drive prices on Amazon and Newegg. I'll only use WD Gold and/or Seagate Exos drives (and probably an even mix of the two). Why? Because they offer the longest warranties, MTBF, and TBW/yr. Plus, my last set of WD Gold drives lasted 8 years, 24x7! After doing the research, I determined that the sweet-spot for $/TB for my budget is 4TB to 10TB drives (depending on brand and whether or not I mix/match brands). On pure price, 12TB is a better price/TB, but out of my budget for the amount of redundancy I desire. Also, I'm highly considering mixing/matching the drives because, for my last NAS, I bought 5 of the same type from the same manufacturer at the same time. I'm open to discussion on the merits of buying all the same vs. mixing/matching.

Just a note on the HDD drive choice(s). The prices between WD Gold and Seagate Exos vary somewhat widely, even for the same capacity. For example, at <= 4TB, WD Gold is a better bargain. However, at >= 6TB, Seagate Exos is more economical. This begs the question I posed earlier: Is it a good idea to mix/match or is it OK to simply buy all one brand? Because if buying all one brand/model is OK, the Seagate Exos 6TB would be much more cost-effective while providing sufficient space for at least 2 - 3 of my proposed workloads.

Lastly, I am considering RAIDZ-2. Yes, I have read ZFS: You Should Use Mirror vDevs and Not RAIDZ, but as with anything in life, "it depends." The arguments are compelling. But depending on the number of drives I buy and their capacity and price, mirroring could really take a bite out of my useable capacity (especially 3- or 4-way mirrors) compared to RAIDZ-2. The tradeoff, of course, is volume write speed (and, according to the article, regret). Lastly, if I were to purchase 8 drives in total, I am considering a 4 HDD x 2 RAIDZ-2 vDev ZPool configuration to help mitigate the write speed performance and improve redundancy a bit more. (Or is my thinking fallacious here? More moving parts, more to go wrong?)

Proposed Hardware Configurations
So, with all of that said, I have 3 potential hardware configurations I'm considering.

Small (Mini XL+(+))
So this set of components is very similar to the current TrueNAS Mini XL+ models being offered for sale, but using an upgraded CPU.

Component	Make/Model
Motherboard/SoC	Supermicro A2SDi-H-TP4F mITX Intel C3958 16C/16T, up to 256GB DDR4-2400 ECC RDIMM, 12 x SATA3 (SoC controller), 4 x SATA3, 2 x MiniSAS HD ports, 2 x 10GBaseT/2 x 10Gb SFP+
RAM	Micron 2 x 32GB 2Rx4 ECC DDR4 RDIMM CL17 PC-2400
System Drive (e.g. TrueNAS)	2 x Samsung 860 Pro 512GB SSDs 2 x Samsung 870 EVO 250GB SSDs
HDD Type 1	4 x Seagate Exos X16 10TB @ 7200 RPM/256MB Cache SATA 6Gb/s
HDD Type 2	4 x WD Gold 10TB @ 7200 RPM/256MB Cache SATA 6Gb/s
Chassis	Silverstone DS380B-USA (8 x 3.5/2.5 Hotswap SAS/SATA HDD, 4 x fixed 2.5")
PSU	Corsair SF600 Platinum Full Modular SFX

The current TrueNAS Mini XLs are shipping with the Intel C3758 processor. The board I've chosen is using a slightly better processor which I thought would help with Docker and/or streaming workloads. (Probably one or the other, but not both??)

64GB of RAM may be overkill, but from what I read, the more RAM the merrier. I'm not married to that amount. If I'm able to run Docker/K8s workloads on this rig, then I'll want more RAM anyway.

The SSDs to be used for the system drive were "cheaper" than SATA DOMs in terms of $/Capacity--the 512GB SSDs cost just about as much as 32GB SATA DOMs. So the choice to use SSDs over SATA DOMs has also flowed through to the two other builds I'm considering. Is there a compelling reason I'm missing for why a SATA DOM ought to be used over "commodity" SSDs? Yes, 512GB is WAY more space than is required for installing TrueNAS, but I can't justify the use of SATA DOM(s) given their cost absent any other compelling reason to the contrary. In addition, pricing lower capacity SSDs did not seem to provide a huge amount of savings. However, if that space will never be used, then why even pay the extra $30/SSD for it? I'm still weighing my options here.

Based on feedback from community members, I reevaluated my boot drive choice. SATA DOMs are still too expensive compared to standard SSDs. So SSDs are the way to go. I found a pair of Samsung 870 EVO 250GB drives that cost less money than some available 64GB models out there (e.g. Transcend 370s).

The chassis is the most questionable choice for this build in my mind. It was chosen for aesthetics, but I am concerned about thermal performance. I did read an article that indicated heat was not as much of a problem for HDDs so much as the humidity (not too high, not too low--somewhere around 40% - 50% is best). HDDs are rated up to 60C, I'd hope to not see above 50C, and would love to see a max of 45C (that same article I referred to earlier found that the sweet spot for HDD performance was actually around 45C - 50C.) I'm happy to entertain (strong, I'm sure) thoughts on this matter, backed up with facts--no opinions, I've seen them all over the web; most offer anecdotal evidence for their conclusions. (I'm continuing to research this topic myself so I can make an objective decision regarding this case.) This particular computer chassis also offered the highest number of hot-swap drive bays for its size. Again, I acknowledge, this is the "cheapest" (in the fullest sense of the word) component in this particular build.

Medium
The biggest difference between this and the Small is the CPU/Mobo combo and the case. It's (currently) about $600 more in total. The bad thing about this build is the chassis is so much bigger than the chassis above while only offering 2 additional hot-swap HDD slots. Well, it is a server case (basically, a 4U on its side), but it'll be mostly empty air! (Good for cooling, though, with an appropriate amount of properly sized fans.)

Component	Make/Model
Motherboard	Supermicro X11SPi-TF (ATX)
CPU	Intel Xeon 4210T (10C/20T), 13.75MB Cache, 2.3GHz/3.2GHz, 95W TDP
CPU Fan	Noctua NH-U12S-DX-3647
RAM	Micron 2 x 32GB 2Rx4 ECC DDR4 RDIMM CL17 PC-2400
System Drive (e.g. TrueNAS)	2 x Samsung 860 Pro 512GB SSDs 2 x Samsung 870 EVO 250GB SSDs
HDD Type 1	4 (or 5) x Seagate Exos X16 10TB @ 7200 RPM/256MB Cache SATA 6Gb/s
HDD Type 2	4 (or 5) x WD Gold 10TB @ 7200 RPM/256MB Cache SATA 6Gbs
Chassis	Supermicro CSE-745BAC-R1K23B-SQ, 10 x 3.5" Hot-Swap HDD, 1200W Red. Ti. PSU

I suppose an even less expensive alternative to this build would be to use the Small build's SoC mITX mobo (A2SDi-H-TP4F), which would save me only about $150 - $200. It seems to me with such a large chassis, I ought to just get a better CPU/Mobo (especially if using this system to run virtualized/containerized workloads).

"Large"
The biggest change between this and Medium is the chassis--trading a 4U tower for a 3U rackmount with room for 16 x HDDs. Another large tradeoff with this choice is noise. Does anyone know what the noise level of this chassis may be (in dB(A))? This new build is going to live in my office where I have many remote meetings--so it can't be too loud.

Component	Make/Model
Motherboard	Supermicro X11SPi-TF
CPU	Intel Xeon 4210T (10C/20T), 13.75MB Cache, 2.3GHz/3.2GHz, 95W TDP
CPU Fan	Intel Silver Processor Heatsink Cooler for Xeon 4000 Series CPUs
RAM	Micron 2 x 32 GB R2x4 ECC DDR4 RDIMM CL17 PC-2400
System Drive (e.g. TrueNAS)	2 x Samsung 860 Pro 512GB SDDs 2 x Samsung 870 EVO 250GB SSDs
HDD Type 1	4 x Seagate Exos X16 10TB @ 7200 RPM/256MB Cache SATA 6Gbs
HDD Type 2	4 x WD Gold 10TB @ 7200 RPM/256MB Cache SATA 6Gbs
Chassis	Supermicro CSE-836BE1C-R1K23B, 3U, 16 x 3.5 Hot-swap SAS3, 2x1K Red. Ti CPU

Does anyone see any gotchas or anything I may not have considered (or need to consider further)?

 

[sretalla]

The Samsung 860 pro is overkill (let alone in mirror) for boot pool. The basic is fine for boot, two if you really want. Smaller is also OK, 256 GB if you can still find one.

You aren't likely to see much difference between WD RED Plus and WD Gold in terms of performance, but the RED Plus spin slower and consume less power/generate less heat, so could be an improvement on the proposal if quiet is what you're seeking. Same applies for the Exos drives.

Clearly the warranty periods are different, but I think with the cost difference, you might even afford an additional RED Plus to have as a cold spare instead of the warranty.

Make sure you look up the fan scripts to ensure you can balance quiet with not cooking your hardware.

 

[ChrisRJ]

For pure storage/NAS purposes a 10-core CPU is complete overkill. 4-6 cores will usually be plenty. I have a Xeon E5 1620 (yes, that old) with 4 cores at 3.6 GHz and rarely see more than 15-20% utilization.

 

[fourpastmidnight]

Thanks @sretalla. Yes, 512GB 860 Pros are overkill, but I did some price hunting, and really, buying anything less is not saving that much money. Same with the WD Red Pro vs. Gold (about $10/drive), and actually, I'd pay more for IronWolf than Exos!! So all in all, I don't really see the advantage. Had the price gap been larger, I totally agree, saving the cash, even getting a cold spare, would be a better buy. (Heck, I should still probably get a cold spare. ) But those are all valid observations you made which I myself have been weighing, so thank you for pointing them out. (I am still heavily weighing your advice on the size of those SSDs versus the cost of smaller SSDs. I mean, if the capacity won't be used, why pay for it?)

@ChrisRJ: Yes, 10C/20T CPU is way overkill for only a NAS storage solution. I would consider moving to that CPU only if I'm determined to really want to run containerized workloads on this server (such as playing around with a virtualized K8s cluster since I'm currently studying for my CKA/CKAD certs), in addition to using it as a NAS. If I only use this server for storage and media server, I would opt for the much more reasonable Intel C3958 instead. Thanks for the input!

Again, thank you both for your thoughts, they are much appreciated.

 

[fourpastmidnight]

OK, I did find Samsung 870 EVO 250GB drive @ $39.99 ea. for a savings of ~$60/drive. That's a good chunk of change, especially since:

• TrueNAS only really needs 10GB - 20GB of drive space to install, so getting 512GB, as stated by myself and others, is way too much and may just be left sitting there mostly empty
• The drives won't be written to that often (outside of normal OS activity), so the longevity of EVO vs. Plus really doesn't need to be a factor (plus, I'm mirroring the boot volume)

Thanks @sretalla for helping me to take a closer look at my choices!

 

[fourpastmidnight]

Thank you both for your thoughts. After doing some more research, I have determined that my "virtualization/containerization" workloads will be really light, so I don't think I need to spring for the Intel Xeon Silver 4210T CPU. Since the motherboard is an ATX motherboard for that CPU (or bigger), I would need a bigger case, which also costs more money. I also just can't see using a 4U tower case in my office. I simply don't have the room. So given my virtualization load will be light, and the amount of storage I'm looking to load up into my NAS, I should be able to accomplish all 4 of my goals using the Small configuration. @sretalla convinced me to go with smaller, cheaper SSDs, saving me about $120 at current prices. @ChrisRJ really made me consider what I want to do with this NAS (and what I was in reality most likely to do with it) and helped me to stay away from being CPU rich and cash poor! Depending on the chassis I would've chosen to house that CPU/Mobo, this saves me $800 - $1600 on the build.

I read that TrueNAS recommends 1GB of RAM per 1TB of HDD space. Since I'm planning on populating 40TB worth of usable storage, I'd need 40GB of RAM, plus 8GB for TrueNAS OS. So I'm going to stay with 64GB of RAM. The SF600 PSU is probably too big. I read some people using the Silverstone DS380B chassis had some issues with powering on when they had their HDDs all hooked up. So I wanted to use a bigger PSU to prevent having that problem. Looking at the manual for the chassis, however, Silverstone recommends two power cables off of the PSU be used for the drives--not only one. I can only assume those "negative" reviewers did not RTFM (Read The Friendly Manual). Therefore, I'm considering dropping from an SF600 to an SF450 PSU since my estimates are that I will only require 150W. That'll save me another $100.

Other reviewers of that chassis complained that it was "too hot", saying their drives got all of 41C (or as high as 43C) and proceeded to call the chassis a drive cooker. That is far from realistic. The HDD manufacturers state that the drives' operating temperature can go as high as 60C. Not that you want to operate at that temperature, but the difference between 40C and 60C is almost 40 degrees F!! That's quite a wide gap. And not to mention that there are several sources online that indicate that the best operating temperature for HDDs is between 40C and 50C (but please, try not to go higher than 50C). So, if the case was reading 41C or 43C at the HDDs, I think that's well within the tolerable operating range of HDDs, and is in fact, around the optimal temperature at which to operate HDDs. So the criticism levied at the case with respect to temperature is undeserved. So with my reservations regarding the chassis resolved, I really felt better about the small build over the larger builds. And if the chassis does get too hot (or I find the provided fans are too loud), I can upgrade the fans to some Noctua NF-S12A fans (either 3- or 4-pin) @ $20ea x 3.

Doing more research on HDDs, the Seagate IronWolf drives cost more than Seagate Exos drives. I found the price difference between WD Red Pro and WD Gold was negligible compared to the durability and warranty differences between the two drive classes. The Seagate drives cost more at lower capacities than WD Gold drives. But the Seagate drives became more economical more quickly as capacities increased, until 16TB, at which point the costs once again began to increase. WD Gold, however, had a much smaller decline in cost as you increased capacity, and bottomed out at only 8TB! I'm still wondering if I should mix/match drive manufacturers, or go with all one drive type. I'm considering 10TB drives, and the Seagate Exos is almost $60/drive cheaper! If I were to have all 8 drives be Seagate, I'm looking at another $240 in savings! With those savings, I can buy an extra Seagate 10TB drive as a "cold spare".

At current prices, this build, including tax comes in just over $4000. Not too bad. (For reference, when I priced a TrueNAS Mini XL+, it's coming in at $4597 for the same storage and networking options. So I'm saving roughly $735--including tax--while getting a better CPU (C3958 vs C3758). The "cheapest" part of my build is the chassis--so I suspect that a large part of the price difference ($200 - $300) is the quality of the chassis. So the final build is looking something similar to this (again, HDDs are still a bit of a question mark for me):

Component	Description
Motherboard	A2SDi-H-TP4F w/ Intel C3958 SoC
RAM	Micron 2 x 32GB/4Gx72 Dual Rank ECC/REG CL17 (64GB total)
Boot Drive Pool	2 x Samsung 870 EVO SSD @ 250GB
Chassis	Silverstone SST-DS380B-USA
HDD	4 x (or 9 x) Seagate Exos X16 10TB @ 7200 RPM 256MB Cache Sata3 6 Gb/s
HDD	4 x (or 0 x) WD Gold 10TB @ 7200 RPM 256MB Cache Sata3 6 Gb/s
PSU	Corsair SF450 450W 80+ Platinum Fully Modular SFX PSU

I'm looking forward to my first TrueNAS build!

 

[fourpastmidnight]

By the way, does anyone have any experience with wiredzone.com? I can get the SoC there for about $90 less than from Newegg/Amazon.

 

[ChrisRJ]

Nice summary. I would like to add two things. First, about HDD temperature. A couple of weeks ago there was a discussion around that here on the forum. IIRC the referenced paper contained a graph that showed a significant increase of dying drives after around four years, if operated above 40C. The problem with such a decision is the availability of long-term data for the drives in question. When those data are available, the drives are usually not anymore. And w.r.t personal experiences, the saying goes "The plural of anecdote is not data".

The second thing is the sizing of the power supply and @jgreco has a nice write-up on this. The two main points I took away were (1) to factor in about 30-35 W per drive, and (2) plan with a decent amount of buffer. The latter for the following reasons: Component aging (the easy part) and distribution of power. To illustrate the second point, let me give a totally exaggerated example. What if you went for a power supply that just matches your calculated max. power consumption, but was constructed under the assumption that most of this power is not used for hard disks but a beefy GPU? I seem to remember some postings suggesting that for 8 drives at least 550W are recommended. I had bought my 500W PSU from Seasonic before reading this and have had no issues so far, running 8 Exos 16 TB drives. But today I would probably go for 600W; although I must admit that this is mostly gut feeling.

 

[fourpastmidnight]

@ChrisRJ Oh, thanks for the heads-up on HDDs and temperatures. Clearly, I need to do a bit more research. Very true about anecdote. And thanks, too, for the comment about PSUs. I don't want to skimp on that if it may cause me problems later on. I'm willing to spend the extra money for a beefier PSU if that's best longer-term.

 

[Newfoundland.Republic]

I haven't taken the time tor review @jgreco's post but he is a wealth of information. I doubt that he didn't mention it, but keep in mind the power-up power draw when all the drives spin up. More power will be drawn at startup than in "general" operation (e.g., outside massive data transfers - but scrubs take a fair bit of power, too...)

 

[Etorix]

Be aware that, in addition to being hard to cool quietly, the DS380 is an absolute pain to work with. The C3958 is still overkill for storage and light virtualisation, so you could spare a few more hundreds by sticking to a C3758—if you don't make it a point to have it both cheaper and more powerful than a pre-built TrueNAS.
The last part to optimise is the drive setup. 4-wide RAIDZ2 is quite safe, but not very efficient and stripping two of these will still not perform well for VMs. I'd rather suggest a single 6 to 8-wide RAIDZ2 for storage and a pair of mirrorred 512 GB or 1 TB SSD for jails beside the 256 GB boot drive.

 

[fourpastmidnight]

I haven't taken the time tor review @jgreco's post but he is a wealth of information. I doubt that he didn't mention it, but keep in mind the power-up power draw when all the drives spin up. More power will be drawn at startup than in "general" operation (e.g., outside massive data transfers - but scrubs take a fair bit of power, too...)

From what I've read about the version of the chassis I'm expecting to purchase, Silverstone ensures that the disks spin up in such a way to reduce overall power draw upon system startup. But yes, that is something you do need to know when purchasing a chassis and sizing your PSU for the number of disks your implementation will contain.

 

[fourpastmidnight]

@Etorix:

Yes, that case can be a pain to work in--but aren't all very small mITX cases? The key there will be cable management. I see you are using this chassis, however, so I guess you would know! I've seen some suggest the Fractal 304 or even Fractal 804 case--but the thing I really dislike about those cases is that there are no hot-swap removable drive bays. In my mind, this is a hard requirement. So it's either this small Silverstone chassis or a much larger server-type chassis (say, Supermicro SQ series chassis, which is obviously much more expensive). In fact, this is probably where a significant part of the price difference between my build and a TrueNAS Mini XL lies, as I mentioned above.

With respect to the C3958: I wanted the extra cores....but, if I were to "downgrade" to the A2DSi-H-TF, that does have the C3758 and 2 x 10GBaseT ports, no SFP+ (like I need them anyway...) and for $350 less... With the current spec'd system, I'm coming in 25% less than a comparable TrueNAS Mini XL+. Swapping the mobo would save me 37.76% over the same TrueNAS Mini XL+. The question is, do I think I can get away with 8 fewer cores?

I considered an 8-wide vdev--that would also increase my overall usable capacity OR I would be able to purchase smaller drives to achieve the same usable capacity. (And this at the cost of write speed--but what kind of "cost" are we talking about here?) Or, what about a 8-wide vdev using RAIDZ3? I still have 50TB of usable drive space (10TB more than 4x10TB x2 RAIDZ2 vdev...)? (After doing some more number crunching, the cost difference between 8TB and 10TB drives is such that I might as well spend the extra $200 or so and just get the 10TB drives no matter what storage configuration I end up using.)

And what would the Jails be used for?

BTW: I'm glad everyone started replying. I was about to begin purchasing hardware. But now I have another chance to hear from others and further evaluate my design. Thanks everyone for your thoughts and suggestions!

 

[fourpastmidnight]

Hmm, doing some more reading on that chassis, I'm still far from convinced that's the best choice of chassis. But my options are really limited. Either I go with this chassis or possibly I could go for the CS380B instead. (But again, there could be cooling issues with this case since it's basically the DS380B with some added 5.25" bays on top--though, the fans seem to be closer to the drive cage; but with these cases, the drive cage is the problem with cooling.) There's also the Silverstone CS281. But this case is much too expensive for what it is. And I'm halfway to the price of a nice Supermicro tower chassis with 10-bays. The remaining options are not very appealing:

• A standard tower case (or cube case) with no hot-swap bays
• A server tower (see my Medium build in my OP)
  • This would be big (depth-wise), since these are usually just RM cases turned on their side
  • These could also be loud since many come with a server-grade PSU built-in which usually have small, fast fans which translates into basically a jet engine.
  • Price: 3x - 7x as expensive as a "commodity" chassis
• A rack mount chassis (see my Large build in my OP)
  • See above about size and noise...even more so with these, probably
  • Pro: A lot more drives can fit in 3U or 4U chassis. Or going with 2U, 8 - 12 drives.
  • Would a chassis such as this even accept an ITX mobo?
  • Price: 15x+ more expensive than a "commodity" chassis

These are not appealing options at all. Am I missing something?

 

[fourpastmidnight]

OK, did some reading on an extensive unraid forum on the DS380 case. Yes, it's a pain to cool. But with some modding (a cardboard skirt) and replacing the stock fans with some Noctua fans (NF-[FS]12A?), HDD temps can be kept in the low- to mid-30s C range, at worst, low-40C. Now, if I go with my original mobo choice with the C3958, that board has no fan on the CPU (just a heatsink)--and I read at STH that the 3955 (the 3958's little brother) needs good airflow even with a heatsink. So I either need to find a fan that I can attach to it, or go with the A2SDi-H-TF board which has a C3758 and is only a 25W TDP part. (Vs. the 3958 which is a 31W TDP part. I can't believe 6W makes that much of a difference!) I would still have 2 x 10GBase-T RJ45 ports and the CPU should have enough oompf for just about anything I'd like to throw at it. But having the extra cores would make me happier. (Though, for an extra $350?... Hard choice...)

 

[ChrisRJ]

For my NAS I have had exactly the same issue and ended up with a conventional case (Fractal Define R6). The two built-in fans in the front are not well positioned, if you want populate all drives. But for 8 drives they are ok. Also, these fans don't work well with my board (Supermicro X9SRi-F). Only with fan speed set to high do they bring in enough air for the hard disks. In all fairness, it should be said that Fractal does not advertise this case as optimized for air flow but silent operation. So that was a risk I taken consciously. I could probably get a separate fan controller and just set the disk fans to a fixed value that is good enough, which would then silence my CPU fan. But since the NAS is sitting in the basement, that is a low priority.

My gut feeling is against consumer-grade NAS cases. They are hard to find and source and seem expensive for the quality you get. And since I can live with a short down-time in case of a drive change, I decided to safe the money.

 

[fourpastmidnight]

If I had the space for a Supermicro tower or 2U - 3U rackmount chassis, I'd go for it. I just don't have the room--plus, too loud to be sitting next to me in my office. I once spent quite a bit of time in a server closet (in the fullest sense of that word)--and boy was it LOUD.... (Mind you, these were older servers with higher TDP processors in them...but still, server PSUs aren't known for being quiet! )

 

[Etorix]

Yes, that case can be a pain to work in--but aren't all very small mITX cases?

Not all MiniITX are so cramped that you have to take everything apart to make any change inside. As explained in my other post, just one or two more centimetres would already have gone a long way to help, so it seems that whoever designed the case never bothered to try and use it. Actually, MiniITX cases do not have to be cramped at all: The FractalDesign Era-ITX is very pleasant and easy to deal with. (Not for a NAS, but it makes a very nice desktop.)
Not all MiniITX cases use an insane amount of ridiculously tiny screws—but THAT is a Silverstone disease I've seen on larger models as well.
Indeed I have the case because the specs looked nice on paper. I have taken it part too many times—noting that, in this case, one time is already one too many. For two months I've considered dumping it entirely because I found it unsuitable for the purpose of hosting 3.5" drives but finally repurposed it as a SSD NAS because cooling is sufficient for 2.5" drives. I do not want to consider any Silverstone case after that. EVER.

If you go ahead anyway, consider you had been warned.

With respect to the C3958: I wanted the extra cores....but, if I were to "downgrade" to the A2DSi-H-TF, that does have the C3758 and 2 x 10GBaseT ports, no SFP+ (like I need them anyway...) and for $350 less... With the current spec'd system, I'm coming in 25% less than a comparable TrueNAS Mini XL+. Swapping the mobo would save me 37.76% over the same TrueNAS Mini XL+. The question is, do I think I can get away with 8 fewer cores?

You mentioned storage, family use and "some light Docker/Kubernetes loads". 8 cores should do. Please read "VMs" instead of "jails" in my post if that's more accurate. SFP+ is nice, but using one or two transceivers to plug a 10 GBaseT NAS into a SFP+ switch is easy enough.
In my opinion, you'd be better saving $350 on the motherboard to spend $350 more on a high-quality case with sturdy, tool-less, hot-swap bays.

OK, did some reading on an extensive unraid forum on the DS380 case. Yes, it's a pain to cool. But with some modding (a cardboard skirt) and replacing the stock fans with some Noctua fans (NF-[FS]12A?), HDD temps can be kept in the low- to mid-30s C range, at worst, low-40C.

My pick was pressure-optimised NF-F12A for intake and flow-optimised NF-S12A for output. Plus a NF-A6x25 PWM slapped on the CPU heatsink and secured by two strips of gaffer tape. All controlled by a PID fan script found on this forum. Fans are not audible after boot—which is only relevant with SDDs, since eight spinning HDDs definitely make themselves heard. But this would only cool HDDs to mid- or high 40°C—with the mandatory ducting. Any lower would require more powerful fans—and noise.

 

[fourpastmidnight]

Thanks @Etorix! I understand your comment about the "jails" now.

I hear you on that Silverstone case. I've read and watched a lot of reviews. This is a tough one for me. Thanks for your insights on the case. I'll keep looking and evaluating. And thanks for the input on the Noctua fans. I was leaning towards the NF-F12s for the two side fans as well and the TF-S12 for the exhaust--if I opt to move forward with that case.

I'm in no hurry to buy. If I'm going to spend the kind of money this system is going to take to put together, I want to spend it well. That goes for the CPU, too. I'm still thinking about that one. But I'm leaning towards that you have a very good point on going for the A2SDi-H-TF with the C3758--it's still not actively cooled, but it is only a 25W part, and the rest of the board has everything I want and/or need.

 

[fourpastmidnight]

Other than Silverstone's love for cases with a million screws, what about the CS380 (DS380's big-brother) mid-tower or the CS381? (The CS381, though, is way overpriced for what it is.