Finding the dream small footprint NAS chassis.

[aidasan]

hello everyone,
I think this is a recurrent question but I can't find the right solution for what I need.
First I use this chassis at the moment (CFI-A7879):

It is not a really a good one but at the time I build my NAS it was the only one I've found for my small appartment (1 room).
(btw this case it rally bad in term of cooling I had to add a 120mm fan on the left side of the HDD cage to cool them, 34~36degree with the fan, 40~55 without the fan)

So what I am looking is a case which can take :
4 ~5 * 3.5 HDD
1 / 2 2.5 HDD
1 or 2 120mm fan intake
HDD must be flat no vertical mount possible.
micro atx / mini itx motherboard
Flex/atx or bigger PSU
140mm large at max

Unfortunately I haven't found this dream one.
So I am looking (around my home and when the lock down will be over) if I can make one myself (using old PC case parts and wood / steel / aluminum).

If someone know a case which respond to those parameter i will be happy to. if not i will see to make one myself around July/August.

Thanks all.

 

[Samuel Tai]

Supermicro offers the SC721, which is the same case used for the FreeNAS Mini E.



There's also the Norco ITX-S4, but I had to mod this case extensively to get the cooling and silence I wanted.


Finally, there's the U-NAS NSC-410, but this is currently out of stock.

 

[aidasan]

Thanks but all those have 2 problem,
first too large (i don't really care if the case is tall and long but it must be slim)
second only 1 fan at the rear which is the worst (or kinda ok if you want the pc to become a dustball in 2 week).

Why I want to have the fan in the front is simple i need positive pressure, since I am in a environment with dust and pets i don7t want to have to clean the PC every month. (every year is ok for me or at last every 6 month).

 

[Samuel Tai]

That's pretty much all there is on the market. These are all mini-ITX cases, so I don't think they're that large. As for positive pressure, you could always reverse the direction of the fan at the rear. If you want a no-maintenance build, you could go fanless, with something like the Streacom DB4.

 

[aidasan]

I am afraid with the heat we have in summer my HDD will become my new toaster.
Thanks for the help :)

 

[aidasan]

By the way I totally forgot : I don’t need hot swapping capability. (I always shutdown the system before touching anything)
After it is not a professional server, just a home server.