I am a secret agent who works for 7 different governments. I need your help.

[winnielinnie]

I suspect no because it is part of the drive locking mechanism.

Bummer.

EDIT: From another angle, it appears the HDDs can be secured on both sides. Even if it involves putting a steel washer before the machine screw.

But what's the issue with the backplane?

Single point of failure, which could possibly take out the entire pool. Unlike a motherboard where I have more control about which brand, quality, and positive reviews I want to go with, this "freebie" backplane looks like a cheap generic piece supplied by two molex power plugs. The response on Amazon also makes me suspicious when they (jonsbo) answered someone's question, claiming it's a "SAS" backplane. (It's surely not a SAS backplane.)

Does have to run truenas? Can it be any OS with zfs? Heh - more options!?

Preferably TrueNAS. It's a ZFS NAS appliance. The best out there.

 

[Davvo]

The first one you posted is enough. Then you 3D print cages and attach them in the space usually reserved for the graphic card.

 

[Arwen]

The ASRock DeskMeet series might work. The newer X600 AMD one, (I've not looked at the other 2), supports 2 SATA drives and directly supports 1 x 3.5", in 1 of 2 spots. So I wonder if you could install 2 x 3.5" drives. The boot device would be NVMe. Though, with the second 3.5" drive blocking the PCIe slots, no additional expansion possible. (Well, their is a second NVMe slot...)

ASRock > Mini PC

www.asrock.com

It does not come with handles, but, perhaps a nice Seahorse case similar to this would suffice;

https://www.amazon.com/Seahorse-SE540-Protective-without-Black/dp/B002G1YC14?ref_=ast_sto_dp&th=1

One advantage of DeskMeet, is that it is a full computer, just like you want. Even the power supply is built in

If the built in graphics does not allow booting without a monitor, you could try a monitor simulator dongle. Similar to a USB flash drive but with a HDMI or DisplayPort instead.

 

[Davvo]

The ASRock DeskMeet series might work. The newer X600 AMD one, (I've not looked at the other 2), supports 2 SATA drives and directly supports 1 x 3.5", in 1 of 2 spots. So I wonder if you could install 2 x 3.5" drives. The boot device would be NVMe. Though, with the second 3.5" drive blocking the PCIe slots, no additional expansion possible. (Well, their is a second NVMe slot...)

ASRock > Mini PC

www.asrock.com

Possibly they advertise only one 3.5'' drive because it appears that using both would result in no fans being mounted on the chassis. 2x 3.5 and 2x NVMe (4.0 and 5.0) is not bad at all... especially since it seems you could use the PCIe slot to put there more NVMe drives. Actually, there is support for an additional "WiFi" M.2.

 

[winnielinnie]

I'm thinking of this combination:

• Jonsbo N1 (small, light, portable, room for HDD expansion, remove backplane and secure HDDs on both sides)
• A mini ITX board (maybe with ECC support, depending on cost)
• Inexpensive, low-power CPU (or with ECC support, depending on cost)
• 8 - 16 GiB RAM (or ECC, depending on cost)
• SFX PSU
• Drill two holds and install "cabinet handle" for quick grab-and-go.

Drill two holds in the case? SUE ME! I follow in the wisdom of Linus Sebastian!

 

[Davvo]

The secret agent with 7 salaries should not consider the cheaper option!

 

[winnielinnie]

The secret agent with 7 salaries should not consider the cheaper option!

The reason people don't know I'm a secret agent working for 7 different governments is because I do everything so cheaply!

The other day at my local cafe, I ordered an iced caramel whipped latte. Since I chose the smallest size (and cheapest) cup, you know what the cashier told me? "You're definitely not a secret agent."

I think I know what I'm doing. I don't need to be lectured about my job.


EDIT: I'm down to only 6 governments now. One of you apparently called the HR desk to file a complaint, and so they dropped me as one of their agents.

 

[Etorix]

remove backplane and secure HDDs on both sides)

Very bad idea. As designed, you place screws with rubber washers, as well as rubber handles, on the drives, and then slide the drives in place; they lock on the backplane at the end. Same very handy design as the Lian-Li Q26 (plus the signature Jonsbo handles).
To screw the drives in place with large steel washers, you'll need access from both sides for the screwdriver—which means removing the fan, PSU and/or motherboard to add or remove a drive.

Just live with the backplane. It's only traces and a few capacitors.

 

[winnielinnie]

To screw the drives in place with large steel washers, you'll need access from both sides for the screwdriver—which means removing the fan, PSU and/or motherboard to add or remove a drive.

Removing the fan is not an issue.

Don't need to remove the PSU if only dealing with two drives (both to be installed towards the opposite side.) I've used small/thin screwdrivers to reach in more crammed spaces than what the photos depict.

As for the backplane, I'd just rather not chance it. A reviewer wrote how it failed (possibly due to heat?), and I'd rather my drives be directly connected to a motherboard of my choosing, rather than through a "freebie" nameless backplane that comes with a case.

It would be the equivalent of entrusting your server with a generic PSU that comes with a case, rather than purchasing a quality PSU that you know is likely to have been built more reliably.

 

[Ericloewe]

Mod note: This is all fine, but keep in mind that the correct place to share military secrets is on the WarThunder forums.

 

[joeschmuck]

I'm thinking of this combination:

• Jonsbo N1 (small, light, portable, room for HDD expansion, remove backplane and secure HDDs on both sides)
• A mini ITX board (maybe with ECC support, depending on cost)
• Inexpensive, low-power CPU (or with ECC support, depending on cost)
• 8 - 16 GiB RAM (or ECC, depending on cost)
• SFX PSU
• Drill two holds and install "cabinet handle" for quick grab-and-go.

Drill two holds in the case? SUE ME! I follow in the wisdom of Linus Sebastian!

View attachment 77195

Make sure you place a stiffening bar underneath the length of the handle because I'll bet the metal case is thin metal. It would suck to grab the handle and think to yourself "Wow, this thing is so light!" as it hits the ground.

 

[winnielinnie]

Make sure you place a stiffening bar underneath the length of the handle because I'll bet the metal case is thin metal. It would suck to grab the handle and think to yourself "Wow, this thing is so light!" as it hits the ground.

You know, I never considered that.

Aluminum with Steel Plate Case

What do they mean by "with steel plate case"? The material is listed as aluminum, and there are no references to "steel" anywhere, except for the item's title.

The "inner lining" of the case is steel?

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

How much capacity do secret agents need these days? If 2 or 4 TB usable are enough, I have this very nice extremely small system:

• Supermicro SC-101F case
• 3 Noctua 40mm fans plus some screws and self-locking nuts to mount them
• Supermicro A2SDi-4C-HLN4F
• 4x 8G ECC DIMMs in VLP (very low profile) format, because then you can mount
• 1x 2.5" SATA SSD of your choice (it's mounted upside down from the "roof", hence the need of VLP DIMMs), plus
• 1x M.2 SATA SSD of the same size - these two will be your storage pool, plus
• 1x or 2x SATA DOMs for the boot pool

Ridiculously expensive? Yes. Incredibly cool? Also yes. I run a setup with a virtualised OPNsense, two VMs (Windows and TrueCommand) and two jails (Observium and Grafa/Influx) for a complete mobile home lab:

Code:

┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                                                          │
│                           TrueNAS CORE                   │
│          ┌────────────────────────────────────────────┐  │
│          │                                            │  │
│          │                           OPNsense VM      │  │
│          │       ┌ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ┐   ┌──────────────────┐ │  │
│          │    ┌───────────┐      │                  │ │  │
│          │ ┌──┴────────┐  │  │   │  LAN        WAN  │ │  │
│          │ │           │  │      │┌─────┐    ┌─────┐│ │  │
│          │ │ VMs/jails │  │  │   ││ ix0 │    │ ix1 ││ │  │
│          │ │           │  ├ ─    │└─────┘    └─────┘│ │  │
│          │ │           ├──┘      │   ▲          ▲   │ │  │
│          │ └────────┬──┘         └───┼──────────┼───┘ │  │
│          │          │                │          │     │  │
│          │          │                │   PCIe   │     │  │
│          │          │                │   pass   │     │  │
│          │ ┌────────┴─────────┐      │   thru   │     │  │
│          │ │                  │      │          │     │  │
│          │ │     bridge0      │      │          │     │  │
│  ┌────┐  │ │┌─────┐    ┌─────┐│   ┌──┴──┐    ┌──┴──┐  │  │
│  │IPMI├──┼─┼┤ ix0 │    │ ix1 ││   │ ix2 │    │ ix3 │  │  │
│  └────┘  │ │└──┬──┘    └──┬──┘│   └──┬──┘    └──┬──┘  │  │
│   .102   │ └───┼──────────┼───┘      │          │     │  │
│          └─────┼──────────┼──────────┼──────────┼─────┘  │
│                │          │.2        │.1        │        │
│                ▼          └──────────┘          ▼        │
│                                                          │
│            to laptop      172.31.0.0/24     to uplink    │
│                                                          │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

tl;dr: extremely small and with Noctua fans barely audible system. Storage: 2x SSD in a mirror, one 2.5", one M.2. One or two DOMs for booting.

Here's the pictures - it doesn't need a handle, the footprint is smaller than an A4 or letter sized sheet of paper. Fits in a backpack.

SC101F | Mini-ITX | Chassis | Products | Super Micro Computer, Inc.

101F

www.supermicro.com

 

[Pitfrr]

If 2 or 4 TB usable are enough,

If 2 or 4TB are enough then why not just use an NVMe disk in a USB case, small enough.
And apparently @joeschmuck has exactly what you need.... :-D
And with this you can even put a handle without fear of the "Wow, this thing is so light" effect.

And, if looks is everything (for a spy, sure!), then I'd go for something as amazing as that:

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

No redundancy, not usable from multiple systems simultaneously aka a NAS. Let's stick with the secret agent story - multiple people storing the top secret data on the encrypted ZFS based NAS, NAS small enough to grab and run ... no data on the desktop or laptop systems left behind.

 

[Arwen]

@Patrick M. Hausen - SuperMicro used to have a similar case with a top hat cover, allowing for drives to be mounted above the top plate. If I remember correctly, either 2 x 2.5" on top of each other, or a 3.5" drive. Don't remember if it supported 2 x 3.5" drives.

 

[Etorix]

What do they mean by "with steel plate case"? The material is listed as aluminum, and there are no references to "steel" anywhere, except for the item's title.

I suppose that the inner structure is steel while the outer case is aluminium.
And since you have to keep enough clearance to slide the outer case out, that stiffening bar would need to be thin.

It's a nice looking case, but not really amenable to the further mods you'd want.

 

[joeschmuck]

And apparently @joeschmuck has exactly what you need.... :-D

I got a chuckle out of that (my money has already been returned to my bank account with little effort on my part). But I do have six 4TB NVMe drives but nothing as fancy as that image, four make up my RAIDZ1, the other tow are for ESXi. I think my final configuration will be five drives for a RAIDZ2.

As for steel and aluminum, I suspect a steel outer shell (case) and an aluminum internal frame.

Here is a decent video on this bad boy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boKmZKTKXHc
It looks larger than I expected. But still looks nice.

 

[winnielinnie]

And apparently @joeschmuck has exactly what you need.... :-D

Low blow! I just got finished reading through that thread... and I'm not laughing... nope. Nothing funny about it at all...

 

[winnielinnie]

Here is a decent video on this bad boy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boKmZKTKXHc
It looks larger than I expected. But still looks nice.

I'm having second-thoughts about my "drilled-in cabinet handle". Watch from the 9:55 mark.


What you said holds even more merit now.

Make sure you place a stiffening bar underneath the length of the handle because I'll bet the metal case is thin metal. It would suck to grab the handle and think to yourself "Wow, this thing is so light!" as it hits the ground.

Coming up with a seamless "grab-and-go" NAS solution for us secret agents is harder than I thought.


Thanks to the party-pooper @joeschmuck, I might have to reconsider some things. In the meantime, I updated my proof-of-concept to better reflect what might happen with a "drilled-in cabinet handle" for the Jonsbo N1 NAS box. (I like the idea of not having to incorporate an extra "bag" or "container", which is why the integrated "handle" is much more appealing.)