Lian Li PC-Q26: A wonder of a NAS case

[Etorix]

(Previous discussions on this case are now archived and closed. And, unfortunately, the forum no longer has an active top-level, general purpose, "Hardware" section".)

A specimen of this famous case appeared last week on eBay.de, and sold for what is likely more than its original price. It arrived today, in excellent condition in his original packaging with its full box of screws and manual. And a full set of (non-hot swap) backplanes.

I have moved my backup NAS in there, swapping the motherboard along the way (micro-ATX D1541D4U-2T8R -> mini-ITX A2SDi-H-TF). Very easy to work with: Only the motherboard and PSU required a screwdriver; both side panels just snap in place; the drives and fans take four thumbscrews and then slide into place. The finished build is lighter, smaller and easier to handle than the Fractal Design Node 804 which hosted the previous version of this NAS.

Of course, TrueNAS CORE just restarted—no reconfiguration needed.

And then came the next surprise: Less than 2 m next to me, I hear the thing humming gently. With eleven drives in there (ten as intended, and one upside down on top of the PSU), and not much in the way of sound dampening, except for the rubber rings the drives rest on. Didn't think it was possible… But it does get noisy when drives seek—the laws of physics are safe.

The last time I was THAT impressed by the craftmanship of a piece of metal and the ease of use of the enclosed contraption involved a block of machineered brass "made in Germany" (though with many pieces probably coming from Portugal before the final assembly in Hesse…), costing twenty times the price and boasting its brand in an "iconic" red dot.

@HoneyBadger called this case the Gold Standard of home NAS. I'd rather say the Platinum Standard—to be filed by the BIPM in Paris.
How come it only had a single run of production? It's close to perfection for its intended use.

Amazingly, the seller has another one. Must resist…

 

[Ericloewe]

And a full set of (non-hot swap) backplanes.

The full set! You had to buy all but the first one separately! And they were fairly expensive.... Do any of them come with the caps populated? As far as I could tell back in the day, the PCBs are the same as for the 5.25" bay modules Lian Li sold around that time.

A specimen of this famous case appeared last week on eBay.de, and sold for what is likely more than its original price.

Holy crap, the second one starts at 300 € plus shipping (another 100 bucks to get here? Holy crap...). The connectors seem hot-swap capable, so you could probably add some capacitors to the existing footprints and get hot-swap to work reliably.

Deep breaths... Deep breaths...

 

[Etorix]

The full set! You had to buy all but the first one separately! And they were fairly expensive....

Yes, that made the deal more palatable. I haven't seen any capacitor in mine (same pictures as the second listing), but I'm fine switching off the NAS to change drives—it's safer anyway.

Holy crap, the second one starts at 300 € plus shipping (another 100 bucks to get here? Holy crap...).

As indicated at the bottom of the description, shipping costs are a place holder and the real quote will be provided upon purchase. Mind you, the first listing was at 300 E plus… 500 E shipping. I didn't pay that much—but if it turned off other prospective buyers, that played out to my benefit.

 

[awasb]

I like the Q25 even more. Perfect cooling, nice access, smaller. Bought mine used for EUR 50 (with the original slides/rails, mounting screws, rubber bushes/"dampeners" and some spares). The only thing, that's needed are some new case clips from time to time. A full set is printed within some minutes.

Lian Li case clip by bob3dp

Spare part for some lian li pc casings.

www.thingiverse.com

 

[Constantin]

I put out a build report a while ago. This is the best small NAS case out there for a mini-ITX. No other OEM has something that compact that still allows great cooling performance, heads above the Mini XL.

 

[Etorix]

@Constantin I know your report, but the thread is now archieved and I could not perform necromancy on it. What pictures do not convey is the ease of working with the case. Fractal Design 304 and 804 do the job, but the PC-Q26 is just in another league. No screwdriver to change the drives. Even without hot plug, it's well worth it.

Mini-ITX with 10 SATA ports is an issue. I wonder if Flex-ATX could fit in there—maybe with a SFX PSU…

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

Mini-ITX with 10 SATA ports is an issue.

A2SDi 8 cores and up. 12 SATA and 1 M.2 NVMe.

 

[Constantin]

Mini-ITX with 10 SATA ports is an issue. I wonder if Flex-ATX could fit in there—maybe with a SFX PSU…

Tried that. The flex ATX board is too long/deep, will require significant case surgery even if you use SFX with an adapter plate to locate the PSU as far away from the PCB as possible.

IIRC, there is a vertical cross-bar that gets in the way of the end of the PCB that faces the Hard Drives.

 

[Constantin]

I started to go down that path, even added the PCB mount points for the Flex PCB form factor. But the issue is the internal strut or whatever you want to call it. I didn’t feel comfortable with the PCB potentially shorting due to proximity it, nor using an angle grinder to cut the strut out or shaving it down.

Not saying it cannot be done, just that IMO it requires more work / risk than I was willing to take.

The case is perfect for mini-itx boards, however. Between the hot swap back planes, the functional panel holders, etc it’s the perfect little sub-10 drive NAS case.

 

[Etorix]

A2SDi 8 cores and up. 12 SATA and 1 M.2 NVMe.

That's what I have in there! But it's a pretty specific choice of boards, and there a not many alternatives. Using the PCIe slot for a HBA means everythinh else has to be on-board, which is possible of course, but I can imagine Consumer Joe being clueless about what he would do with the case and going with something else.
Which would explain why the case is perfect for a small NAS but Lian Li ever produced a single run of it.

 

[Constantin]

Allow me to quibble. With “only” 10 slots for HDDs and some room for SSDs, it’s the perfect small NAS case that could even benefit from a 10GbE card instead.

If I were to put a HBA in it, it would have to be for an external array and there the onboard limitation of 1GbE would likely become a bad bottleneck. There are few mini-ITX boards with native 12 SATA slots, but that’s also due to the form factor.

In an ideal world, Lian—Li would come back with the next generation of the Q26, one that can handle Flex-ATX and something like 16 HDDs and a few SSDs to boot. But they likely found out that while there is an enthusiast market for these small NAS’ that there aren’t enough folk willing to pay Lian Li prices to make it worthwhile for them.

 

[awasb]

I can't quite understand your definition of "small". 16 drives? And some SSDs on top of that? Wow.

 

[Constantin]

I can't quite understand your definition of "small". 16 drives? And some SSDs on top of that? Wow.

Ha.

My pool has 8 HDD, 3 SDD. The Q26 would have been perfect save for the motherboard size limit. The larger pool capacity was simply a suggestion once you make the case longer and taller to accommodate a Flex ATX or larger board.

For example, as many OEMs offer built-in SSD storage slots on the covering over the backside of the motherboard so the ten HDD slots can be solely used by HDDs. Total drive count then can easily reach 16 and for those of us who use sVDEVs (or write caches on other platforms) an increased number of built-in drive slots just for 2.5” form factor would be welcome. The Q26 has one such slot.

So yes, a slightly deeper, and wider case could make this a 16 drive platform. Given a redesign option, I’d consider 12 vertical cages though so that more folk who want to run z2 VDEVs can be accommodated.

If the case is expanded forward to accommodate more than flex ATX, then a second row of HDDs below the motherboard becomes possible. Not a tall one, see the pics from my build. Just as tall as the PSU. The resultant case would still be way smaller than my current cavernous A76.

 

[Constantin]

FWIW, I consider 11-12 HDD slots the sweet spot for a NAS as it accommodates single-VDEV Z3 as well as multiple Z2 VDEVs nicely while potentially leaving a slot open for drive qualification.

Smaller NAS’ can be certainly achieved but ideally by swapping to SFX, and a different drive mounting config. I’d stack them vertically at the case bottom with the PSU and motherboard on top. Or external PSU.