BUILD NAS enclosure recommendation

[ric]

I have gathered all the parts that I need for my first new build except for one last thing, I need to find a good chassis. your input is greatly appreciated.

 

[bigphil]

Well without the list of hardware/parts you've already purchased, how do you expect anyone to give you a good recommendation? We don't know if you have 2 disks or 100.

 

[ECCfrenaslover]

^^^ What he said!

 

[cyberjock]

^^^ What they said!

 

[ric]

bigphil, Building my first NAS. Here's a parts list for my first build. Im looking to buy a 4u chassis.

Thanks.

1x Intel Intel Xeon E3-1230V3 Haswell 3.3GHz 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1150 80W Quad-Core Server Processor BX80646E31230V3 4x Western Digital Red NAS Hard Drive WD30EFRX 3TB IntelliPower 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive

4x Western Digital Red NAS Hard Drive WD30EFRX 3TB IntelliPower 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive

1x SUPERMICRO MBD-X10SLH-F-O uATX Server Motherboard LGA 1150 Intel C226 DDR3 1600

1x Cooler Master i500 - 500W Power Supply with 80 PLUS Bronze Certification

 

[bigphil]

Why do you need a 4u chassis? Unless your building a setup for a server rack, I think you're looking for something else. I suggest your check out the hardware forum http://forums.freenas.org/index.php?forums/hardware.18/

 

[ric]

What do you guys think about below chassis?

http://www.supermicro.com/products/chassis/tower/733/SC733TQ-665.cfm

 

[cyberjock]

I used to have one like that. It was a good case, but it doesn't hold very many drives for its size.

 

[joelmusicman]

In my opinion, it's WAY overkill for 4 hard drives and a mATX motherboard... Unless you expect to be swapping drives more than once a year (I certainly don't) then hotswap enclosures aren't really worth the extra expense. There are plenty of consumer-level cases that can take more than 4 drives. Some good options that come to mind: Silverstone Temjin TJ-08, Fractal's Define Mini, and Antec P100.

Do you already own the parts listed in your earlier post? If not, you could also consider one of the HP Microservers as it does have the hotswap feature.

Anyway, at the end of the day, it's your money and your decision...

 

[cyberjock]

Well, you have to consider disk failures too. Disk failures can make things ugly. Just one every 3 months can make you wish you had hotswap bays.

 

[bigphil]

@ric, What are your plans for this box? Production use, home use, other??? That chassis is crazy for home use...40 lbs and totally unnecessary for home use, not to mention the price is probably high. Production use...maybe, but there are much better cases than that one. For hotswap bays in a home case, I would get something like this unit (again...the hardware section of the forum has a great review of all the 5x3 hotswap bays). How many disks do you plan on having in the future? You're really not helping us help you choose your hardware with such sparse info

 

[ric]

I used to have one like that. It was a good case, but it doesn't hold very many drives for its size.

The next one up that you could find is going be 8 hotswap bays and with this for me it's overkill!

 

[ric]

@ric, What are your plans for this box? Production use, home use, other??? That chassis is crazy for home use...40 lbs and totally unnecessary for home use, not to mention the price is probably high. Production use...maybe, but there are much better cases than that one. For hotswap bays in a home case, I would get something like this unit (again...the hardware section of the forum has a great review of all the 5x3 hotswap bays). How many disks do you plan on having in the future? You're really not helping us help you choose your hardware with such sparse info

I mainly using this for media server (movies, music, file backup, etc). Possibly 6-8 hdd but no more than that.

 

[joelmusicman]

I mainly using this for media server (movies, music, file backup, etc). Possibly 6-8 hdd but no more than that.

In that case I'd definitely recommend the Fractal Define Mini. It's not quite hotswap level of ease, but swapping drives once in a while wouldn't be too hard...

 

[Joo Chung]

Where do you intend to put the server? Will it be out of the way where no one sees it but with plenty of space? Or will it be out in the open visible to everyone? If its out of the way with plenty of space, then I like the Rosewill RSV-L4411 (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0091IZ2L4/?tag=ozlp-20) personally.

Comes with 12 hot swap bays (I know you said you would use 6-8 but who knows... you might add more in the future). Its a 4U rack mount case. But just because its a rack mount case doesn't mean you absolutely must put it in a rack. It can just as easily sit on a good shelf. Its a large case so you have plenty of room to work inside. Not the same quality of case as the Supermicro, but it is definitely a good value case. Very quite, lots of expansion, comes with the hot swap bays, etc...

 

[ric]

I am going to put this server inside the office room for the time being and possibly moving it to my garage at a later time with the rest of my network gear (network switch, server chassis 1u and 4u one of each running w2kserver and vmware). and i know that a rack is require in order to make this happen. I dont want to feel like inside datecenter all the time when working in the room.

That's why I am asking these questions... SHOULD I GO WITH SERVER CHASSIS (which is not really a good idea to keep inside your room office, IMO) or DESKTOP CASE (low noise and quite) but it can not be rack mounted. And this is my NAS running 24/7.

Your input is greatly is appreciated.

Thank you and more power to you.

 

[Joo Chung]

For the home, you don't need to put equipment designed to go into a server rack in a server rack. It can just as easily rest on sturdy shelves or desks. I put mine on a whalen industrial shelf I picked up from Costco (http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=89942 - Not my writeup. But this is the exact same shelf)

The Rosewill case is nice and quiet. No louder than a high performance desktop case. But it is a big case.

If its in going into the office, I'd personally just go with something smaller and quieter.

 

[joelmusicman]

It sounds like you should answer the location question first, and then the case choice will fall in line.

To help you answer the first question, I have another one for you:

Is there a COMPELLING reason to have it in your office? Let's see...

• Hardware changes (should be very infrequent)
• Powering on/off system, local console needs (solved by IPMI)
• Cooling... (That's the only possible good reason I see)

I have mine in the spare bedroom, and I hardly ever touch the NAS now that it's built, though I use it all the time. I only wanted mine to be physically small because I'm in the military and move often.

 

[scurrier]

I recently got a Supermicro 933T case for $250 off of ebay. It's my first rackmount server-grade gear and I'm impressed with the build quality.

I knew the fan noise would be a problem, and it is. The fans claimed to be PWM but I wasn't convinced and sure enough they are 3-pin, plugged into the backplane. I will study the problem and look for a solution. One possibility is adding resistor cables to the fans. The thing to be careful of there is making sure they allow for enough starting current, because the fan will remain "healthy" to the system alarms even if it cannot start.

Something else I was disappointed with was the power draw. With all fans unplugged it pulls 19 watts through a single one of the triple-redundant power supplies. I have yet to see if this translates to inefficiency once properly loaded. FYI, with 4 fans plugged in, it pulls 76 watts with nothing else connected. No motherboard or anything. Yeah... need to find a way around that. Or accept it as a cost of heavy-handed data protection. And the amateur fun of having real server gear.

I have a closet to store it in so I was not super concerned about sound, but probably will still want to find some way to mitigate the noise, at least a little bit.

 

[joelmusicman]

For the home, you don't need to put equipment designed to go into a server rack in a server rack. It can just as easily rest on sturdy shelves or desks. I put mine on a whalen industrial shelf I picked up from Costco (http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=89942 - Not my writeup. But this is the exact same shelf)

Of course there's also this idea...

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/50272376/#/20011408

The infamous Ikea Lack - happens to be exactly the right dimensions for mounting servers! The legs are hollow though, so 4U gear would need extra reinforcement.