Bugger it.. I just bought another 2. I guess I do need 6 x 14tb in RAID 5. I guess I don't want to rebuild the array to add capacity. So in total by purchases have been 2 x $338 2 x $400 2 x $300 $2000 on drives at an average price of $346.
My wife thinks am smuggling drugs or something in WD elements boxes. "but why do you have to break open the hard disks cases!" "why are they all over the floor"
Did you get Exos drives? Edit: Just back reading and posted the same link lol. https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B08899GVT6 What are you guys housing all these drives in as your NAS? I'm the new owner of four 16TB Seagates.
I have a NODE 304 case. I'm moving my 4790 itx mobo out of my wifes rig into this, when Ryzen 5000 arrives. I have now pretty much maxed out the NAS. 6 x 14TB RAID 5 = 70GB accessible. 1 x 1tb NVME (local space) 2 x 1tb SSD (high speed network storage - As the write speed on the RAID 5 will be quiet pathetic - Read performance will be brilliant reading across the 5 disks) Current projects and what not can exist on these disks, while regularly archived to the big stuff. Also if I am bulk copying stuff, I can spool a couple of TB on to the SSD and then archive it from there, not tie my machine and network up for long periods. She is now one heavy box. 4 bay nas aren't too expensive. I was just about to buy one, before I decided to go overboard.
I'm still running a norco 4220 case, I'm surprised that this many years later no ones flogging a non-rack mount NAS case packed with hot swap bays. You can buy NAS "expansion" cases and could hack something in but the empty cases are overpriced (more than a norco).
My plan is FreeNAS. Mine is literally a white box. Its a Node304 in white. Although the case has been out for a while its quite good if you are planning to rarely touch the drives after installed. Last I looked, there wasn't really an ideal NAS case for 4-6 drives. Then I wanted things like an atx PSU for cheap and easy replacement. The Node304 is available everywhere, ~$120, has good airflow, 3 fans with a speed controller, 6x3.5 + 2x2.5,ATX PSU, USB ports, sort of thing you could just unplug and throw into the car if you needed to, or it just sits on the shelf forever. Some of the cheap cases didn't have HD locks, I have young kids and a wife, so I didn't want anyone to accidently remove a HD, plus I know some of these mechanisms can be flimsy, fall out while in transport or while in use(!). There are some 8 bay solutions. Like the silverstone DS380B.. But thats $300+, bigger again,
I'll definitely check out those and any other suggestions (It's not like I can go anywhere) . Thanks, both of you. This is what we need to get back to, you know, as a country; where men were men and cases were BIG, Metal and white. ... https://hexus.net/tech/reviews/mainboard/205-iwill-dvd266-r-chenbro-9891/ Can you believe the link still works, it's from 2001.
Haha that chenbro case.. I have an old antec 302 case I could have turned into a server, and may still do one day. But its big and black. It can only fit 6 x 3.5 drives (tooless) (although it has 3 x 5 1/2 bays I could use). If I find the node304 too small, I will turn that into a desktop for my kid, and move everything over to the big Antec. The Node304 could sit in my media cabinet space if I wanted too. Where as the ANTEC 302 is massive oldschool atx brick tower. Watch a small asian woman playing with one. A lot of cases these days, people aren't fitting 3.5" drives, so they don't have much space for them anymore. But then why buy ATX? it makes no sense. All the cases that are designed for NAS are like $300+ ..
I've been running my NAS for the last 4 years in a Node304 case, C2750D4I, 32GB ECC and 5* 5TB drives on FreeNAS with RaidZ1. I'm just about to migrate it off FreeNAS and onto Proxmox for a better VM setup and using OpenMediaVault on there as the file sharing services manager.
Yes I did that last with the Norcos and a full rack and that was 10 years ago easy - not doing that again. I'll just need to find a middle ground, no more than 6 drives. You are right, the 302 is too small. I guess the stupid american mobos like the super micro want an ATX as a minimum if not a E-Atx. Nobody's going to see this case, as there is only two bedrooms here and I don't go down that end. Hot/cold swap caddies will be wasted as well. Somebody will know just the thing to buy, that's the joy of OCAU community!
You guys are too dangerous. I checked on the mobo above and that lead me to Amazon, which in turn caused me to see a black brushed alloy thing - which is very bad for me. https://www.amazon.com.au/SilverStone-DS380-Black-NAS-Case/dp/B00HVKMI9S/ That turned out to be even better cause it was sold by Scroptec, but then I realised it was nearly $300 without a psu, which isn't so good and a bloody long way from a beige pressed metal case. <sigh>
I priced check the C2750D4I locally.. $800... hmm The DS380 is nice, But I kinda figure if you want a case that big it might as well be matx. Which then takes me back to the node804 which can do 8 drives and matx and is $99. But then its almost as big as that chenbro from 2001.. The Fractal Design Define 7 XL can fit 20 x 3.5 disks. But its enormous, and at that point you would probably just be better off going a norco backplane thing.
Yup agreed, you will fall outta love with it after this build below I think. There's a lot to be said by a bigger case and less fan and heat issues.
I wouldn’t trust any cheapo Norco backplane personally. The reviews out there of backplanes killing drives scare me too much
I'm not so sure about that, 20 drives in mine since 2013 You can probably see who else runs them on OCAU if you look at the old ZFS threads here and ask how theirs is going The only thing i dislike about the norco is the form factor as i no longer have a rack (other than a small comms one), id rather a tower or NAS style case
Got one brand new, and after 3 drives that it killed, i sent it back. It let the magic blue smoke out of each drive, i was so glad at the time i was only setting up the OS and a test drive, and didn't at the time have my 13 seagate 3000GB Drives of death in them for it to cook them all, 3 of them eventually died in rapid succession and i sold them, but that was due to whatever shit show segate had going on with them drives at the time.
