Question ATX, E-ATX NAS Case with Rapid Front Panel HDD/SDD Removal?

chane

Member
Apr 18, 2010
112
9
81
I'm having these guys build me a cool and quiet NAS to be placed in the corner of my living room.
https://www.steigerdynamics.com/productcart/pc/configurePrd.asp?idproduct=1765

But as I don’t plan on having total data storage off-site (cloud based) any time soon, in the event of fire or other sudden disasters, I’d want a case that allows rapid front panel removal of all drives needed to rebuild the NAS. Are there any case brands who offer ATX and/or E-ATX cases with this important safety feature?
 

mindless1

Diamond Member
Aug 11, 2001
8,179
1,490
126
How many drives are you talking about? If my home is burning down, I'd just grab the whole NAS, I mean how big does it need to be unless you have a boatload of drives?

I'm also a bit confused about what you have linked. It's a page to configure a workstation with a starting price of $1749 and goes up from there. That seems on the expensive side for just personal storage that isn't even important enough for an off-site backup (how about mirrored to HDDs you put in a safety deposit box instead of a cloud, or a tape backup and you just grab the tape(s) ?)

Are you getting a raid card or onboard raid with these desktop motherboards and what raid level? Sorry that I'm drifting off topic a bit. 3.5" HDDs or 2.5" SSDs or ?? You can get slide out sleds for 5.25" bays and then any case with a sufficient # of 5.25" bays would work. Many (most) cases have 5.25" bay covers that just pop off if they aren't, or you take out, screws holding the front bezel faceplates on so they are just friction fit, or with cases that don't have a snap off bezel due to the bezel being held on with screws, can take the screws out of the whole bezel, or cut off friction tabs if present, and take the whole bezel off for access, and use whatever is needed for a flat surface interface to hold the bezel on instead of the original screws or friction tabs, for example velcro, or magnets epoxied onto the bezel (if a steel front walled case).

Have you mentioned this to the company you linked, asking what they'd do? You deserve a bit of customer service for the price you'd be (arguably, over-) paying for a mere NAS.

What if you took part of the budget and instead got some USB external HDDs that you keep offline except when making backups to them, then can just grab those to bugout if that day ever comes? I still don't think I'd want to rely on physically being there and able to grab drives to take with me in the event of a site disaster/whatever, but if that was the plan, then the external USB enclosures will at least offer a minimal level of protection more than bare drives would... unless they are SSDs which are inherently more rugged than HDDs.

Further, for your static data (stays the same over long periods of time), you might not need the redundancy of RAID for that data, with the backup copy being on the offline USB HDDs and only raid the drives with frequently changing data. Remember that when you pull drives in a raid array, if they are not just mirrored, you may need the same raid controller to rebuild the array and/or put that data back online to access, while having it on USB external HDDs is about as universal and quick/easy a way to access it as reasonably possible, besides the much slower and less controllable, cloud storage option.
 
Last edited:

Red Squirrel

No Lifer
May 24, 2003
67,871
12,346
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www.anyf.ca
Have cold storage backups either to hard drives, or tapes, in event of fire, grab the box that has the backups stored inside. Nothing to unplug or mess with, and you probably should have cold storage backups at minimum anyway even if it's not off site.
 
Reactions: chane and Shmee

Shmee

Memory & Storage, Graphics Cards Mod Elite Member
Super Moderator
Sep 13, 2008
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What OS do you plan on running? You could just do your own build, and run TrueNAS scale, or another OS of your choice. As for cases and drive bays, you could get a case with a bunch of 5.25" ODD bays, and install HDD/SSD hot swap cages in them. They look something like this: https://www.newegg.com/athena-power-bp-tla3141sas12-other/p/N82E16816119046 note this model takes a mini SAS connection, so you would need a SAS card.
 

chane

Member
Apr 18, 2010
112
9
81
Have cold storage backups either to hard drives, or tapes, in event of fire, grab the box that has the backups stored inside. Nothing to unplug or mess with, and you probably should have cold storage backups at minimum anyway even if it's not off site.
Thank you for this! It makes good sense to have an online and offline NAS. The offline NAS cold stores my video and audio files-which, of course, don't get updated-but also stores all of my document files, some of which do and don't get updated.

The only drawback is that I'd want the offline NAS to have ECC RAM like the online NAS will, to better insure against bit errors. BUT as all of my PCs have ECC RAM would I even need for the offline NAS to have a Xeon processor and ECC supporting motherboard?

It seems to conceded that BTRFS is more user friendly for dummies to maintain than ZFS, and I am not looking to deal with any user interface that requires typing code into a command prompt. That's why I wanted Steiger-who also builds NAS as ultra quiet as the HTPC they built for me-the make the NAS file system pretty dummy proof.
How many drives are you talking about? If my home is burning down, I'd just grab the whole NAS, I mean how big does it need to be unless you have a boatload of drives?

I'm also a bit confused about what you have linked. It's a page to configure a workstation with a starting price of $1749 and goes up from there. That seems on the expensive side for just personal storage that isn't even important enough for an off-site backup (how about mirrored to HDDs you put in a safety deposit box instead of a cloud, or a tape backup and you just grab the tape(s) ?)

Are you getting a raid card or onboard raid with these desktop motherboards and what raid level? Sorry that I'm drifting off topic a bit. 3.5" HDDs or 2.5" SSDs or ?? You can get slide out sleds for 5.25" bays and then any case with a sufficient # of 5.25" bays would work. Many (most) cases have 5.25" bay covers that just pop off if they aren't, or you take out, screws holding the front bezel faceplates on so they are just friction fit, or with cases that don't have a snap off bezel due to the bezel being held on with screws, can take the screws out of the whole bezel, or cut off friction tabs if present, and take the whole bezel off for access, and use whatever is needed for a flat surface interface to hold the bezel on instead of the original screws or friction tabs, for example velcro, or magnets epoxied onto the bezel (if a steel front walled case).

Have you mentioned this to the company you linked, asking what they'd do? You deserve a bit of customer service for the price you'd be (arguably, over-) paying for a mere NAS.

What if you took part of the budget and instead got some USB external HDDs that you keep offline except when making backups to them, then can just grab those to bugout if that day ever comes? I still don't think I'd want to rely on physically being there and able to grab drives to take with me in the event of a site disaster/whatever, but if that was the plan, then the external USB enclosures will at least offer a minimal level of protection more than bare drives would... unless they are SSDs which are inherently more rugged than HDDs.

Further, for your static data (stays the same over long periods of time), you might not need the redundancy of RAID for that data, with the backup copy being on the offline USB HDDs and only raid the drives with frequently changing data. Remember that when you pull drives in a raid array, if they are not just mirrored, you may need the same raid controller to rebuild the array and/or put that data back online to access, while having it on USB external HDDs is about as universal and quick/easy a way to access it as reasonably possible, besides the much slower and less controllable, cloud storage option.
How many drives I suppose depends on the RAID, which would have some number of mirrored drives, But I read even mirrored RAID is not as safe as measures employed to data loss from bit rot-though which I'm hoping that Steiger or maybe these local guys can automate as much as possible for this dummy. https://noelnetworksupport.com/
What OS do you plan on running? You could just do your own build, and run TrueNAS scale, or another OS of your choice. As for cases and drive bays, you could get a case with a bunch of 5.25" ODD bays, and install HDD/SSD hot swap cages in them. They look something like this: https://www.newegg.com/athena-power-bp-tla3141sas12-other/p/N82E16816119046 note this model takes a mini SAS connection, so you would need a SAS card.
My other big concern is NAS fan noise, BUT I just learned today that I can keep the online NAS (Steiger built) and offline cold storage NAS (Qnap or Synology NAS built by Noel Networks?) in another room. And that data can be accessed either by utlizing the existing house wired RG cable system by using these adapters https://www.asus.com/us/networking-iot-servers/wired-networking/wired-adapters/ma-25/ , OR connecting both NAS to a wireless router and adding transceiver cards to the pcs. Any speed or other risks with these connection options?

Total storage capacity for both online and cold storage NAS may be between 5GB and 8GB.
 
Last edited:

Shmee

Memory & Storage, Graphics Cards Mod Elite Member
Super Moderator
Sep 13, 2008
7,540
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Why not just use wired CAT 7 ethernet cables?
 

chane

Member
Apr 18, 2010
112
9
81
Why not just use wired CAT 7 ethernet cables?
Because my apartment came with the RG coax cable system installed throughout the place. What would be the point of hiring someone to replace it with CAT cable? Unless you mean a direct CAT cable connection from NAS to PC. That might be okay with the online NAS, as Steiger would use an E-ATX case and large low rev fans to minimize noise. But with all of those drives the NAS might still be too noisy to keep it close by. Thus, I'd have to place it in a far corner of my living room, diagonally opposite the corner with my chair. So I'd have to run CAT cable along the perimeter of my room, possibly too close the speaker and subwoofer magnets.
 
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