New Nas Case

[Dahak]

So I am thinking on rebuilding my storage machine to something a bit more nas like

While I have an idea on what hardware I am going to use inside, but need to find a decent case

I have been eying the Define Mini but I had thought I had seen some other similar as well but cant remember what they are.

for the requirements its mainly Micro ATX and 6 HDD preferred but may look at 4 drive ones as well, dont really need any 5 1/4 drives

 

[Carson Dyle]

The Fractal Design Define Mini is a very large microATX case. Why not go miniITX and the Fractal Design Node 304, with six 3.5" drive bays?. You should be able to get all of the functionality that you need for a small file server/NAS on a miniITX motherboard.

 

[88keys]

I had Mini ITX in my old NAS case and I liked it for a while, but then regretted the decision due to the limitations I placed on myself when I made that decision.

I suppose that Mini ITX is ok for a simple one (maybe 2) HDD setup, but any more than that, and you'll have cooling issues due to so many HDDs in one small space. I once had 3 HDDs in my old NAS and ended up taking one out due to temps.
The case itself only officially supported one HDD, I used the external 3.5" bay and 5.25" bay adapters for the other 2 drives.

I try to think in terms of scalability when build all my rigs in the sense that I'd like to open myself to as many upgrade options as possible, and in hindsight Mini ITX was just not a bright idea on my part.

And if you think about it, does it really matter if you save that half a cubic foot of space for a NAS.

If you don't plan on using optical drives, you can pick up sone 3.5" to 5.25" bay adapters and make use of your optical bays. I don't have an optical drive in my NAS and I don't plan on having internal optical drives on any future builds since everything installs from USB now.

 

[ethebubbeth]

This was my previous mITX NAS case until I needed more than 8 drives:
http://www.u-nas.com/xcart/product.php?productid=17617&cat=0&featured=Y

I had to go in with a group on a forum to order mine in a batch off Alibaba and have it imported from China. Thankfully they sell direct in the US now.

Drives stayed at 35C or less with the two 120mm fans in the back.

 

[Carson Dyle]

I suppose that Mini ITX is ok for a simple one (maybe 2) HDD setup, but any more than that, and you'll have cooling issues due to so many HDDs in one small space.

If much of that were true, then miniITX cases like the Node 304 or the many small NAS chassis (like the one in the post above) couldn't even exist on the market. There are many people running six-drive servers in the Node 304 without cooling issues. I wouldn't put an i7, a GPU and six hard drives in it and use it as a workstation, but for a home file server that can be stashed on a shelf somewhere, it's ideal.

The only real limitation is that its six drive bays is a hard limit (although you could probably find room for an additional SSD system drive). If six drives isn't enough, look elsewhere.

 

[88keys]

I'm just speaking from my own personal experience....

EDIT: I did go and look at the case, and it does seem that it should stay cool fairly well although it looks as if it would be difficult to work on.

 

[Carson Dyle]

I would just make sure to find a PSU on the smaller side, with modular cables that aren't overly long. There's not a lot of room to stash excess cabling.

 

[Charlie98]

The Fractal Design Define Mini is a very large microATX case.

Say what?

It's just about the smallest standard layout mATX case out there. When I needed a case for my HTPC, it had to conform to some pretty tight cabinet dimensions, the Define Mini was the winner... and I'm glad, it's a great case... so great, in fact, I pulled all the guts out of my desktop PC and put them in another Mini.

OP, the Define Mini would make a fine NAS case... as long as your upper limit on HDDs is 6. I mounted the SSD in the lower 5.25" bay, so you can theoretically get 6x HDDs and an SSD or 2. Add another 120mm front fan and you have a very quiet, fairly small server.

 

[Carson Dyle]

Yeah, what.

The Define Mini is nearly as large as many ATX cases I've used in the past. Actually, it's both wider and deeper than most of them. A microATX motherboard is the same depth as an ATX motherboard, just 3" shorter (9.6" x 9.6" vs. 12.6" x 9.6"). The Define Mini is fairly wide, to accommodate its 120mm fans. And it's deep, with all of the hard drive bays at the front capable of clearing a fairly long video card, in addition to having fans in the front.

That's not really a mystery if you just examine the specs and look at a photo of the case.

Case size (WxHxD): 210mm x 395mm x 490mm or 8.3" x 15.6" x 19.3"

 

[Dahak]

The thing with going with M-ITX is I will need to buy another power supply and if i was to stay with micro atx I can use a spare seasonic that I have kicking around.

I had picked the define mini as a staring point/fall back of what I looking for as I did see another case I was interested in and now for the life of me i cant remember what it was

 

[Charlie98]

The Define Mini is nearly as large as many ATX cases I've used in the past.

Not to derail the OP's post, but curiosity overwhelms me... show me another standard layout, mATX case that holds 6 HDDs that is smaller. Sure the Mini is nearly as large as a small ATX case... the mATX form is only marginally smaller than the ATX, but it's smaller than almost all of the other mATX cases I looked at.

The thing with going with M-ITX is I will need to buy another power supply

No, surprisingly, the Node 304 takes a standard ATX PSU. Now that I'm looking at other images of the Node, it does indeed hold 6 HDDs... in fact, it looks like quite a marvel of design and engineering! ...but, understandably, it's all jammed in there.

 

[ethebubbeth]

No, surprisingly, the Node 304 takes a standard ATX PSU. Now that I'm looking at other images of the Node, it does indeed hold 6 HDDs... in fact, it looks like quite a marvel of design and engineering! ...but, understandably, it's all jammed in there.

Yes, the node 304 is an incredibly efficient design. The U-NAS NSC-800 that I linked isn't much bigger (19.6L vs 14.5L internal volume). It has 8 hot swappable drive bays and two 120mm cooling fans and is also mITX. The sacrifice is that it doesn't fit an ATX power supply; You have to use a 1U PSU. I ended up using a PicoPSU in my build.

Regardless, it is impressive that you can fit 6 or 8 3.5" drives in mITX cases with footprints not much larger than that of a 10" tablet!

 

[smitbret]

My server happens to be setup in a Define Mini and the only second guessing I've done since I bought it was whether I should have gotten an R4 instead because it will hold more drives.

I doubt you'll find a case that is a better combination of cool and quiet. Specs as follow:

FX6100 that is cooled by a Coolermasrer 212+
1TB WD Green for OS
3TB Toshiba 5490rpm Parity
2TB WD Green for Data
3 x 2TB Seagate 7200rpm data

The two Fractal Design fans that came with the case are mounted in the front, blowing across the drives and I stuck a Xigmatek in the rear that came out of a 9.99 4-pack. Turned them all down to nearly inaudible with the fan controller and they all idle between 28-30 degrees. They'll get as high as 36 degrees under load but that doesn't cause me any concern. The RPM fan is controlled by the motherboard and I've never seen it report higher than 545rpm. No video card since I run it headless and use the onboard graphics if necessary.

I just happened to pick it up yesterday afternoon to vacuum the dust out of it and I nearly got a hernia from lifting it. Don't let it fool you, this is a HEAVY case. Incidentally, there was very little dust in the case. I left the sound dampening foam on the side vent and just have to vacuum the bottom filter and front filters occasionally but in general it does a great job keeping everything fairly dust free. There's a little dust in the CPU fan, but it has been on there for a year and I expected a lot worse.

Just my $.02

 

[ThaBaldYeti]

Just to let you guys know about how much you can cram in a Node 304...

I have one with a ssd, hdd,
3570k (4.0 mild o.c.) cooled by a Hyper 212 EVO,
A MSI 7950 (1100 core o.c.),
Powered by a non modular 620w Seasonic.

Full load temps while mining on the gpu = 73c

The build quality is fantastic.

If you don't include a gpu a very large psu can used. The 160mm limit is only if you want to include a full length gpu.

I would recommend this case to anyone looking for an excellent mITX platform.

Especially for a NAS with up to 6 drives.

 

[88keys]

Not to derail the OP's post, but curiosity overwhelms me... show me another standard layout, mATX case that holds 6 HDDs that is smaller. Sure the Mini is nearly as large as a small ATX case... the mATX form is only marginally smaller than the ATX, but it's smaller than almost all of the other mATX cases I looked at.



No, surprisingly, the Node 304 takes a standard ATX PSU. Now that I'm looking at other images of the Node, it does indeed hold 6 HDDs... in fact, it looks like quite a marvel of design and engineering! ...but, understandably, it's all jammed in there.

If it's nearly the size of a mATX case then what is the benefit of this case over mATX other than being a little smaller? If you absolutely need the extra space due to it's location, I get it. But most people have their NAS out of the way (Mine's in the laundry room) where it's size is really unimportant. Granted, the mATX market is still expanding and is much larger than what it was when I bought my ITX rig, but at the end of the day I still see having more options available with mATX as opposed to ITX simply for the greater abundance of motherboard/cpu configurations available, and having more expansion slots (if needed). And you also have a little more space to work with during hardware installation. It seems like a well built case, but for all intents and purposes it's just a mATX case that takes an ITX board.

The way I see it is that the benefit of ITX is compactness and if you're not getting that, then you might has well step up to mATX and open yourself towards the benefits of that.


Now I've done some searching myself and here is what I have found....


Apevia X-Q Pack (mATX Desktop) 3x 3.5" + 2x 5.25" bays. = 5 HDD bays with adapters.

Pretty simple design and not much larger than the fractal design node.


Lian Li PC-V351B (mATX Desktop) 3x 3.5" + 2x 5.25" bays. = 5 HDD bays w/adapters

Nicer design and more appropriate for a NAS, but still not quite enough HDDs.


Silverstone SST-PS07B (mATX mini tower) 6x 3.5" bays + 2x 5.25" bays = 7 HDD bays w/adapters.

Not exactly huge, but it's about 45% larger than the fractal design ITX case. Seems to be well designed and backed by good reviews. It also has the simple, but attractive NAS-like appearance that I assume the OP is going for.

If I were looking for an mATX case for a NAS, this would be my choice.



Now if you're trying to save a few bucks you could take a look at this...

Apex TX-606 (mATX tower) 6x 3.5" bays + 2x 5.25" bays = 7 HDD bays w/adapters.

Although this is considered a mATX tower, it's actually slightly smaller than the Silverstone case above, and it also supports and additional 2.5" bay which could be useful for an OS drive if needed which of course could free up 3.5" bay. Only thing is that I'm a bit weary of cases in this price range as they can be very hit and miss and I generally don't do it unless it's got a number good reviews to back it up.

 

[88keys]

Here's another...



BitFenix Prodigy M 4x 3.5" + 1x 5.25" = 5 w/adapter.
This case has NAS written all over it and is apparently compatible with both ITX and mATX boards. It also supports 4x 2.5" bays.

 

[Charlie98]

The way I see it is that the benefit of ITX is compactness and if you're not getting that, then you might has well step up to mATX and open yourself towards the benefits of that.

My thoughts exactly. I just don't see a reason to go mITX and try to find a case that will hold 6 HDDs... 10# of sausage in a 5# casing. Just go to mATX and be done with it.

 

[aigomorla]

The Fractal Design Define Mini is a very large microATX case. Why not go miniITX and the Fractal Design Node 304, with six 3.5" drive bays?. You should be able to get all of the functionality that you need for a small file server/NAS on a miniITX motherboard.

Most itx motherboards dont offer 6 Sata ports.. without going into the expensive ITX motherboards :\

Your telling him to buy a board which can cost double the price of the original board he was looking at.
And if he is not overclocking and it will be run as a headless NAS, your telling him to spend all that money on board in which all the options he wont use are spam'd on.

 

[88keys]

^ Didn't even think about that...

Either way, your options are just more limited in general with ITX form factor. When I bought my ITX rig, Newegg had like 5 motherboards so it has gotten better, but it's still not to where mATX/ATX is today. I honestly wouldn't consider ITX for a NAS unless I needed to save space.

Besides, with mATX you can find a decent used mobo/CPU combo for a damn good price on eBay.

I got an Intel D945GTP with onboard Intel Pro Gigabit Lan (Intel Gigabit NICs rock!) with a Pentium D805 for $40 shipped.

 

[Carson Dyle]

Most itx motherboards dont offer 6 Sata ports.. without going into the expensive ITX motherboards

But they're available, at a reasonable price.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157478

The predecessor to this board, the ASRock FM2A85X-ITX was used fairly often with the Node 304 to build small file servers. It had seven SATA headers.

The Node 304 also handles full-sized add-in cards, so it would easily handle a two or four port controller.

Your telling him to buy a board which can cost double the price of the original board he was looking at.

And if he is not overclocking and it will be run as a headless NAS, your telling him to spend all that money on board in which all the options he wont use are spam'd on.

I'm not telling anyone to do anything. I'm suggesting that you don't need a box the size of your gaming rig just to build a headless server with six drives. The nice thing about headless servers is that they can be stashed just about anywhere with an ethernet drop. That's not always the case when the box is four times the size.

 

[Dahak]

Thanks for all the suggestions. Now I believe i have it narrowed down to either the mini or the node 304. It just depends on what board I decide to go with.

Trying to if I really want remote management available via ipmi or not, as initially I was thinking of doing as these boards start around $250(workstation/server class boards)

 

[Carson Dyle]

Thanks for all the suggestions. Now I believe i have it narrowed down to either the mini or the node 304. It just depends on what board I decide to go with.

Fractal Design also has a less expensive version of the Define Mini. The Arc Mini is a microATX chassis that's laid out the same internally, but without the sound damping.

Trying to if I really want remote management available via ipmi or not, as initially I was thinking of doing as these boards start around $250(workstation/server class boards)

Yeah, that can get pricey.

I've never had hardware based remote management in any of my home file servers. Where something like that becomes invaluable is when you're administering a server sitting in a data center 1000 miles away, where you don't have physical access to the machine. At home, you're not nearly so hamstrung.

You can do most of what you want via remote desktop. Or if you'll be using Linux or BSD, from the command line. What you're unable to do remotely via a software connection is troubleshoot bootup problems that require accessing the BIOS. I admit, that can sometimes be a headache. I've had to either pick up my server and take it into my home office to connect it to a monitor, keyboard and mouse, or else take a monitor, keyboard and mouse down to the basement where the headless server lives. It's fairly rare, though. Usually only when making hardware changes or when there's a hardware failure does it become necessary.

 

[Dahak]

Yeah, that can get pricey.

I've never had hardware based remote management in any of my home file servers. Where something like that becomes invaluable is when you're administering a server sitting in a data center 1000 miles away, where you don't have physical access to the machine. At home, you're not nearly so hamstrung.

You can do most of what you want via remote desktop. Or if you'll be using Linux or BSD, from the command line. What you're unable to do remotely via a software connection is troubleshoot bootup problems that require accessing the BIOS. I admit, that can sometimes be a headache. I've had to either pick up my server and take it into my home office to connect it to a monitor, keyboard and mouse, or else take a monitor, keyboard and mouse down to the basement where the headless server lives. It's fairly rare, though. Usually only when making hardware changes or when there's a hardware failure does it become necessary.

yea, that is what I am trying to see, is it worth an extra $75-$100 premium so I dont have to move my lazy arse

Im also looking into the vpro/amt stuff that intel has as well, which will do the same thing
but for cheaper a bit at least from a hardware point of view, it will be ready and just need to purchase a client if want to do it

 

[88keys]

I just found this nifty little guy


http://www.frozencpu.com/products/1...oling_Box_HD-AR-R-BK.html?tl=g43c12s852#blank

Converts 2x 5.25" bays into 3x 3.5" bays or 4x 2.5" bays, plus it has an 80mm case in in front.

For $25, it's a steal!

 

[Ranulf]

I recently went with the node 304 for a small NAS server setup with an embedded celeron mobo. From all the options I looked at, it came down to the node or the bit fenix prodigy for itx cases. If you want to spend the money, you can get good itx boards out there plus chip and an addon card for more sata ports. If size is the ultimate issue, the node is a good way to go in my opinion.

That said, I also have an arc mini that will end up housing an old quad core that will likely replace the node for serious server duty down the road. Micro atx just gives you more options and usually for less money. The trade off being space/size. No such thing as a free lunch.