TLDR: If you were building a NAS for 8 HDDs and 1 SSD today, what case would you use?

I’m going to be rebuilding my system soon (currently using an old PowerEdge T610) using one of my other older (R5 1600) systems and I’ve basically hit a road block on picking a case.

I’ve got 8 HDDs that need to fit in the system after it’s rebuilt (plus at least one SSD) so I’m kinda limited in that regard.

The rest of the system is planned out (mostly because I’m reusing old parts) it’s just the case I’m stuck on.

I’m wanting to avoid rack mounting currently mostly due to space (and wanting to keep it under $200)

I was thinking maybe the Fractal Design Define R5, the Fractal Design Node 804, or the Phanteks Enthoo Pro 2 but I’m open to suggestions.

  • charles@lemmy.caEnglish
    5·
    2 years ago

    Highly recommend cases by Fractal.

    For self hosting I’d recommend either one of the Meshify 2 or Define 7, depending on local price and your specific needs. I personally went with the Meshify 2 XL and was blown away by the quality of the case. It’s built well and allows for a variety of configurations. It also makes maintenance very easy as the filters and side panels can all be removed without any tool to handle dust build up.

  • Lunch@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4·
    2 years ago

    Fractal seems far superior at least in the budget range. Personally just bought a R5 second-hand for roughly 40euros. Totally worth it imo 😁

  • hperrin@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4·
    2 years ago

    I’m using a Fractal Meshify 2. It’s big, but I highly recommend it. It can hold 11 HDDs. I’ve only got 6 in mine, and it’s quite roomy.

  • lemmyng@lemmy.caEnglish
    4·
    2 years ago

    I used a Fractal Design case for a home server in the past. Pretty happy with them.

  • Sup3rlativ3@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    2 years ago

    So I recently went through all of this headache. I started really wanting hotswap that didn’t look like it was from the 90’s. I also needed like 8 drives capacity which rules a lot of the popular cases out.

    I thought about it for a while and I don’t really touch the drives at all on any of my previous Nas builds so that meant I didn’t need hotswap.

    Eventually I decided that rather than try to hide the case away I would make it a feature of my living room and I went with the tower 500 and I really love it and everyone that has gone over has mentioned how cool it looks

    • phrogpilot73@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      2 years ago

      That looks an awful lot like what I have. I’m using the Lian Li PC-D600. I think I’ve managed to get my hands on one of the last ones in the wild. They aren’t even available used on eBay anymore.

      What I like most about it (and the Tower 500 that you linked) is that the motherboard is on one side, and the drives are on the other. Keeping the drives cool is easy, I just upgraded the fans on my SATA backplanes and the case, and even under load the drives run very cool.

      You can have this case when you pry it from my cold dead fingers.

  • retrieval4558@mander.xyzEnglish
    2·
    2 years ago

    I use a fractal design node 304. It’s pretty cool, but has all the limitations and problems you would expect from a case that size.

  • SeriousBug@infosec.pubEnglish
    2·
    2 years ago

    I can vouch for the node 804, although I haven’t used the others so I can’t say which is the best.

  • Codilingus@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    2·
    2 years ago

    I know you said you’re against rack mounting, but JUST in case:

    I love the look and tidiness of a nice rack mount system. So I got a Chenbro 4U case. It’s perfect for reusing my old components, and it has a standard size area on the front to install a hot swap HDD cage.

  • SteveDinn@lemmy.caEnglish
    1·
    2 years ago

    I am using a normal desktop case with an external usb-c 8-bay JBOD drive enclosure from Mediasonic. I’m using mdadm to combine the drives with RAID-6. I know I’m not getting the performance that I could with native SATA, but it can still saturate my 1Gbps network, so it’s good enough for serving video, audio, and some other web-based apps.