Please help me find a case

Gnome

Gnome

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Please help me, I need a case for a NAS and searching for one has taken me ages and I'm still not getting anything that looks good (requirements wise)

MUST (IE. cannot compromise on this), have the following:
- 6 x 3.5"
- 2 x front 120mm fans (at least, hard drives get very hot)
- 1 x rear 120mm fan (at least)
- support ATX motherboard

I don't need anything fancy or nice looking, so long as those requirements are met. Looks don't matter at all as it is stored out of sight and never even seen physically.

But what I'd LIKE:
- Cube shaped rather than rectangular
- Cheap :)
- Not very tall

As I mentioned it is for a NAS so the cube shape is preferred with hard-drives housed next to each other or something similar to that. However a specialized NAS case would be nice if such a thing exists (in SA) with support for ATX motherboard.

I already have all the hard-ware so this is purely a thread for case suggestions. Please don't recommend after market NAS or PCs. I've already got a very powerful NAS.

EDIT: This is the best I've come up with thus far
http://www.codegenworld.com/showDetails.asp?max_id_search=20&min_id_search=&pro_id_search=203

Doesn't meet the fan requirement tho :(
 
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nakedpeanut said:
I think you should go for something like this http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=52917
Available in SA: http://www.digitalsaonline.co.za/ca...product_info&cPath=1_114_116&products_id=5981
Click to expand...

Yeah this looks perfect, just gonna see if the non-side window type is available...

Found it cheaper here: http://www.pc-direct.co.za/pCH-CC590N/CH-CC590N--CoolerMaster-Centurion-590.aspx
Haven't used them yet tho. Any bad feedback about that store?

Thanks ;)
 
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Please people, the OP said he already has all the hardware. So if you do not have a case recommendation, do not post.
 
@ OP

what about this? dont think the fans meet the requirement though...

http://www.coolermaster.com/product.php?product_id=6638

I also had a whole stack of drives in my PC, and quite frankly it chows power and makes your case heavy! :)

I got myself an external bay that takes 5 drives and this thing is nice and cool!! Maybe something to consider to curb your heat problem
 
Archer said:
Please people, the OP said he already has all the hardware. So if you do not have a case recommendation, do not post.
Click to expand...
Thanks Archer, was thinking the same thing myself (more aimed at Frag really) but it seemed like a Troll move so I went with not feeding him.

HTC_guy said:
@ OP

what about this? dont think the fans meet the requirement though...

http://www.coolermaster.com/product.php?product_id=6638
Click to expand...
I think the one nakedpeanut posted should work well, plus the motherboard I have does actually have 8 SATA ports so I have room for expansion with that case. Just awaiting reply on stock availability. If it's not there I'll come back here for some more suggestions :)

HTC_guy said:
I also had a whole stack of drives in my PC, and quite frankly it chows power and makes your case heavy! :)
Click to expand...
Well according to Seagate the drives I have (Seagate 2TB LP) use 7w when in use (approx.) and 2A @ 12v on startup so I calculated my power usage to handle 10w at load (just in case) and 2.5A @ 12v for startup. PSU meets both requirements luckily :)

10w isn't that much tho, but yeah agreed, it gets incredibly hot, just cannot get by without fans blowing directly on the HDs.

HTC_guy said:
I got myself an external bay that takes 5 drives and this thing is nice and cool!! Maybe something to consider to curb your heat problem
Click to expand...
I'll see how this works out, if it's still too hot then who knows what next.. But think it should be within the optimal range after this.
 
I know you said you don't mind the looks, and that you've got all the hardware ready, but I'm currently following an idea I got on another forum in building myself a NAS.
I ended up selling the spare CPU and board I had and went with the following, ended up costing me about R700 more after selling my mobo and CPU, but it's worth it, it looks amazing!


Case: Lian-Li PCQ08
SATA expansion card: Sunix 4Port SATA card
ITX Motherboard with Dual Core Atom- LINK

HERE'S where I got the idea, I'm waiting on the SATA card, used another ITX board.. Already bought the case.
 
Ok I know this sounds like me being a wet blanket but this isn't the first NAS I've built. It's no. 4 I'm on now. (The 2nd I built for myself). So I do have a bit of experience in the field.

However I can already tell you 2 mistakes you've made, how bad they will influence you depends on yourself:
1) You have a Intel Atom CPU, it just isn't powerful enough for RAID-Z, even RAID 5 will be limited. That is based on benchmarks I have observed online.
2) You have a ITX motherboard with 1 PCI Slot (which you will be using for the SATA card) and 1x PCI-Express Mini Slot which cannot be used by anything useful to a NAS.

So basically 1 will restrict the maximum speeds you get and rebuild time. 2 however is the big problem, the integrated LAN card on the D510MO motherboard is a Realtek. They don't work well in any of the NAS operating systems. During my own personal benchmarking with a much more powerful system I got around 25-30mb/s sustained over Gigabit LAN with a RealTek card VS. 65-70mb/s sustained over Gigabit LAN with a Intel Pro/1000 GT card. And yes, just changing that card made that big of a difference. On the RealTek card small files could even go as low as 15mb/s (MP3's) VS 60mb/s on the Intel. Some people may not mind but I have a LOT of files (4TB to be exact).

Naturally your situation may be different so come post again when it is all setup and post your performance figures. Just remember that the sustained rate I got was by coping 70GB of data over Gigabit LAN onto a Samba share. Your experience may be different with other types of transfer. However Samba is what Windows/Linux/Mac all use for their file sharing so you pretty much have to rely on it. Also read speeds where identical to write speeds in all my test cases (or close to it).
 
Well, seems like you don't really need help after all :)

I'm building the little system to use as photo-backup for my soon to be father-in-law.
He basically just wants to copy photo's there every now and then.

Bad to hear about Raid-Z then, but I think we're OK with that, actually want no RAID at all.

Anyways, if you aren't going to use an optical drive in it, you would be able to fit 6, maybe 7 drives in a Lian-Li v352, but you may need to mod it slightly.
 
Frag said:
Well, seems like you don't really need help after all :)
Click to expand...
Except finding a nice case ;)

Frag said:
Bad to hear about Raid-Z then, but I think we're OK with that, actually want no RAID at all.
Click to expand...
Ah, but I think the Atom would be limited by the onboard LAN before it would be limited by CPU performance. Based on what I saw online. I'd still recommend you have some form of RAID. Remember RAID5 and RAID-Z1 you get the space of N-1 drives (N being the amount of drives). 3 minimum needed. Not a bad compromise considering a single, complete hard-drive failure is recoverable!

I wouldn't want to lose anything, not sure about your soon to be father-in-law.

Frag said:
Anyways, if you aren't going to use an optical drive in it, you would be able to fit 6, maybe 7 drives in a Lian-Li v352, but you may need to mod it slightly.
Click to expand...
Doesn't have an optical drive, when you set it up you should also disable anything you don't plan to use. eg. onboard audio, onboard parallel port, etc. Makes diagnosing problems much simpler, probably cuts down on power and those things aren't being used anyway in a NAS environment.
 
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