Ncase - nas

Do you want a fellow Ncase for your storage!

  • Yes! - lets get to it!

    Votes: 14 42.4%

  • No! - idc.. fml..

    Votes: 19 57.6%
  • Total voters
    33
  • Poll closed .
M

moreempty

n00b
Joined
Aug 14, 2013
Messages
18
OK, i know its problably posted already,, but my dear little Ncase needs a fellow storage Nas/plex server.

And, ofc all chassis like the new silverstone 8 bay, si ugly compared to my Ncase'

so lets vote for a Nas chassis by Ncase, 8bays or 12 or something,, and minimalistic design!

Option 1. Yes, lets make them do it!
Option 2. Na, ill just build my own crap in the silverstone steelbox..
 
I'd never liked "dual" cases, just like people were doing with early watercooling and phasechange in those Chieftec cases.

Most NAS's are also placed out of sight or atleast not close to the PC. Mine does because it's a modded PowerMac G5 and I have nowhere else to put it, but I don't consider myself to be the norm. I wouldn't be interested in a "NAScase M1" though.
 
So why pay 150$ for a ds380 or a bit less for a fractal.. Its still nicer to have a ncase version even if its not up for display.. The only good nascases out there are bundled with inferior hardware and look like plastic shit? But maybe all ncase owners used their old cases for server/nas and stored it in the basement.. ;)
 
I'd definitely buy a smaller NCASE NAS-specific case (though, technically, the current M1 could be used as one).

Been planning on buying a Synology DS412+ to replace my DNS-321, but a 4 to 8-bay mini M1 clone would be pretty sweet.

And besides an NCASE NAS, I'd also buy an NCASE NUC and HTPC case if it matched the M1 :)
 
Ok, makes me feel like I'm in this Ncase sekrit elite club as I sit here laughing at all the wannabe plebs with their Prodigies, 250D and Sugo cases.
 
Based on the time and effort it took to bring the Ncase to market, this seems like a waste of time for such a niche product.
 
cowsgomoo said:
Ok, makes me feel like I'm in this Ncase sekrit elite club as I sit here laughing at all the wannabe plebs with their Prodigies, 250D and Sugo cases.
Click to expand...

Lol, and don't forget our special NCASE Elite Club secret handshake! :cool:

Dunno.. the M1 is just a very well thought-out design, nicely built with quality materials, and incredibly pleasing to the eye. Don't see why a similar formula couldn't be applied to other form-factors, given the demand.

Honestly, kinda wish Necere would just do design work directly for Lian Li.. probably a better chance of seeing more stuff like this actually happen.
 
The issue with any design is we need to have enough interest to get the orders for a volume production run. It's a little hard to see doing that with a niche product like a NAS chassis. There are lots on the market already (including quite a few made by Lian Li themselves). Hard to see how we could differentiate it enough to justify the premium and wait.
 
My main complaint about nas cases, and I have a q25, is that they all seem to operate under the delusion that I want a gaming class video card. When What I really want is a quiet case that can cool a non overclocked whatever processor, and have plenty of hotswap bays.

The silverstone case while nice, seems to be hysterically poorly designed, the pictures with the asrock 12/sata mobo drives the point home.

If you compare that against actual commercial nas unit, you understand how poorly designed they are.
However, the DAS380 is a "better" design than the q25.

Also, if you're buying one of these, it's mostly because you want more power and bays that you could get in a comparably priced synology/qnap/drobo/settinel unit.

So for the people who aren't running freenas, or qnology, the usage case will probably be 1 or 2 drives (ssd or laptop mechanical) for some sort of management software (WHS, 2012r2, or some linux distribution). Most will be using low power drives, and the vast majority will limit themselves to whatever onboard ports are on the motherboard they chose.

Very few people (i'm one of them), will be using more than 5 mechanical drives.

I'd like to see a case that's modular by design, meaning that You have on section that's just for the motheboard, sfx/tfx/ psu and itx or matx mobo. The width or height will be limited to accommodating a low profile video card, and probably a pair of 2.5" drives. The mechanical section can be expandable in say 8 or 10 3.5" bays, where there are a pair of 120mm fans behind the drives. If you need more than 8 or 10 bays, you add an additional drive rack, and screw it into the side of the case.

Sometimes I think the marketing department spends too much time telling the engineers what to design.
 
Last edited:
avddreamr said:
My main complaint about nas cases, and I have a q25, is that they all seem to operate under the delusion that I want a gaming class video card. When What I really want is a quiet case that can cool a non overclocked whatever processor, and have plenty of hotswap bays.

The silverstone case while nice, seems to be hysterically poorly designed, the pictures with the asrock 12/sata mobo drives the point home.
Click to expand...
What picture do you mean ? It's not on the Silverstone website.

I also don't get your problem with the video card, in many cases the space is for HBA's, that NAS configurations over 4 disks often use, especially with ZFS.

avddreamr said:
If you compare that against actual commercial nas unit, you understand how poorly designed they are.
However, the DAS380 is a "better" design than the q25.

Also, if you're buying one of these, it's mostly because you want more power and bays that you could get in a comparably priced synology/qnap/drobo/settinel unit.
Click to expand...
The barebone NAS systems like Synology and QNAP also don't need to support a lot of different motherboards with different socket placements, different CPU coolers, HBA controllers and basically standardized hardware.

You should only build your own NAS if you really need something specific that the barebones can't deliver, like ZFS or expandable hardware. Because they are usually a lot easier to install, configure and have a lower running cost (buy price + power bill).

avddreamr said:
So for the people who aren't running freenas, or qnology, the usage case will probably be 1 or 2 drives (ssd or laptop mechanical) for some sort of management software (WHS, 2012r2, or some linux distribution). Most will be using low power drives, and the vast majority will limit themselves to whatever onboard ports are on the motherboard they chose.
Click to expand...
Why are saying most people will probably be using one or two drive 2,5" drives for a NAS ? Most NAS'es, even the simple ones from Western Digital for example, are 3,5" drives. SSD's are extreme overkill for most NAS usage cases. You aren't making any sense.

avddreamr said:
Very few people (i'm one of them), will be using more than 5 mechanical drives.

I'd like to see a case that's modular by design, meaning that You have on section that's just for the motheboard, sfx/tfx/ psu and itx or matx mobo. The width or height will be limited to accommodating a low profile video card, and probably a pair of 2.5" drives. The mechanical section can be expandable in say 8 or 10 3.5" bays, where there are a pair of 120mm fans behind the drives. If you need more than 8 or 10 bays, you add an additional drive rack, and screw it into the side of the case.

Sometimes I think the marketing department spends too much time telling the engineers what to design.
Click to expand...
So for the very few people (!) you want a very specific case that's not even possible (as high as a low profile GPU but with multiple 120mm fans behind the drives) and expandable. Why would you need a dedicated GPU on a NAS ? Most are headless anyway, since configuration is done through a web interface, SSH or a remote console solution like vSphere Client. That space is meant for an HBA or DVR card.

You should look at the U-NAS NSC-800 as it already has most of the requirements you want.
 
Phuncz said:
What picture do you mean ? It's not on the Silverstone website.

I also don't get your problem with the video card, in many cases the space is for HBA's, that NAS configurations over 4 disks often use, especially with ZFS.
Click to expand...

You're right, it's not... but here's an example
8FXZvHI.jpg


Phuncz said:
The barebone NAS systems like Synology and QNAP also don't need to support a lot of different motherboards with different socket placements, different CPU coolers, HBA controllers and basically standardized hardware.

You should only build your own NAS if you really need something specific that the barebones can't deliver, like ZFS or expandable hardware. Because they are usually a lot easier to install, configure and have a lower running cost (buy price + power bill).
Click to expand...

I have an m1015, and most HBA's that I have seen, have a low profile option, and aren't longer than an itx motherboard.

Phuncz said:
Why are saying most people will probably be using one or two drive 2,5" drives for a NAS ? Most NAS'es, even the simple ones from Western Digital for example, are 3,5" drives. SSD's are extreme overkill for most NAS usage cases. You aren't making any sense.
Click to expand...
What I mean, is this... for the people that aren't using a usb bootable O/S,
they are typically using a SSD, or a laptop drive. A Commerical Unit like the WD sentinel
uses a pair of 2.5" drives in RAID-0 to host the OS.
My usage model is a single ssd runing server 2012 r2.
It's unlikely that there will be a usage model that requires 4 2.5" drives, and for the enthusiast market, I have noticed judging by the build logs, and the 70 or so small servers that I have built, end up having at most 2 2.5" drives that are not dedicated primarily to storage.
1 ssd or a pair of laptop drives for raid 1 to boot WHS or SBE.

Very few of these people that I have built systems for end up needing more than 5 data drives.



Phuncz said:
So for the very few people (!) you want a very specific case that's not even possible (as high as a low profile GPU but with multiple 120mm fans behind the drives) and expandable. Why would you need a dedicated GPU on a NAS ? Most are headless anyway, since configuration is done through a web interface, SSH or a remote console solution like vSphere Client. That space is meant for an HBA or DVR card.
Click to expand...

Exactly, I have never placed a gpu on what was a dedicated server. In the few instances where it was a home installation and the client ended up with a htpc/nas... then there was a video card, however most of these clients ended up going with multiple htpcs and then one dedicated server. Either they were dissapointed with wmc extender performance, or plex while great on a roku, didn't compare to xbmc on a dedicated box.

Regarding my description of my ideal design.
I mean you have one compartment that essentially houses 1 itx motherboard, 1 sfx or tfx psu, 1 low profile pcie card, and a space to mount 1 or two 2.5" hdds. Using an extender cable for the hba card could optimize the space

So let's say you choose a tfx psu or it's bundled with the case (350w should do for most usage cases).
It can be on the bottom of the case, running along the length of the of the itx board,
Mount the motherboard a few mm away from the bottom of the psu, to allow sufficient clearance for a let's say a 180mm fan (Crap if I'm silverstone), so you can cool the motherboard and the hba, in conjunction with a low profile cooler if you're not using the asrock motherboard.

The motherboard can then have sufficient height to clear a low profile hba adapter, and have around 8-9 inches of depth to cover it's length.
Place one or two 2.5 drives in front of the motherboard.

So in a space of say 11" high x 10 in depth x4 width we can accommodate that. Chances are that can be shrunk further.

Create another area that attaches to the unit, that houses a pair of 120mm fans, sucking air out of a stack of 8 hot swap bays or whatever you can fit. This can be doubled up.

I'll probably spend some time in sketchup during the week, to better illustrate this.

Phuncz said:
You should look at the U-NAS NSC-800 as it already has most of the requirements you want.
Click to expand...

1u psus, generally aren't very quiet. Or at least that has been my personal experience.
 
Last edited:
What about the Lian-li Q-18 / Q-25? I think those cases are quite adequate for NAS duty. The strength of the ncase is big cooling in a small package.
 
Phuncz said:
You should look at the U-NAS NSC-800 as it already has most of the requirements you want.
Click to expand...

+1 I just moved from a Fractal 304 to the U-NAS 800 with 1U 400w PSU. It's dead silent with 2 big fans, 6 drives and PSU. Great case.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top