Good NAS case - suggestions?

sphinx99

[H]ard|Gawd
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Dec 23, 2006
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I'm looking to build a NAS unit. I don't expect this case to exist, but I am hoping I am wrong and one of you has seenone:

1. Small. mini-ITX.

2. Many 3.5" drive bays... perhaps 8.

3. Enough space for two adapters. SATA ports, Wifi adapter.

I have not seen an elegant design and suspect either the market just is not there for such a unit, or the packaging would be too difficult. Eight WD GP drives don't need a ton of active cooling, and a mini-ITX running an efficient CPU is going to be enough to run WHS or FreeNAS or OpenSolaris without difficulty. One PCI or PCIe slot for flexibility (say, a wireless adapter) and one PCI or PCIe for a controller.

Basically, I'm trying to see what it would take to replicate a Drobo Pro for personal use in a somewhat similar form factor.

I know exactly how I'd do it if size were not a constraint. What I have not seen is an enclosure tailor made to this application, e.g. not much empty space, tight drive packing, no 5.25" drive bay nonsense, etc.

Suggestions?
 
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well first things first...mini itx will limit your expansion. I am almost certain the spec only allows room for one expansion slot. With that said you can still buy an 8port SATA controller and manage your desired # of drives.

The problem is with the cases. Cases designed for mini-itx boards tend to limit the expansion slots. You can throw it in a larger case as the form factor will allow for proper mounting but now you have lots of wasted space.

I think the Via NSD-7800 is as close as you are going to get without actually buying a drobo
 
That is a pretty cool NAS. If you have loads of cash you could buy 5.25" to four 2.5" hard drive adapters and find a case that has a regular sized 5.25" bay or two. That'll be more expensive though, and you'll cut down on your storage space some.
 
Thanks everyone for the tips. I agree, some good suggestions, sadly there don't seem to be many higher count drive bay NAS enclosures out there.
 
not sure about the size difference but I plan on using a panzerbox and my AMS 5in3 sata backplane. That will get me 5 and it also has 4 more internal. Perfect for my 8 channel hw raid and one boot drive. It also has plenty of room even though it's shortened due to the position of the p/s. it's gonna be a little tricky finding a mini-itx case that holds ton of drives. If you get a case with 6 x 5.25" you can use 2 x 5in3's and whatever internal drives it has space for.
 
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Panzerbox is just as big as an Antec Super Lanboy. But twice the weight.
I wish it was smaller in size as I would actually consider moving into something smaller to hold 8-9 hdds.
 
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