this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2023
25 points (93.1% liked)

Selfhosted

40716 readers
454 users here now

A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

Rules:

  1. Be civil: we're here to support and learn from one another. Insults won't be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.

  2. No spam posting.

  3. Posts have to be centered around self-hosting. There are other communities for discussing hardware or home computing. If it's not obvious why your post topic revolves around selfhosting, please include details to make it clear.

  4. Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or github here. Just post the link for folks to click.

  5. Submission headline should match the article title (don’t cherry-pick information from the title to fit your agenda).

  6. No trolling.

Resources:

Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.

Questions? DM the mods!

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
25
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/selfhosted
 

I'm looking for a suggestion for compact-ish NAS cases. I only have a few drives, 4 at the moment, so I don't need a ton of space. But I'd like to downsize without getting a brand new motherboard and PSU it possible (both are ATX at the moment).

My main requirement is being able to install and uninstall drives without worrying about cable management.

Thanks!

top 35 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

As ITX was already mentioned I just built mine using Fractal Node 304 case, in black though. You could keep the ATX power supply.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Check out the Jonsbo N1 on NewEgg. It's pretty popular among NAS DIYers.

[–] tyvsmith 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I have one of these and it's worked pretty well after some mods for cooling better.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

My NAS case is a retro mid-tower ATX that I got at a swap meet. It's all black and no scratches. Come to think of it, my whole home lab consists of 3 Frankenstein computers and one OptiPlex 7050 that's handling my routing needs. 😆

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What cooling mods did you do?

[–] tyvsmith 1 points 1 year ago

Removed the front metal panel so it's all mesh. Replaced front fan with a 3000 rpm notcua. Zip tied a 14cm notcua over the mobo.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

This and the N3 look fantastic. I was kind of hoping I could keep my mATX mobo and ATX PSU though, and both are ITX

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

You might be able to? I'm not familar with the N3.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

You can also evaluate to buy something like this for 3.5 or 2.5inch disks.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Check out ASrock's Deskmini A300 or X300. They are barebones setups with Mini-STX motherboards. Space for two 2.5" hdd and two m.2 slots as well.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

My Synology is barely bigger than the 4 3.5 inch drives it houses.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It was my understanding that Synology products came with the rest of the computer parts as well. Is that true?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

They are very locked down it should be said, so you have to fully buy into the Synology ecosystem (can't replace the host OS).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Yeah, they're a complete solution. OS and everything

[–] rambos 1 points 1 year ago

All compact atx cases were too expensive for my liking, so I decided to make one. I should probably not suggest a case made of plastic, but if you have access to a 3D printer check this out. 288x207x343 mm in size and it can house full size ATX mobo and PSU and 3x 3.5" or 7x 2.5". Colling is silent and good, but I didnt test with more powerfull CPU or 3.5 HDDs

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Oh man I just said in another thread we need a HomeLab here, give it a Google - they have a pretty good discord if you want to avoid the Reddit

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

...but I want to avoid Discord, too...

[–] Teckovsky 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

[email protected] which is the OG migrated community from r/homelab but with the future of lemmy.ml in question, might move or consolidate to another instance soon.

[email protected]

[email protected]

[–] spez_ 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I got an Argon Eon case with a Raspberry Pi 4, but I'm regretting it because for some off reason my file transfer speeds via SMB are abysmal. I do have a heap of services selfhosted on the Pi and otherwise it's okay

Edit: If someone was able to get fast transfer speeds via SMB on a Raspberry Pi, I'd like to know how. If the speeds can be increased, my NAS would be perfect

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

This is interesting since I was planning on making my own RPi4 nas in the near future. Am I seeing correctly from the image that you have 1 (or 2?) 3,5" HDDs connected to some kind of HAT for the RPi (which has SATA connectors probably)?

What speeds are you getting now?

My plan was to connect 2x16TB HDDs to the pi through a USB->SATA cable, which probably is an even less stable setup than yours is but I was hoping it would be enough to do some basic NAS stuff.
I was also planning on using OpenMediaVault like you are.

[–] spez_ 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I have two 3,5" HDDs connected as well as two SSDs (installed after the picture). They're connected via a USB dongle (through the back, so all drives go via USB 3.)

The issue I'm facing is that I only get 10MB/s, even though I should be getting more, even through a USB 3 interface. I'm going to try the suggested SMB configuration from another user and report back shortly

Your setup should be similar to mine. If you get good speeds, I'd love to know. OpenMediaVault is wonderful too - it's simple and gets the job done. But for my system there's no RAID, although that doesn't bother me because 1 HDD is primary, and 1 HDD is backup

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Ah so your setup is almost exactly as what I had planned :D (I'll use 1 SSD instead of 2 though, to be used as boot drive). I haven't made the box yet, probably in a few months.

Thank you for the reply!
Please do post your updates somewhere in this thread, I'm sure they'll come in handy when I start building my box.

[–] randombullet 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What software are you using

[–] spez_ 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm using all these, plus OpenMediaVault as the NAS operating system

[–] randombullet 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Try this in your SMB settings in OMV.

socket options = TCP_NODELAY SO_RCVBUF=65536
SO_SNDBUF=65536
read raw = yes
write raw = yes
max xmit = 65535
dead time = 15
min receivefile size = 16384
write cache size = 524288
getwd cache = yes
max connections = 65535
max open files = 65535
min protocol = smb3
max protocol = smb3
[–] spez_ 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

It's possibly a hardware limitation. This is my settings

socket options = TCP_NODELAY SO_RCVBUF=65536 SO_SNDBUF=65536
read raw = yes
write raw = yes
max xmit = 65535
dead time = 15
min receivefile size = 16384
write cache size = 524288
getwd cache = yes
max connections = 65535
max open files = 65535

server multi channel support = yes
allocation roundup size = 1048576
aio max threads = 100
aio read size = 1 
aio write size = 1

server min protocol = SMB3_11
client ipc min protocol = SMB3_11
[–] randombullet 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] spez_ 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] randombullet 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

See if seachest is compatible with your drives. I think it's only compatible with Exos.

Also are you running through USB?

[–] spez_ 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes all devices are through USB 3

[–] randombullet 1 points 1 year ago

USB inherently has latency issues and protocol overhead. Seems like you're restricted to hardware unfortunately.

load more comments
view more: next ›