Home-Friendly DIY Homelab Server - The DIY 8-Bay Server
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The pinnacle of homelabbers is the home rack. It means you have enough equipment and projects to dedicate an entire room of your house to the hobby. Congratulations, you did it!
But every homelab needs to start somewhere, but even the most humble of setups need a place to live without annoying everyone who lives with you.
Today, we're building a DIY 8-Bay NAS and Virtualization Server that should be more than enough to run homelab services, and be quiet enough to keep in the house.
Links to items below may be affiliate links for which I may be compensated
AUDHEID 8-Bay NAS Chassis: amzn.to/47iCsxb
ERYING i7-11700B 8-Core (Non-ES): s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_Dci...
Leven DDR4 2x16GB 2666 UDIMM: amzn.to/3OmCnjv
Flex ATX 1U 500 Watt: amzn.to/3Qw9EeB
Silicon Power A60 1TB: amzn.to/44XANM1
ASM1064 8-Bay SATA Controller w/ Cables: amzn.to/3KAqULZ
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Music: Fromage by Steven OBrien
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Does Babble offer klingon?
21:24 Would a pair of Silverstone's ultra low profile (SST-CP11B-500) SATA Cables work for the two side slots? Or is the available clearance so minuscule it would require more Dremel work? That said, for all the headaches regarding this case, I'd probably go with a Silverstone NAS (CS380B-X V2.0) case for 40 bucks more as the saved juice ($) isn't worth the squeeze.
It seems that my previous post was deleted. I suggested that @CraftComputing, and random viewers/readers take a look at the "Silverstone DS380", I won't drop the link in case that was why my post was deleted, it's very easy to find. Positives: Well built, has a (SATA drive) compatible SAS backplane, can use SAS drives as well as SATA drives, uses SFX PSU's, uses full height cards and full height CPU coolers. Negatives: MUST use a SAS HBA card to connect to the backplane, SAS HBA cards are readily available second hand and inexpensive so do not panic, but do a bit of research before buying, doesn't have a nice looking mock-wood facia, costs more than the case in the video.
I'm picking up some of those "ADT" M.2 > PCIe x4 slot "extension cables" from Aliexpress for my Erying machines. That PCIe 3.0x4 M.2 hanging off the chipset seems like a great place to put a high-speed network card. PCIe 3.0x4 is ~30Gbit so you technically can't max out a 40Gbit card. But it should be MORE than good enough. This let's us keep the x16 slot for other stuff. Something like a ConnectX-3 card is only going to draw like 10W, so even a sketchy SATA>PCIe power adapter should be totally fine. The only thing I'm REALLY missing from these Erying boards (other than propper passthrough) is the ability to bifurcate that x16. The iGPU is great for transcoding, so you don't really need a dGPU if it's not going to be a gaming machine. But being able to slam in a $15 x4/x4/x4/x4 card full of cheap SSDs would make this a MUCH nicer NAS.
You do have 4 SATA port on the mother right? Will Proxmox care? Maybe you can get the case closed at least?
I've commented before about how you tend to leave out information about noise in your builds. Majority of folks out there don't have access to a rack in a garage. This is a refreshing change that seems much more relatable.
My content goes in waves. I'm trying to focus on entry/rackless homelab for the rest of the year.
@@CraftComputing that might be an idea... Include a db reading in your reviews, i do not think anyone else does that....
@@CraftComputing that's my next project! We gotta ditch the "cloud" and keep our data ourselves
@@pharmdiddy5120 remember that you will still need an off-site backup for true redundancy. storage NOT at your property. you can have 1000 backups at your house, but if it catches fire, it's all gone.
@@pharmdiddy5120 Maybe not totally ditch... you could still use cloud options for data backup just in case, with the 3-2-1 rule adhered to, by safely enciphering and pushing your data to some glacial cloud speed storages/backup solutions, unless of course you can afford to have a clone of your base unit stored elsewhere, eg. with another member of a family or a friend, to sync content with...
To be fair the first item on the Amazon "about" section of the chassis states: "There are three installation combinations of hard drives and power supplies: 8 HDD + FLEX Power Supply, 6 HDD + SFX-L/SFX Power Supply, 4 HDD + ATX Power Supply." and it's reiterated in the description section with all the pretty photos.
You could just use the motherboard's onboard SATA ports in place of the top two on the add on card. I have an add in card in one of my DIY NAS's and had to use some onboard ports and it works just fine in Proxmox, TrueNAS and xpenology. Then you'd be able to put that small cover on.
Came to say the same. If it had been a nice LSI RAID controller, sure I'd use only the ports on the card. For a basic SATA port, unless there was something wrong with the 4 onboard, use 2-4 of those and 4-6 from the AIC.
I'm not sure it would have helped. The low profile card sticks out of the top even without cables plugged in. I'd probably use a PCIe riser cable and lay the sata card down across the board, then fashion a metal bracket to hold it up.
@@T3hBeowulf There's always Dremel. 😉
As a German Trekkie and homelabber with too much screentime spent on KZhead: The ad was great!
Man, I was hoping that would work. Seemed like a cool idea for a demo machine. I think going the LSI route for the drives will be better in the long run.
LSI are pcie x4 so would have to use the x16 slot
@@djole02 the lsi i have is 8 lane. its a sas one though.
@@dookiemanethats kinda overkill for 8 of anything not datacenter grade 🤣🤣 no way you saturate that x8 right?
@@Bixmyits got 8x 8tb seagate sas drives in Z2 with 2 for redundancy equaling about 42TB of storage. and then I'm using my old 4x8tb sata drives as a second z2 pool backup with like ~13tb of storage. I am fully saturating most of the pcie lanes on the whole computer. why you may ask? cuz I can lol. its a backup server for all of my things as well as a game server on a diff VM/vlan. even my gaming rig has like 9tb of storage(albeit SSD) im a storage whore lol
Since watching your first video about the Erying Motherboard, I purchased an i9 version and have been running it as my daily driver for the past 4 months, zero problems and absolutely love the performance.
I picked up a 9207-8i SAS Host Bus Adapter off of Ebay for under $40, complete with 2 4-drive cables that attach to the end of the card. This would work beautifully in your case.
I was going to say exactly this. Just to add: make sure that the HBA is, or can be flashed to, IT mode; as some of them can do RAID, and that is not what you want for ZFS
The problem is, you can't put raid controllers like that or P420 in a PCIe x1 slots. My solution would be a PCIe x1 nvme card with a nvme to miniSAS card from IOCREST, or ditching one of the SSDs and using it for the card
This was a fantastic video! The realism alone is beautiful. When you are building something like this there tends to always be issues like these that come up. I imagine many creators would have called this a loss and not made the video at all for any number of these issues. I am glad the video happened anyway, this may not even be a bad case if you go into it knowing it's a base for modification.
@CraftComputing I was looking at that case for a NAS. I am so glad i didn't choose it. I would have been so disappointed. Thank you so much for all you do for the community.
That Erying i9 11900 motherboard has been fantastic. I had some hiccups in setting it up but after it was done. No trouble running my steam games at all. Good job! Love your channel.
I did a similar build a few years ago for my living room PC using the Fractal Design Node 804 case. I love the look of it but it's also so practical, fitting a standard ATX PSU and full height expansion cards. It also has movable motherboard standoffs!!!
I also love my node 804. It's so well designed. Also after one year of uptime there's absolutely no dust inside.
Even though the 804's design is close to 10 years old now, it's still the best NAS case.
Since I work in IT I am usually running ESXi, but I have ran them all except XCP-ng. Just did a new build with it and I am loving it!
Fun video to watch - I often share similar frustrations about hardware. On a $200 case I'd expect total reconfiguration of the internal layout possible. Sacrificing drive bays to fit a PSU is ridiculous. Thank you for sharing those pains. These little Erying boards are pretty neat, I'll have to take a look at them!
Hi Jeff! That motherboard is still really interesting 😀. I love the idea of the low power and included igpu. I've got an AMD 3700x for my home server build, and I intentionally used it, so my "server" and main pc are on the same platform and can share parts. But having an igpu would be awesome, so I didn't need a gtx1030 in there for occasional video out. It is awesome to see a back to basics build again ❤. I hope you keep having fun.
An accurate representation of the pitfalls and shortcomings involved with fitting so much appealing hardware in such a small space! Don't be frustrated, it was informative and entertaining!
Jeff, I LOVED this video for not only the content, but because most of it you were just adlibbing. When you aren't reading from a prompt, your natural voice comes out and your videos don't feel like the news, but more like I'm just hanging out with you and learning something new or going over something I already knew but perhaps with a different spin.
I'm so glad you took the plunge on this case. I've been wanting to do the same, and with all the issues you have, I'll be looking for something else
You're a very detail oriented person. The thing looks beautiful, despite all your fitment issues.
I love that we get to see to probloms you have. Glad to know it's not just me with these builds.
i really loved the way you have presented this video , while most of the youtubers out there only showing us the end result or only the successful part of their content you are explaining showing us all the negatives stuffs happen in technical side, and yeah i learnt alot form your video, hope you'll come up with more lessons in future
I wish Silverstone would make their cases more available. I got a DS380B and it's been perfect for a tiny homelab. Sucks it only takes a mini ITX motherboards tho. This case had so much potential, hopefully you can tweak it to work!
I've also got a DS380B, but I've modified mine - since my Supermicro mini-ITX motherboard doesn't have USB 3.0, the front pane cabling has been removed. And, I filed a "V" in the bottom channel on the door, that sits over the pivot-post - so I can lift the door up a little and remove it from the case. For the OS, I'm using the NVME slot on the MB, and one of the MB SATA ports. For the NAS, I'm using 4 MB SATA ports, and the 4 ports on a low profile HBA card. I do have a bifurcation adapter for the MB, to allow several HBA cards, but that will have to wait until I move the MB into a different case (with more slots).
@@dbaldock9 when i grew out of my DS380B, i scored a new old-stock 10th gen atx motherboard. my nas is an i3-10300.
I've got a Rosewill 4U rackmount case sitting on top of a wooden wardrobe. Heavy as can be! It is huge on the inside and has hot-swappable drive bays. The stock fans were a bit finicky, but it runs silent. My original purpose for it was to run GPUs, but it evolved into a TrueNAS box. This case now sells for 4 times as much as I paid for it 4 years ago.
I was looking at this case a lot recently and instead went with the node 304. Very happy
Thanks for checking this case out. I’ve had it on a watch list on Amazon for over a year and was considering it for a more compact case than the full tower I’ve been using. Looks like I’ll be looking for something else. Might just shell out a bit more for the hot swap silverstone chassis like the CS381 or CS280, or perhaps a bit less for the fractal node 804.
I can vouch for the 804, the lack of the hotswap sucks but everything else is damn fine. I've actually got a 850W 80+ Ti in it with a full Noctua tower and a 1660 Super. I just had to make a deal with myself to swap a cold spare whenever I get a failure right then. Probably takes 15 minutes max total.
@@j_ferguson I was thinking of throwing 8x14TB Exos drives in Z2. With 2 x 2.5” SATA SSDs for boot. Then migrate my current NAS data over, add in my PCIe cache drive, and dual SFP+ 10Gb X520 card. Then reuse my older NAS drives for a steam cache in a much smaller case. Or maybe pop them in a small 1U case in my network rack.
@@catalystguitarguy big beefy spinning rust. I only have 4x 12tb Red Plus right now in Z1 with one as a cold spare. Eventual upgrade to 8. No need for 2.5's for me, nvme is cheap as dirt and doesn't use my limited SATA ports. All mobo, no need to worry about the card going balls up and pissing in my zpool.
@@j_ferguson nice. I have 8 x 4TB WD Reds, the CMR ones and 4 x 2TB seagate firecuda drives, along with 4 x 1TB patriot SATA SSDs, currently in my NAS. Wanting to condense the 3 separate pools into 1 much larger Pool in a much smaller chassis. My spinning drives have been running since about 2016, and I’d like to repurpose them before they start failing for a steam cache that’s less critical than my primary storage. I’ve got the really important stuff on a cold copy in an external drive I keep stored in a fireproof safe with a duplicate kept at my sister’s place across town. 3, 2, 1 is what I try to maintain.
There isn't a problem with this case. Its the cheap motherboard he chose that's caused all his problems. Also if he had used proper server sata cables the fans wouldn't have been an issue. He shot himself in the foot and blamed the gun.
Powerman power supplies! I sold a lot of those 15 years ago when I worked at a computer store. They are truly a solid low power output unit that will hold up for a very long time.
I really do love these diy Server videos. Thanks Jeff.
I bought the exact same case, found the same things. The fans I inverted the fan enclosure to outside instead of inside. :D
I have to say that might be the perfect case for a Home NAS! Cheers! Thanks for the recommendation!
I’m glad to see more Erying content! Thanks for the video!
I have that kind of run time! 4th gen i7 though. Kind of apples to oranges, but you wanted to hear about it so there you go! Nice video.
Thanks for another great video dealing with this sort of build! Reminds me of the journey I took to get an R710 to operate as a NAS... Eventually got it to a state that it will happily run TrueNAS and ZFS, but it was a bumpy journey.
im running a t710 on win10 as our massive media server, since i had licenses sitting around. 12 core, 72gb, quad gig ethernet, 8 bays supporting 8tb ea after a PERC upgrade, it's been a monster. dead stable for 5 years running, and it was well "loved" when i got it already. for the money, it's extremely hard to beat for sheer reliability
I've seen this case several times online and been curious, thanks for satisfying that curiosity.
After your first video on that mobo I was looking to upgrade my home server. I got one and it's been 100% uptime without any issues since it arrived.
Surprisingly enjoyable, because of all the hurdles you had to overcome
YES! I'm so happy you found the case I've been looking for...searching for years....wait what...that's no good....but surely I can use all 8 drives in this 8-bay case....WHAT...and there's more.....aaahhhh.....the search continues. At least I'm not the only one losing his mind.
Great parts selection Jeff!
When you first showed the case I thought it looked beautiful and with 8 bays and ATX PSU support it was great but alas, then the downsides came banging down the doors.
Its not really the downsides. The isn't a budget case and he tried to fit a budget build in it. He wanted to have his cake and eat it too. You cant afford a Flex ATX, ok that cool but you have to sacrifice bays to build it cheaper, but then just use higher capacity drives. Buy an actual server motherboard and 99% of his problems go away.
@@SimpleEnigma331 True indeed, I just thought the case looked good and seeing as I can't spend a ton on a server and don't have a place to put it, something like this which looks good and could be standing in the livingroom without being an eye sore was right up my alley but yes, problems would be fewer if you use server hardware :)
I don't think it's fair to say there are no downsides with this case. It does seem to have a bunch of wasted space and it does seem to be fairly poorly thought out with things just not fitting.
@@dgan2304 I agree, there are too many downsides and I said as much too, maybe not in so many words and I apologize for any misunderstanding, english is not my primary language. Regardless I think the case looks good but yes, there are many downsides as you also point out.
$200 is budget for a server enclosure with hot-swap trays and backplane integrated. My criticism around the power supply was there is plenty of space up to to install an SFX without impacting drive trays.
You should check out the U-NAS 800 or U-NAS 810 cases. They do what you’re looking for and they don’t suck.
All of the 8 bay unas cases are flex ATX psus only.
I built one of the Erying mobos in a U-NAS 810A case about a week before that new Audheid case was released and have been wishing that I waited since then. The 4 half height slots for PCIe cards and 80mm of cooler clearance height sounds great compared to the 2 horizontal PCIe slots that require ribbon cable extenders and the 52mm max cooler height on the U-NAS chassis. I do like the build quality and the fit and finish, but I still wonder if the Audheid would be better. @CraftComputing hasn't quite convinced me that it would be a bad case to build in. Oh, and you have to get rid of the extra standoff in the U-NAS case as well for this motherboard.
just have to say i love the LTX custom yellow and green LTT screw driver you made
I’ve watched this several times as I am working towards my own homelab build. I think I figured out why you were having so many problems. You made one crucial mistake. No beer. Rookie move.
I'd like to see more builds like this. Finding an actually well thought out case with 8 drive bays and an ATX power supply, with the looks of this would have been awesome. Additionally, im abit disappointed with my beam, the air is great but im just getting so many issues with my deck
Klingon with Christian was golden, not having him in the video later was a let down. "I will make it work" = "money pit"
Love the Bable intro they own you big time for that add. Most add I have a BS filture for and that made the way in.
Oh wow, I just learned about this case last week and spent all weekend contemplating a build for one! I absolutely love that wood panel! Shame you had so much trouble with it. The caveat about the PSU size is worded in the most akward way on the Amazon page, it really threw me off at first. And I've read reviews of the other Audheid cases that mention that the insides don't have great engineering and can be a hassle to build in. I've been eyeing an Asus Rack Ryzen mATX board that does have 8 SATA ports (and ECC support!). It's not cheap, but at least I shouldn't have to worry about space as much. It was great getting to watch you take the case apart, it answered a lot of questions I've had about it.
Sometimes you learn more by failing. If you build a PC/Server and everything works just fine did you learn anything or did you just put it together?
That's good one actually.
You learned that combo works
Might’ve learned something prior to putting it together… or learned something during building by seeing obvious ways in which errors will occur. Failing is a great way to learn if the consequences are minimal.
Currently dealing with the failing 😂
I’d say yes and no. You can learn A LOT just from taking the extra time to research and plan before you buy and build.
Seeing how the DIY NAS/Homelab is "mainstream" again (thanks to the competition in CPU market maybe?), I really hope sometime in the future Fractal (or someone else) will do a proper version of a case like this. Both node 304 and 804 are excellent cases, but I think now is the perfect time to release an update/successor to those (my 304 is at least 6 years old now). Since I live in an apartment and I don't have a garage (for a server rack, ofc), this kind of build would make more sense to me (oh god, I have to be strong and convince myself, that I don't need another home server... :'D), but at the same time, I also like the whole "used enterprise equipment" thingy. So keep up the good work, I really appreciate your content. Plus I really like that your builds do not always work as planned (sorry :D). ps: as a fellow craft enjoyer, I have to complain, that I miss the beer section of the video :'D It is always interesting to see what the craft industry makes on the other side of the world.
i have the luxury of hiding my enterprise level hardware away from the rest of my house, so i opted for an aged dell poweredge tower server with dual xeons in it. with a total of 12 cores, 24 threads, 72gb ddr3 ecc ram, and quad gigabit connectivity, and 8 bays that can each handle an 8tb drive (since i upgraded the raid controller) it's an incredible budget option with redundant 1200w platinum power supplies and insane air flow. 24 hours a day for 5 years so far, 0 downtime, and it was old when i got it!
@@ghomerhusthow many days uptime?
I have a node 304 and I love it. Apart from the filter placement, but I just reversed the airflow, and so far so good. And in today's world, where sfx PSUs are cheap, they can make it probably mATX by widening it ever so slightly and using the empty space where the PSU cable is routed. Silversone also has nice cases in their DS line, but those include a backplane and thus are really expensive. They have consumer cases based on the same chassis usually, but they alter them to make sure you can't fit as many drives into them as the DS line variant.
The used enterprise stuff is great because you are giving the equipment a new life, and it's actually built for this. Everything made to be easy to service, all metal, redundant everything. Main downsides are noise, power, and size. So if you have the space for it, it's great. But I do think that the amazingly efficient more modern alternatives are better for most people.
@@avsync-live Totally agree but it's nice that the used enterprise stuff is out there as well. I have an ebay Epyc CPU/mobo combo I picked up that I'm going to try consolidating my current 2 servers into. Probably won't be much of a power savings overall but I get more unf and it will definitely run a lot quieter than my old venerable 1u NAS does right now. I could have gone with something more modern and all but having gobs of ram and lots of PCIE slots will make up for it.
Thanks for making this video. This case popped up in my Amazon feed a week ago. I saved it later for a future purchase. Now I know not to bother.
That ad read has a power level of OVER 9000!!!!!
Thanks for taking one for the team on this one. At least we know what case not to buy.
Have been running my ES Erying board since Mar 12th, only reason it has had ANY downtime is a 2 hour power outage this past weekend which was just too long for my UPS They are solid pieces of kit
I have been looking for an affordable 8-bay MicroATX NAS case WITH hot swap bays for quite a while. I thought this would be the one when I first saw this video, glad I watched the whole video before ordering it.
9:00 I've had one of those pre-build provided power supplies and they just replaced it after Hardware info is showing 15 volts on the 12-volt 7 volts on the 5 volt 4.5 volts on 3.3 ( double checked with multimeter and confirmed the voltages were elevated) It served me well for the 7 years I've had it.
I bought one of these erying boards back in feb I think? it's been the heart of my home unraid server since then and it's never given me an issue!
Been running two of them as my Proxmox servers, and they've been rock solid.
Dude, ive been waiting on this tyoe of vid forever ....appreciate you sir!
nice to see The.Lempa talking Klingon on your Channel... Da wächst zusammen, was zusammen gehört! Ich mag euch beide! :D
My kind of guy !!! 100% approve the power supply selection !!
I love those Erying boards. After your initial video on them, I also rushed out and bought 2 and that's now my proxmox cluster. I just added some 10Gb nics to them, and directly connected them so I could migrate VM's quickly and it all works perfectly. I now have an R720 for sale, have better performance and a lower power bill. I wanted to get a 3rd one so I can do exactly what you're doing in this video and make it a 3rd node and virtualise truenas, but wanted 10Gb and never thought about some odd sata controller, let alone a x1 would work so the idea was put on hold. I may now venture into the 3rd node again if you have success in this build. Eagerly waiting in the next video on this build.
Care to post your full build/parts list? I'm interested in doing something similar and getting rid of my R720XD too for the better performance and lower power bill.
2 x Erying 11980HK ES boards each with 2x Kingston 1TB KC300 NVME, and 2 x 1TB Samsung QVO SSD's, 2 x 32GB (64GBkit) Patriot Viper Steel Ram, and a intel 10Gb nic direct connection between them. 2 nide Proxmox cluster@@cease70
The concern with the PSU is more of the startup surge when the drives spin up. If you have a way to stagger the disk spin up this would be less of an issue. Back in the day I ran quad wd raptors in a desktop that regularly went into standby, the PSU died in less than a year.
I run 5x14TB on a picopsu clone and a 120W brick. 8 should be easy for a real PSU.
Not to mention, the $100-$150 price-point that he's claimed for a 500W PSU is actually more in lines for what you'd pay to get to get a 750W+ PSU that's at least semi-modular and has some kind of efficiency rating. He's not wrong that a higher quality PSU would cost much more than that $16 one, but the quality of PSU for the price he claimed is actually going to be better than he suggested.
@@gabest4 Not a concern of if you can but rather for how long? Things like how often the drives spin up/down matter.
@@gabest4 There are software solutions that let you or automatically spin up the drives one by one or in smaller groups so as not overburden the PSUs or limit noise, once spun up initially these drives can then be spinning down and spinning up only when called for, eg. in non-RAID setups, throughout the day, or they can be spinning all the time and the lowest speeds, if constantly accessed or kept from completely idling to the point of spinning down, and these both tend to allow even a picopsu or external laptop-like bricks to handle the loads. Without such optimisations, 8 drives spinning up constantly can easily take well over 10W each so with AiCs, memory, SSDs, USBs, CPU and mobo components you can have occasional spikes into 200W. If your PSU, whether pico-one or external, can handle those and they're not so recurrent, your PSU can last years, and if software allows the drives be handled more gently the 120W PSU could be enough for 5 drives and the rest of the platform. But if the software stack is not optimised you can end up with "regular" bursts into 200W+ range with 8 drives and even power-efficient rest of the gear, so a real PSU rated for less or with the efficiency bell curve outside of those bursts may not be the best choice in the long term... if you're less than lucky ;)
It’s not 1992, there is no big startup surge, they pull their spec’d wattage for a bit while they start, but it’s not like the old days when they’d brown out the 12v rail.
XCP-NG also allows you to use the disks as storage repository for VMs. It just partions about 25G for root, log and some other stuff and allows the rest to be used as SR.
I feel like there's a sweet spot for this kind of case out there - something that's modern, with Micro-ATX support and a decent layout (maybe even room for a slim optical drive?). The Node 804 is probably as close as it gets. The Jonsbo N3 looks pretty interesting, though it's still a Mini-ITX case.
The sweet spot is not trying to build the cheapest possible build. Plenty of mATX MBs have 8 sata ports. He just chose to stick with this cheap MB thats lacking features.
Oooh, I like that case! Visually, I mean. Very LGR with the woodgrain and all.
Thanks for posting this build. And the hiccups too. Had my eye on this case on Aliexpress and was considering it. I also didn't realise it could fit a mATX board. Thought it was ITX only. As the instructions were non existent there too 🙃
Dude 17 years of marriage!…honestly shout out for setting a tremendous example for your younger viewers. Great video as always.
Nice video, and it came at a perfect time since I'm in the process of building my own NAS right now. Never thought about checking ebay for hard drives, but from the looks of it I can get brand new enterprise drives for around 40% cheaper than the cheapest option in my country, and that's including shipping, VAT and customs fees. I will definitely be checking ebay when the time comes to stuff some drives into my NAS.
I do appreciate you showing failures or less than expected results. Similar to I bought one so you don't have to.
Great video its inspired me! Just sharing with everyone that since this a tower server design, there are many atx PC cases with 5.25" external bays. Which can fit 2.5" hot swap-able expansions . The ones I got were a Cougar MX330 Mid Tower PC case and ICY DOCK 6 x 2.5 SSD to 5.25 Drive Bay. This setup is unfortunately larger and only gives six 2.5" drives as opposed to the eight 3.5" drives.
For the SATA ports, you could use a NVMe to SATA adapter card. It will cost you an NVMe slot of course, but they're low profile and will free up that full PCIe slot.
I am glad someone has to take the hit for experimenting like this. I will pour one out for you...
excited for this. been wanting an updated proxmox tutorial. my server needs an update
I was thinking about doing this type of setup, but I had one less requirement of the noise since it will be going into my tech closet. But instead I went with a used R720 with 12 drive bays, 8 filled with 3 TB SAS drives, and 192 GB of RAM for under $600. The one thing that didn't come with it is a place to boot boot drives without taking from the bays up front. So I'm working with other options for having additional hard drives for the OS.
I personally have a home Media Server/NAS, and I used a Silverstone case... I also modded it to have an internal IR receiver and programmed it to a Logitech Harmony One... works great. *my case is the Silverstone GD08
That Ltt screwdriver 🪛 looks sweet!
Now THIS is my kind of video 🙂
Very wise choice on parts vs cost. Massive respect!!!
Wise must mean something different to you. This was just sad.
Otherwise it's fine, but that psu is a fire hazard waiting to blow up. For $15 more you could get a new name brand unit with actual certifications and safety features. Not to mention that the increased efficiency of anything with an 80+ rating would pay it back in a year or two.
I agree with the power supply, and he did not go with it in the end. Even if it is just a prop, i like what he said... this is a low powered build, no need for 10kw power supply... the small ones are all it needs. If a person is building their home lab up, $ by $, that ps could work good short term, till there are more funds to upgrade it. That is how my home lab, and i bet most home labs start the same. My entire home lab is recycled hardware....
@@risesir when i say wuse, i am not refering to the products he bought... it was the thinking behind it. This is a starter nas/home lab box. Every part in there can be upgraded. Also, this was a budget build.... everything for $1k. None of us have Uncle Lunus money and connections.... no one can build a 3OPettaByte Nas, getting manufacturers to send us free drives. Wise in this case means, looking at all of what you need, your budget, and the priorities are. I think that was half of the point of the video.....
@@WiteNite867 Yeah i agree that 300w would be more than fine for this build. Just that my concern was with safety, not that it wouldn't be powerful enough. You can get something like a evga, cooler master etc 400w unit for not much more and have the confidence that it's not going to burn your house down. Hell, if your on a really tight budget, get a delta psu from an office pc, those would be fine too. Those no name chinese units are hazardous and i don't feel comfortable with the fact that it was recommended for someone to use it in a system meant to run 24h without supervision, even though i agree with the idea behind it.
I picked up a u-nas nsc-810a hot swap case a couple of years ago because it supported mATX motherboards and up to 2 add-in cards (hba and 4-port ethernet nic). it all does fit but there is not a lot of room, and i think i paid around $300 for the case and flex atx power supply. i''ve had it running truenas for 3 years or so with no issues.
That was my favorite sponsor spot ever!
Literally saw this case on Amazon a few days ago and was wondering if it would actually do as much as it claims. Thanks for taking the plunge and proving my skepticism correct 🙏
AWE! You reminded me of my Old Smart & Friendly CD writer!
Amazon listing describes the hdd and power supply options: There are three installation combinations of hard drives and power supplies: 8 HDD + FLEX Power Supply, 6 HDD + SFX-L/SFX Power Supply, 4 HDD + ATX Power Supply.
@Jeff - The Fractal Node 804 would have been a good case to use I think. The drives are not hot-swappable though. But it fits 8 of them as well. Using it at home and very happy with it.
@CraftComputing, I love your honesty.
Thanks for another great video. Yeah that case had some issues. For a Case I ran with Fractal Design R4 Define case. It's large but has brilliant layout for all your requirements with ease of drive removal 8 x 3.5" drive bays ATX power supply, any size MB and really quiet. It's really hard to find 8 bay cases outside ridiculous server noise boxes.
Oh and thanks for the heads up on getting the 8 port sata card.
One reason I've always enjoyed your channel is you take some pretty obscure hardware and put it in the light. I'm actually kind of sick of seeing builds where it should very obviously work out perfectly & sparkle like Las Vegas. One thing KZhead is useful for is having documented resources available for learning. Now less people are going to waste their time and money on this computer case. Thank you Jeff!
I like this build, case is a little expensive on the Canadian Peso's though. Perfect plex set up.
Till this day, Silverstone SG11 is still my favorite home lab case. It has 9x 2.5”, 3x 3.5” drive slots, and a 5.25” bay. With an icy dock enclosure, that’s another 8x 2.5” bays. And it actually supports proper ATX power supplies, even the big long ones
which icydock? internal? where does that fit in sg11, bro??
More realistic expectation from a novice server builder myself. Feel like you ve done this for me
Node 804 or 304 are still the budget go-to NAS cases you can still buy , almost 10 years after release.
Three weeks ago i bought an other 8-Bay NAS enclosure from aliexpress. I received it this week an it was realy good quality but only supports flexATX, therefor four fullsize pci-slots and matx. I saw this one too but, thank god, i bought the other one.
love my silverstone CS381B.
I was pretty excited at the beginning of the video since the case looks amazing. Until you put it together, now I'm pretty happy with my choice for the fractal node 804 (although it's lacking some cable management options).
I was so hopeful!!!
I’ve been using an ERYING 0000 mainboard for my media/gaming PC. The only thing I would recommend is to apply conformal coating to the bottom of the custom CPU heat spreader (Aluminium part)- and use liquid metal instead of thermal paste between the copper slug and CPU die. Using thermal paste, my temps would get up to 100C on the CPU… With liquid metal, I get absolute max temps of 80C (and thats with using Furmark!)
Thank you for this suggestion. I just pulled the heat spreader off last weekend and applied new thermal paste. I haven't pushed it yet, but I have not seen much improvement with the thermals at idle and small server loads. I will have to keep liquid metal as an option.
@@jamesmcelfresh174 make sure to use conformal coating on the aluminium…if the liquid metal gets on there - it’s game over!
I've been running one of those i9 chinese garbage motherboards as my main and only pc for half a year (I bought one as soon as they became available), asking a lot from it, I put both nvme drives, a wifi card, 64gb of ram at 3200mhz and an rtx3070, it's been basically the best computer I've ever had, no random crashes, and it runs VERY cool, after 6 hours running nonstop at a room temp of 30° it's currently running the gpu at 55° and the cpu at 42°, if I run heavy games the gpu will run at 62° and the cpu a lot less, it's been one of the best purchases I've ever made and I think people bad mouth them because they didn't get to buy one for themselves
Cool. Fractal Design Node 804 it is. Cheers.
Jeff, I, like most storage hoarders, love removable drive bays. They make life easier. But, in the end, it's about having 8 bays in a home lab with an MATX board. That case was garbage for the purpose, and you did your best with it. Now, we don't have to bother. I would suggest an old standby... Introducing the Fractal Node 804. I've owned 3 and still have one. They can be had for around $160, have 8 3.5, up to 4 2.5 bays, etc. They are kind of chunky, but have a lot of space to work with. They will not support a huge heatsink either. Still, I have enjoyed using them because they aren't horrible to work with.
I have the same cas in white. Very wife approved, sitting in my living room I used an ebay 9200 sas card for 40 bucks with a used 10g intel x520 The backplane in this case supports SAS drives you just need a mini sas to 4 sata ports, the backplates have sata connections on the rear The flex psu issue bummed me out aswell, i used a 500w fsp power supply i got a good deal on and swapped the fan to a noctual on, stock fan on flex psus are supper loud The drives spinning are the same volume as the noctua fan i also put in 80mm fans on the top portion to help cool the sas and nic cards The fan cables for the rear, just fit in the gap, i didn't have to dremel anything
Have you ever considered having a case built that solves all the problems you encountered? The whole process of finding and working with a factory, getting a proof of concept built, testing it etc... could be interesting content for your channel. I would imagine that there would be some demand for a case that allows someone to build a nas on a budget. There might be some money to be made while solving a real problem.
I managed to buy a define R4 off of someone for 25 euros. It might not be new or small, but it's so much nicer of an experience: Everything fits and was thought out properly 🎉
Good video. It's easy for us to pick apart mistakes after you already laid it all out like this for us. I'm not knocking your hardware choices, but your motherboard choice is what seemed to send it in the wrong direction. While most MATX boards don't have 8 SATA ports, nearly all will have at least 2. That would have fixed your cable issue and possibly your standoff issue. Amazon even has the Apevia PS-ITX300W for $34 or Silverstone FX350 for $109. I think you're supposed to have the fan mount flipped so that it protrudes from the back of the case. Looks odd and bulky, but I think it would help with airflow. The wasted room up top could come in handy for some 2.5" SSDs if you ended up going the HBA adapter route. I do agree this case has a lot of room for improvement and I look forward to someone else making a more well designed version of this.
I for a good long while looked around at cases like these. Pondered and contemplated layouts and their respective dimensions. Only for me to instead go with a 2U DIY server case from Intertech. (the IPC 2-HU-2412) it works wonderfully, though the stock fans are a bit loud, so swapped them for some Noctua one's that were a squeeze to cram into the case's hot swap fan holders... Along with a dual socket supermicro motherboard, and an all so wonderful TFX PSU that seems even less standardized than flexATX, since the PSU has absolutely zero of its screw holes align with any of the holes in the case, and in instead affixed with double sided tape... (now, there is a mounting bracket for it, but the associated holes are too far back by over a cm.) In the end though, it has overall been a nicer solution than most non rack mount cases that I have seen people use.