Completely Built System
It’s time to build the system, a thing I’ve been waiting for ever since the postal service dropped the case off. Actually I’ve been wanting to build it ever since the case was announced. I’ll be using a mixture of components that have a long and proven running time in DIY NAS environments.
Test Build Components:
- Asus F1A75-i Deluxe mITX motherboard
- AMD A6-3500 3-core, base clock 2.1GHz but OC’ed to 4.9GHz
- 8GB G-Skill ARES 1866MHz CL9 memory
- Noctua NH-L12 Low Profile CPU Cooler
- LSI LSI9271-8i MegaRAID Controller
- BeQueit 300W SFX PSU
- Western Digital WD RED 3.5″ 6TB x8
- Western Digital WD RED 2.5″ 1TB x4
Having added the motherboard and power supply, I found myself amazed how much room this tiny case facilitated. The fan positions and the natural space in the case allowed for a surprisingly good cable management of the basic front panel and fan connectors.
There isn’t any screw or tool-less mounting solution here, but that’s totally okay. We don’t change our NAS drives that often that we can’t handle to screw a little bit. Though I have to say, mounting 12 drives with 4 screws each puts some strain on the wrist.
Once we have added our RAID controller and connected the power supply to the motherboard, the available space tightens a little bit more. It’s starting to become clear that both the choice of hardware parts and the cables for this build will matter. While the space is filled a bit more now, there is still plenty of room for decent airflow.
Having mounted the drive cages, we see that the area between the two drive cages is very tight, but you can still make it work with normal SATA cables. I would have used 90° angled cables, but the ones I have, are too stiff and have too long a connector to be used with so narrow-mounted drives. They are designed for 3.5″ drive size and distance and not 2.5″. Another thing to consider while picking your parts.
Not really visible above, but depending on the cabling on your PSU, the SATA power cables for the rear drives could cause some headaches. You can make it work and there is enough room, but it is tight.
While speaking of power supplies and their cables, you’ll most likely have too few SATA ports on your SFX PSU or the cables are too big, long or stiff to fit in this narrow space. Silverstone has come up with just the right ones, with the CP06-E super flexible multi-SATA power connector with capacitors. They provide stable power to your drives and are a worthy consideration.
While we’re talking about cables and what ones to select. I’ve mentioned a couple of times already how important it will be with the right cables in this tiny case. The photo above shows me using my normal SFF-8087 to SATA cables that are about a meter long each. I could make it all fit in there and I would have been able to squeeze the panel shut like on a gaming PC – if it shuts, it’s okay. But not only is there a high chance that I’ll push something into the fan with the amount of cables in here, there isn’t room for any airflow either and the system will run very hot very fast.
Not only is there a high chance that I’ll push something into the fan with the amount of cables in here, there isn’t room for any airflow either and the system will run very hot, very fast.
Not to worry, I have shorter and more practical cables for such a situation and as you can see above, it certainly looks a lot better. There is plenty of space for airflow and almost decent cable management. At this point, I haven’t used the included cable clip nor any cable ties, which again goes to show that picking the right parts for this build is very important.
Both the LSI 9271-8i and the LSI 9240-8i MegaRAID controller I have required me to changed the bracket and sacrifice one of the front bays. It was a matter of 2 millimeters, but if it doesn’t fit, it doesn’t fit. A carefully selected controller wouldn’t cause this issue I’m having due to just using what is at my disposal.
The supplied exchange bracket for the drive enclosure is cleverly designed and prevents a drive from being inserted and possible damage the expansion card used.
Silverstone also supplied a front cover for the drive bay when isn’t used for a drive. Modders will instantly see plenty of room for either a 2.5-inch drive or other fancy parts with the bracket and cover in place.
What would you say is the shortest sata cable length to keep cable length at a minimum yet allow for air flow routing? I was thinking of using the right 90 degree connector on the backplane, not the 90 down connectors used on the HD, which would route the cable flat along the backplane toward the motherboard without the big loops. Thanks for the article. It has been 3 years but still relevant.
The parts I have so far are; 8 x 8TB WD Data Center drives, one SSD for cache drive, the DS380 case, a sfx 300 watt 80+ power supply, and assorted used other parts and cables if needed.
Do you have a suggestion for a motherboard considering I hope to run unRAID 6.4, NAS and File Server, NGINX, PLEX, and VMs all on this one box. I would like to keep the power consumption as low as possible considering the use of the type hard drive.. Yes I did the demo for FreeNAS and I did like it, but the memory and HD requirements I did not. I kinda like the unRaid idea of putting all of a file on one drive yet recoverable, and especially the ability to remove a disk and use it on another computer if needed. unRaid is now using xfs and I read although zfs is the new guy on the block, xfs is still really good.. Having NO experience with all this I may have other thoughts down the road but I have almost 6TB of data on two very aging HDs that have started to have SMART errors. Time to move my bottom side.
Thanks again,
Anne
The cable length is a difficult thing to answer as it depends on your components. Where they have their ports in relation to the drive’s/backplane’s connectors. My best tip would be: Take an old SATA cable and connect it at one end. Now run it the path you’ll want it to run (in an as empty case as possible). When you get to where you want to go, make a mark with a soft-tip pen on the cable. Add 1-2cm for extra routing as well as plugging and unplugging. Now you have the length you need by measuring that cable.
As for which motherboard, that’s always a difficult choice. Connection and calculation power is what you need to find. For basic file sharing, you don’t need a whole lot. But VMs do require a lot more power. The options are nearly endless, from low-powered APUs to high-powered Xeon SoC. Budget and needs are what will make your end decision. Of course, since you already have a PSU, that’s another factor you need to take into consideration along with peak-power draw from the drives.
I have no personal experience with unRaid, but it sounds like a good idea on a theoretical level.
So overall, a really difficult thing to answer. Oh, and there are more OS options too such as OpenMediaVault and Nas4Free besides FreeNAS. Of course, there’s also always the option to just do it all manually from a scratch OS, if you don’t need a fancy remote interface.