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small case recommendation for raid 5 server

J

joelmold

Senior member
hi all,

i'm in the final stages of planning my NAS media server with RAID 5 but i need a case recommendation. it needs to hold 4 drives for the RAID array, plus one more drive for operating system for 5 total. i don't need to have cd/dvd in the case, and no components other than a HD controller.

i'm a little constrained by space. i'd like to use a micro-atx desktop case if possible. something like this with 5.25" to 3.5" adapters, or maybe this with a 2x5.25" to 3x3.5" adapter.

but do i really need such a fancy case for something that i won't be looking at? i've thought about using a small micro-atx mini tower, such as this, but i would really prefer a horizontal layout.

does anyone have experience with a similar setup, or know of another case that could work?

i appreciate all comments and recommendations. thanks!

edit: "small" moved in title
 
I'm looking for something similar and instead of wasting bandwidth and creating a new thread just for this I will also chime in with a question. Besides a case for a RAID 5 server, something else that I would like that comes with the case is the option of having adequate cooling.
 
Well, there are a few options, first what is your budget?
w/o any knowledge of prices:
Lian Li v1200 plus $225
Coolermaster Stacker $150
By "small" do you mean not having a jubilee of hdd's or a small case physically? There are a couple mid towers that will hold 5 hdd's.
 
@nocturnal: you're more than welcom to piggyback, i might gain from your input also.

Originally posted by: acegazda
Well, there are a few options, first what is your budget?
w/o any knowledge of prices:
Lian Li v1200 plus $225
Coolermaster Stacker $150
By "small" do you mean not having a jubilee of hdd's or a small case physically? There are a couple mid towers that will hold 5 hdd's.
Click to expand...

well, like i said i would really prefer micro-atx or a very small atx case. i don't really care the layout of internal/external 3.5"/5.25" as long as i can get 5 3.5" drives in there (using slot adapters is fine).

for budget i'll say roughly $100, but i'm not committed on that. less would be great, and more would be okay if it's exactly what i want.

i'm not 100% set on a small micro-atx, but both the cases you mention are considerably larger than what i want. it really only needs to hold 5 drives right now. in the future i may add 2-4 more drives, but this would be a ways down the road and i could always buy a new case at that point.
 
The Antec SLK3000 isn't mATX but is reasonably small and (much more important) has good cooling of the drives if you add a low-speed 120mm intake fan like a Scythe 800 rpm from newegg.

Saving 3" in height isn't worth it in my opinion if you cook the drives into an early death.
 
Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
The Antec SLK3000 isn't mATX but is reasonably small and (much more important) has good cooling of the drives if you add a low-speed 120mm intake fan like a Scythe 800 rpm from newegg.

Saving 3" in height isn't worth it in my opinion if you cook the drives into an early death.
Click to expand...


that does look like a pretty nice case, and it would give me the option of adding many more drives down the road. but will it accept a micro-atx motherboard? i'm recycling parts from old computers to build a cheap NAS and i'd rather not have to buy a new one.
 
yes, mATX is no problem.

it doesn't come with a PSU so if you need one a Fortron FSP 450 watt is a good choice for around $50.
 
If you are going to attempt to cram 5 hard drives into a case you better have a case with good airflow unless you want to destroy every drive in the case. Hard drives make a lot of heat. If you mount them real close to each other they make a lot of heat.

I have an ANTEC Case very similar to the SLK3000. I like the way that the case mounts the drives near the bottom of the case right in front of the Intake vent. Take a close look at one. It has rubber mounts for the drives to reduce vibration. It uses 120mm fans. Although for a server you might want slight higher RPM FANS.

With a server you have to be careful your CPU does not make too much heat and you have a good network interface (Gigabyte) Ethernet. A lot depends on what you do with it.
 
Originally posted by: piasabird
If you are going to attempt to cram 5 hard drives into a case you better have a case with good airflow unless you want to destroy every drive in the case. Hard drives make a lot of heat. If you mount them real close to each other they make a lot of heat.

I have an ANTEC Case very similar to the SLK3000. I like the way that the case mounts the drives near the bottom of the case right in front of the Intake vent. Take a close look at one. It has rubber mounts for the drives to reduce vibration. It uses 120mm fans. Although for a server you might want slight higher RPM FANS.

With a server you have to be careful your CPU does not make too much heat and you have a good network interface (Gigabyte) Ethernet. A lot depends on what you do with it.
Click to expand...


thanks for the comments. i didn't think enough about how much heat the drives will produce, so i appreciate the recommendations and will probably go with the slk3000 (i just have to convince my girlfriend to let me use part of the closet!). it'll be a non-critical home file server with pretty low usage (streaming media to my htpc only), so i don't need to go too crazy with the cooling or the network. 100mb is plenty in this case. for cpu i'm using an old P3, underclocked and with a big zalman heatsink.
 
what do you guys think about the Antec LifeStyle SONATA II? it looks fairly similar, even with a drive cage on the bottom front and the option for an extra 120mm fan, plus it comes with a power supply. it's also 2" shorter, and $89 right now. seems to get pretty good reviews.
 
Sonata II is a decent case, but the cooling for the HDD rack isn't as good as on the 3000-B as the 120 fan mounts on the back side of the rack and has to pull air thru the drives. The Rosewill R6Axx cases are on the same chassis as the 3000-B but their bezels look better to me. And the Compucase/HEC 6A19 series is also the same chassis, if you don't care for a door. These are all around 16.5" tall - not that much taller than a microATX.

But if shortness is preferable and depth isn't so much of an issue, the Lian Li 50 or 3077 boxes are pretty low. Do I take it that you don't plan to put a mobo in the case?

.bh.


.bh.
 
want an insane case for that?

Enermax fs2300SS

Buy 3x5.25" hotswap bays (holds 5x3.5" drives and has a fan/active cooling)

You could fit like 7 of those.. meaning 35 drives ;p

Or just buy the bays for any other case heh
 
Originally posted by: Zepper
Sonata II is a decent case, but the cooling for the HDD rack isn't as good as on the 3000-B as the 120 fan mounts on the back side of the rack and has to pull air thru the drives. The Rosewill R6Axx cases are on the same chassis as the 3000-B but their bezels look better to me. And the Compucase/HEC 6A19 series is also the same chassis, if you don't care for a door. These are all around 16.5" tall - not that much taller than a microATX.

But if shortness is preferable and depth isn't so much of an issue, the Lian Li 50 or 3077 boxes are pretty low. Do I take it that you don't plan to put a mobo in the case?

.bh.


.bh.
Click to expand...


i will be putting a micro-atx mb in the case, along with an old P3 1GHz-- i don't need much for my simple file server.

THANKS for the extensive case info. i think i will go with the 3000-b after looking at all the cases you recommended. i want the server to be inconspicous, so the simpler the case design the better. the lian li is very nice, but i think too nice for the purpose. 🙂
 
Originally posted by: xtwells
want an insane case for that?

Enermax fs2300SS

Buy 3x5.25" hotswap bays (holds 5x3.5" drives and has a fan/active cooling)

You could fit like 7 of those.. meaning 35 drives ;p

Or just buy the bays for any other case heh
Click to expand...


as cool as it would be to have all this, if you read the rest of the thread you'd see i'm not looking for an insane case this time. check back in a year or two and i might need the extra room. 🙂
 
If you added something like a Thermaltake iCage to a SLK3000B, you'd have capacity for 8 cooled HD's + optical + floppy. Nice case. I wouldn't call it small, but I think bigger = better here for the drives.

You can also get a nice exhaust-only fan such as the Arctic Cooling AF12, downvolt it if necessary with a Zalman Fanmate, and move the supplied exhaust fan to intake.

I'd monitor the temps at the onset -- a closet doesn't sound like a great place for cooling.
 
Yeah, your closet will need a way to bring cool air in and get the warm air out - being in a closed closed is like being in your car with the air flow constantly set to recirc. Gets might stuffy in a hurry.

.bh.
 
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