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Trying to source this Chinese ITX NAS Case (NSC-800)

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Randyman...

Member
Joined
May 8, 2004
Hello,

I've been looking around for quite a while for an ITX chassis that has 8 hot-swap 3.5" HD bays plus a single bay for the OS HD (can be 3.5" or 2.5"), and will hold a single PCIe RAID Card (for a NAS Box).

Well, I finally found EXACTLY what I was looking for, but it appears to be a "wholesale overseas" type deal from "http://www.alibaba.com" and/or "http://www.made-in-china.com" - and the minimum appears to be 25 units :(

http://nbtaifa.en.alibaba.com/produ..._Swappable_SATA_SAS_Drive_Bays_Mini_ITX_.html

Model # is listed as "NSC-800" made by "YU TECHNOLOGIES".

Has anyone seen anything like this offered domestically? I e-mailed one person that had a "group buy" type offer on these, but I never heard back.


I'd absolutely LOVE to get something like this - does anyone have any leads on where I can turn to? It would seem that SOMEONE would be buying these wholesale in lots of 25 to re-sell, but I can't find a domestic "retailer" for the life of me!


Thanks for your time! :cool:
 
Those look awesome. Nothing on Ebay, is there? My guess is that the typical buyer of these is a NAS reseller - I think I've seen companies selling a pre-built NAS solution in cases that looked just like this.
 
Thanks for the reply. I agree - these are friggin' AWESOME!!! :D

eBay turns up nada that I could find. It took me about a dozen search attempts over a few years (I would search every now and again as I got fed-up with my current humongous ATX NAS ;) ), and I just ran across this ITX model last week. I nearly pooped my pants with joy when I ran across it, but my joy quickly resided as I could not find a retailer that sold them domestically (only "wholesale" in lots of 25 on the Slow Boat from China).

I'll keep in searching. Any further leads are greatly appreciated!

Rock on!
:attn:
 
I emailed a buddy of mine who is an electronics "super star" over in Hong Kong. I will see if what he can dig up for you, but this brand sounds very familiar to me. . . like I have trays from them or something.

EDIT - He sent me a text, apparently the company name is actually Chi-Yu Technology and they are based in Taiwan. He thinks there is a shop where he can order single units but not sure.

You can try to maybe e-mail or contact the person here
http://www.alibaba.com/member/chiyu1.html
 
Thanks, Bijiont. I'll try to contact them, but I have a feeling that seller will be looking for the 25 unit minimum, and when I attempted to contact him, the auto-response indicated he hadn't been active lately. :(

I figured someone would be buying these "wholesale" to re-sell at Retail in the USA - but I can't find any leads...

Will do, johan851. They seem to offer 2, 4, 6, & 8 bay versions...

:cool:
 
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Well, I got a reply, but they appear to be out of the 6-bay and 8-bay versions until late Jan/Feb. I could not coax any pricing from the seller just yet, but I'll post back if I hear anything good.

If anyone knows of a dealer in the USA - please reply here as I'd much prefer to buy domestically even if it means a higher price...

Fingers crossed!

:cool:
 
Instead of trying so hard to find one with hot swap bays, why not take this and add this to it to make one of your own?
Just a thought. I was looking at them lately for another thread.
 
Thanks for the suggestion. I'm specifically looking for an 8-bay hot-swap case (plus an internal 2.5" OS Drive) - so your solution would fall 5 drives short ;) . I've pondered going with other hot-swap 5.25" bays in my Antec 900 (would be a total of 10 Hot Swap 3.5" Bays in that case), but I'm really wanting to get into a much smaller ITX type case to match my new teeny-weeny ReadyNAS Ultra4-Plus (could not believe how small this thing is for 12TB!!!) - and the one ITX case I found that meets my needs is literally the ONLY ONE I've run across in my 2+ years of spouradic searching (the NSC-800 mentioned in my initial post).

I already have this NAS hardware running in an ATX Antec Solo (see my sig - NAS#1) which has a modded HD Rack plus the Cooler Master "4-in-3" HD Rack (10 HD capacity, but not hot-swap). I'd simply like to transplant this NAS into a much smaller ITX case (already have an ITX MoBo) with room for 8x hot-swap 3.5" HD's, the 2.5" OS HD/SSD, plus a PCIe RAID Card (Areca ARC-1220). Granted, I could mod one of the sweet Lian-Li ITX cases and likely cram 9 HD's in it (internally), but I'm really digging the NSC-800 I ran across (matches my needs to the tee!). Thus the reason I created this thread ;)

:cool:
 
I hear ya. With the parts all available, I'd be tempted to build it myself personally. But I have the tools and the insanity on my side! :D
 
Hey, that looks like the one there looking for! Could you provide more information, where you got it and how much?
 
I'm keen to hear the pricing on these and whether it's possible to ship to Australia. They do look very nice. As with the others, I'm only interested in Hot Swap units and I'm yet to see anything inexpensive enough to get me interested.
 
Ditto! I'm just checking in on my thread, and BAM! mademax has the goods :)

So - mademax - Where do you hail from, and where did you source that purdy NAS case? :D And - of course - price?

From the other pics I saw, it appears the PCIe slot is "internal", and requires removing the RAID card's bracket. Is this correct? Any reason an Areca ARC-1220 card wouldn't fit in there (it's a 1/2 height card)?

I still haven't heard back from the alibaba or Made in China folks (overseas) - and I'm hoping mademax might have a local source for these...

Too cool!!! :cool:
 
If the case is cheap and if the hot swap bays (or even if it's not hot) could be transplanted into a case with enough 5.25" bays, color me interested as well...
 
Hi Guys,

Very sorry for my uninformative first post, and for the delay in a follow up.

I'm going to answer some quick questions asked and then describe the case as I see it. Later I will post more ( better, I hope ) pics of it.

source: I got the case directly from the manufacturer ( YU Technologies, the one that is posting them in alibaba.com. alibaba.com was also how I found them ).

When: ordered two weeks ago, received last week.

Price: more than 100USD and less than 200USD. I am very sorry but I wont post the exact price that was made to me, not because I have been asked to do so, but because:
- the sample I received was sold to me as "with some scratches". it is not new, so it's not what one would normaly receive.
- I'm getting this as a sample, on the permise of a bigger order if it passes our tests.
- I have no idea if the manufacturer will be selling this on a per unit basis, and as such, it would be unfair to post here the price that an actual reseller would get.

Price2: besides the case price ( power supply included ), I had to pay about 140USD for shipping via DHL, and about 140EUR on customs taxes. Shipping price is on par with a fast DHL Service from China ( very expensive ). I have no idea if the manufacturer offers other shipping services. Usually, when purchasing big orders, it's up to the buyer to send a courrier of choice to the factory. Also, regarding taxes, in my country, taxes are deducted over everything you pay, including shipping, plus other services like customs processing from the courrier service ( about 70 usd per shipping. this makes one sample very expensive, but dilutes quickly on an order with many items ). That's where the 140eur come from.

Price3: this puts the final price of this particular sample from 420USD to 520USD. Obviously, when bought from a reseller, the price would be much, much lower, because of much cheaper shipping and consequently lower taxes.

Price4: I haven't found, in my very, very extensive search for similar products ( 6+ desktop NAS chassis ) anyone with a similar product, nor anyone reselling this one. I know that this is a very big let down, because even when sourcing ( if ) directly from the manufacturer, shipping and taxes completly kill it's value. Having it for 300USD, delivered, would be in my opinion still be a good price for this chassis ( from a end customer point of view ). 420USD to 520USD is pricey, but the truth is that no one else that I know manufactures something similar.

Why: I work for a company that wants to make NAS products, and this case is a good match for what we are looking for. We are located in Southern Europe.

About the sample I received: it was sold to me as "with some scurfs and scratches", because the manufacturer was out of stock, and would only have more produced in february. As what I want to do is an initial evaluation of the case, some scratches would be of no problem. The case I received was actualy with very minor scatches on the aluminium cover. I had a hard time finding them. The case came without the power supply and without the internal 2.5 HDD bay ( seller mistake, will have them here next week ).

Review:
- The case is very compact. It appears to be made with that in mind. The front is "ruberized" and this gives and exelent touch sensation. It also looks very good. The cover is made from black anodized aluminium, and the internal chassis stucture is made from steel. Everything appears well made. The two 120mm fans included are from www.pccoler.cn, with 3pin fan headers.
- the SAS/SATA backplane has two 4pin power connectors that power all the eight disks, plus two leds per disk ( one for power status and another one for activity ). These leds are activated by the power and sata data signal, so it's not an inteligent backplane ( it does not allow for blinking one of the leds in case of a problem, for instance. This is a feature that is normaly available on hardware raid cards ).
- it has no external expansion slot, so it does not allow for lan cards, or other cards that have external conectors. Usually raid cards don't have these, and for those, the card can be screwed to the case chassis, next to the motherboard ( the conection to the pci/pcie slot is made with a special ribbon cable, included ( pcie ).
- the HDD trays sliding mechanism is not perfect, but not that bad either. After being totaly inserted they apear to be secured, but I will have to test this with hard drives spinning to check for vibrations. My first impression, is that it will not make vibration noises.
- It has two buttons ( power and reset. they appear to have led's inside. I haven't been able to test this ).
- one usb port in the front.


So, to sum this up, I liked the overall quality of the case, but there are a few things that can be made to improve it ( some very easy and doable, others require a change in the product format) :
- add an external pci slot to the back ( very easy, just cut the hole ).
- add suport for redundant 1U power supplies. ( very easy, just cut a bigger hole, and add an adapter for smaller power supplies )
- replace the 120mm 3pin fans for 120mm 4pin pwm fans. ( again, very easy to change )
- improve the sliding mechanism of the HDD trays. This can be done by getting the case slides closer to each other.
- remove the system reset button. Usually a NAS doesn't have this, it's a dangerous button. The same effect can be reached by pressing the power button for more than 4 seconds, so it is really not needed.
- add a front slot for a VFD display ( like those from soundgraph ).
- and why not, paint the steel chassis in black!
 
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some pics..
 

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Wow - Mademax - Thanks for your detailed report! :D

Looks like what I was expecting. Descent case, not quite Enterprise level, and has room for a few improvements.

I'd bite at $300 all said and done, but more than that will indeed be a dealbreaker for single-unit type purchases for end-users like me. I can't believe your taxes were as much or more than the unit itself! That is just insane - then the shipping is through the roof, too. I've purchased some Sony "knock-off" headphones directly from China before, and the total price (including shipping to my door) was $35 flat! Go figure...

Well - Looks like this just wasn't meant to be for lowly old me. I'd LOVE to get my NAS transplanted into a case like this, but not at the $400-$500 it's looking like it would cost in the end.

If your company ends up buying these in bulk - keep us OC Forums members in mind - we'd love to snap-up a few off you :) .

RE: NeonBlingBling:
You can get "4 -in 3" and "5 -in- 3" Hot-Swap HD Bays all day long from tons of domestic suppliers. I'm eying these since this ITX NAS case seems like a no-go:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0035PS5B8/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?ie=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER

I might ponder going the mATX route, but that won't be a whole lot smaller than the ATX case I'm using now. Argh!!! :p

Thanks again for your time, mademax!!! I really appreciate it.
 
mademax, I think all of your posts have been great. :thup:


RE: NeonBlingBling:
You can get "4 -in 3" and "5 -in- 3" Hot-Swap HD Bays all day long from tons of domestic suppliers. I'm eying these since this ITX NAS case seems like a no-go:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0035PS5B8/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?ie=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER

Thanks for the link, but I am hoping for a solution at a fraction of the cost. When it comes down to it, I really don't need a hot-swap solution, but it would be nice to. We can all wish, right? :blah:
 
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