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Trying to source this Chinese ITX NAS Case (NSC-800)
- Thread starter Randyman...
- Start date
Hello,
Looks like once the 8 bay case started shipping this thread died down. Which is understandable, but not cool. Assuming there's still interest, I'm putting together an Instructables Slideshow with my build, just haven't had much time after finishing the build to get that posted.
Can we discuss a build with the 4 bay case? I'm not clear on how to do it well. The only thing I've seen/ heard is to get a small flash drive hooked up to the USB header of the motherboard for the OS. Motherboard has 4 sata ports, one for each of the 4 hard drives, all is well. And the only other thing I've seen is routing a cable to the outside back to tap into an eSata port on the exterior for the 5th drive.
Let's just say that I'm not particularly fond of either of these options. What else could be done, any ideas? There's no room for a PCIe card (or is there?, if the metal back (of the card, not the case) is taken off and it's mounted internally), making hardware RAID that much harder to pull off unless that feature is built into the mobo.
Are we talking about tracking down a rare mini-ITX motherboard with 5 or 6 sata ports?
Any thoughts? Much looking forward to hearing on this. Also, Randyman, I know you have the NSC-400 and as of your post on page 3 are only using 2 bays, but any input?
Thanks
Looks like once the 8 bay case started shipping this thread died down. Which is understandable, but not cool. Assuming there's still interest, I'm putting together an Instructables Slideshow with my build, just haven't had much time after finishing the build to get that posted.
Can we discuss a build with the 4 bay case? I'm not clear on how to do it well. The only thing I've seen/ heard is to get a small flash drive hooked up to the USB header of the motherboard for the OS. Motherboard has 4 sata ports, one for each of the 4 hard drives, all is well. And the only other thing I've seen is routing a cable to the outside back to tap into an eSata port on the exterior for the 5th drive.
Let's just say that I'm not particularly fond of either of these options. What else could be done, any ideas? There's no room for a PCIe card (or is there?, if the metal back (of the card, not the case) is taken off and it's mounted internally), making hardware RAID that much harder to pull off unless that feature is built into the mobo.
Are we talking about tracking down a rare mini-ITX motherboard with 5 or 6 sata ports?
Any thoughts? Much looking forward to hearing on this. Also, Randyman, I know you have the NSC-400 and as of your post on page 3 are only using 2 bays, but any input?
Thanks
Not sure what more you expect from a thread titled "Trying to source this Chinese ITX NAS Case (NSC-800)" when the case has been sourced and shipped.
I've got an unboxing/build thread in progress on Overclockers AU - still waiting for my Flex-1U PSU bracket to arrive.For the NSC-400, have you had a look at the AsRock FM2A85X-ITX? Seven SATA3 ports onboard (plus one eSATA). It's AUD$110 over here which is not a bad price for an ITX board.
Not sure what more you expect from a thread titled "Trying to source this Chinese ITX NAS Case (NSC-800)" when the case has been sourced and shipped.
For the NSC-400, have you had a look at the AsRock FM2A85X-ITX? Seven SATA3 ports onboard (plus one eSATA). It's AUD$110 over here which is not a bad price for an ITX board.
Well, I was enjoying the conversation and shared interest and didn't quite want that to die down just yet.
The board is awesome, until I realized that it's for an AMD Chipset. I only work with Intel processors and all my servers [will] use the i3 which occupies the LGA11155 socket.
Any other products in mind? I'll keep looking. Thanks...
EDIT/ ADD: I think I remember this mobo being mentioned here before: The Zotac has 5 Sata ports, an LGA1155 Socket and is BEAST with its wifi built in. And the Sata/ eSATA ports support RAID! It's a little more expensive than what I'm used to (I paid under $80 for my Gigabyte, but then I had to pay another $100 for my "RAID" card, so I guess those cancel out in a sense. The AOC-SASLP-MV8 doesn't support hardware RAID and I haven't looked into their intended software solutions since I'm currently not using RAID for anything, just a bunch of disks.)
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Yeah, if you'll check my EDIT, right after I made the previous post, I discovered the Zotac. Then I realized that according to the reviews, it is somewhat sketchy, so I thank you for introducing me to the ASUS - other than the lack of an eSata port it seems perfect.
And no wifi option means custom runs of ethernet cables in-wall, one of the best upsells ever. (and fun for me).
Link.
Much appreciated.
And no wifi option means custom runs of ethernet cables in-wall, one of the best upsells ever. (and fun for me).
Link.
Much appreciated.
- Joined
- Apr 16, 2013
- Location
- Northern Virginia
I just want to see a study on longterm effect of your system. With 8 HDDs populated, plus raid controller, motherboard + cpu, can your PSU provide all the juice? You put so much stress on PSU by having non-uniform loads 12V and 5V, that's asking trouble. I see a lot of enterprise servers that rarely have 8bay for disks, otherwise they will have redundancy PSU, and not much efficient by today standard.
A quality psu will not have any trouble with that type of load, and neither will servers.
I've been following this thread with great interest. I'm currently running a HP Mediasmart server which has been working, fine, but will soon be running out of space with 4x2TB drives so I was looking at alternative NAS boxes like a Synology which gets great reviews. I had considered a DIY solution, but wanted to keep a small form factor and low power. This when I discovered the various Linux NAS solutions like freenas, OMV, Nexentia, OI, etc using ZFS for RAID.
I was hoping the 6 bay chassis would become available soon, but conversing with the UNAS vendor, it sounds like it's not in their current production plans. I don't think I need an 8 bay solution at this point, but having expansion can be good, right?
Communication with the vendor via email has been excellent. They are very responsive and are very helpful. Shipping to Canada is going to soo much more expensive than to the USA for some reason. I was quotes 100+ for shipping and they were willing to subsidize so it would be something around $70. I happen to be in Asia for a few weeks, so they were able to ship it to me at the same $25 as to the US and I'll just bring it back with me. I should receive it later this week. I was looking at a Fractal node 304, but I think this 8 bay chassis will be more fitting.
I'm just settling on my final components and think I'll end up with this,
Mobo: Jetway NF9A Q67 Mini-ITX Motherboard
PSU: Athena Power AP-U1ATX40P8
HSF: SilverStone Low Profile 90mm Fan CPU Cooler NT07-1156
CPU: Core i3-3220
RAM: 8-16GB
HBA: IBM M1015
Ebay SFF-8087 mini SAS cables
Sys drive, 2.5" 320GB HDD or SSD
WD Red 2TB drives
The vendor suggested the Jetway when I gave them the criteria that I wanted 2 x intel NIC's (yes, not both are L, oh well), Intel core i3 CPU and up to 16GB of RAM. The price of the mobo isn't horrible and a benefit is that it has 3 x 3 pin fan headers so these could be used for the 120mm chassis fans without needing a splitter. If I decide to use freeNAS or NAS4free, an internal USB header would have been nice, but it's not the end of the world. I also like the SuperMicro IPMI console via IP access, but again, it's a nice to have rather than a must. I can also hook up a kb/monitor if I need to get to console. This board is much less than any SuperMicro board would cost for MITX. I've just never used a Jetway mobo, so am unsure about the quality.
So I have a few questions to this thread,
- which HBA are you using to manage the 8 disks?
- what NAS platform are you going to use for the NAS users out there?
- has anyone considered using the U-NAS software? It is $30, but from the description seems decent. Just thinking there won't be much of a community behind it like freenas, nas4free, OMV, etc.
With this type of config, I don't think I'm going to save a bundle over a Synology, but it will have more muscle with the corei3 and more RAM. I just hope the platform I choose will be as stable and as fast with throughput as I would expect a Synology would be.
Thanks.
I was hoping the 6 bay chassis would become available soon, but conversing with the UNAS vendor, it sounds like it's not in their current production plans. I don't think I need an 8 bay solution at this point, but having expansion can be good, right?
Communication with the vendor via email has been excellent. They are very responsive and are very helpful. Shipping to Canada is going to soo much more expensive than to the USA for some reason. I was quotes 100+ for shipping and they were willing to subsidize so it would be something around $70. I happen to be in Asia for a few weeks, so they were able to ship it to me at the same $25 as to the US and I'll just bring it back with me. I should receive it later this week. I was looking at a Fractal node 304, but I think this 8 bay chassis will be more fitting.
I'm just settling on my final components and think I'll end up with this,
Mobo: Jetway NF9A Q67 Mini-ITX Motherboard
PSU: Athena Power AP-U1ATX40P8
HSF: SilverStone Low Profile 90mm Fan CPU Cooler NT07-1156
CPU: Core i3-3220
RAM: 8-16GB
HBA: IBM M1015
Ebay SFF-8087 mini SAS cables
Sys drive, 2.5" 320GB HDD or SSD
WD Red 2TB drives
The vendor suggested the Jetway when I gave them the criteria that I wanted 2 x intel NIC's (yes, not both are L, oh well), Intel core i3 CPU and up to 16GB of RAM. The price of the mobo isn't horrible and a benefit is that it has 3 x 3 pin fan headers so these could be used for the 120mm chassis fans without needing a splitter. If I decide to use freeNAS or NAS4free, an internal USB header would have been nice, but it's not the end of the world. I also like the SuperMicro IPMI console via IP access, but again, it's a nice to have rather than a must. I can also hook up a kb/monitor if I need to get to console. This board is much less than any SuperMicro board would cost for MITX. I've just never used a Jetway mobo, so am unsure about the quality.
So I have a few questions to this thread,
- which HBA are you using to manage the 8 disks?
- what NAS platform are you going to use for the NAS users out there?
- has anyone considered using the U-NAS software? It is $30, but from the description seems decent. Just thinking there won't be much of a community behind it like freenas, nas4free, OMV, etc.
With this type of config, I don't think I'm going to save a bundle over a Synology, but it will have more muscle with the corei3 and more RAM. I just hope the platform I choose will be as stable and as fast with throughput as I would expect a Synology would be.
Thanks.
I've been following this thread with great interest. I'm currently running a HP Mediasmart server which has been working, fine, but will soon be running out of space with 4x2TB drives so I was looking at alternative NAS boxes like a Synology which gets great reviews. I had considered a DIY solution, but wanted to keep a small form factor and low power. This when I discovered the various Linux NAS solutions like freenas, OMV, Nexentia, OI, etc using ZFS for RAID.
I was hoping the 6 bay chassis would become available soon, but conversing with the UNAS vendor, it sounds like it's not in their current production plans. I don't think I need an 8 bay solution at this point, but having expansion can be good, right?
Communication with the vendor via email has been excellent. They are very responsive and are very helpful. Shipping to Canada is going to soo much more expensive than to the USA for some reason. I was quotes 100+ for shipping and they were willing to subsidize so it would be something around $70. I happen to be in Asia for a few weeks, so they were able to ship it to me at the same $25 as to the US and I'll just bring it back with me. I should receive it later this week. I was looking at a Fractal node 304, but I think this 8 bay chassis will be more fitting.
I'm just settling on my final components and think I'll end up with this,
Mobo: Jetway NF9A Q67 Mini-ITX Motherboard
PSU: Athena Power AP-U1ATX40P8
HSF: SilverStone Low Profile 90mm Fan CPU Cooler NT07-1156
CPU: Core i3-3220
RAM: 8-16GB
HBA: IBM M1015
Ebay SFF-8087 mini SAS cables
Sys drive, 2.5" 320GB HDD or SSD
WD Red 2TB drives
The vendor suggested the Jetway when I gave them the criteria that I wanted 2 x intel NIC's (yes, not both are L, oh well), Intel core i3 CPU and up to 16GB of RAM. The price of the mobo isn't horrible and a benefit is that it has 3 x 3 pin fan headers so these could be used for the 120mm chassis fans without needing a splitter. If I decide to use freeNAS or NAS4free, an internal USB header would have been nice, but it's not the end of the world. I also like the SuperMicro IPMI console via IP access, but again, it's a nice to have rather than a must. I can also hook up a kb/monitor if I need to get to console. This board is much less than any SuperMicro board would cost for MITX. I've just never used a Jetway mobo, so am unsure about the quality.
So I have a few questions to this thread,
- which HBA are you using to manage the 8 disks?
- what NAS platform are you going to use for the NAS users out there?
- has anyone considered using the U-NAS software? It is $30, but from the description seems decent. Just thinking there won't be much of a community behind it like freenas, nas4free, OMV, etc.
With this type of config, I don't think I'm going to save a bundle over a Synology, but it will have more muscle with the corei3 and more RAM. I just hope the platform I choose will be as stable and as fast with throughput as I would expect a Synology would be.
Thanks.
Cool stuff. I've never heard of the Jetway brand before, but after looking at that model, it's nice to have found the 3rd mini-ITX motherboard with 6 Sata ports and a LGA1155 socket. Not saying it's good, but it's part of a niche group of mobos that are good for NAS.
I can vouch for the processor, as that's what I'm using, and the PSU I like, except that I'm getting by quite well with Athena's 300 watt version of the same thing. The 400 watt was just a bit out of my price range. The CPU cooler is just within the 40mm clearances of the 8 bay case.
Ram I'm getting by on 4gb, and I'd recommend a 60gb SSD.
If you're dealing with u-nas.com, they include mini-SAS cables in their 8 bay. Otherwise, you can get them on monoprice for 10 bucks a pop. The included ones are way too long so I'd get 2 of the .5 meter from monoprice anyways.
HBA: I'm using the Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8, which is an expander with 2 mini-SAS ports each capable of handling 4 sata hard drives. No RAID needed since I'm mostly hosting media content that I can re-download if a drive fails.
OS: I'm running Windows 7 x64. I like GUI interface and being able to Remote Desktop in is nice, what I'm now used to. I might be switching to Windows Server 2012 in the not-to-distant future.
Didn't realize there was a 300w version, so thanks for the tip. Saves me $25 from the 400w version!
Are you populating your chassis with 8 drives now? I imagine 250-300w should be sufficient for 8 drives.Didn't realize there was a 300w version, so thanks for the tip. Saves me $25 from the 400w version!
I purchased 1 3tb WD Red drive when I was building this a few weeks ago.
I have 4 other hard drives: 3 WD greens (A 2tb, 1tb, and 500gb) from 3 externals that I tore apart because I was sick of having a power cord for each, and an 80gb Seagate Barracuda from my first desktop back in 2006. I'm not as big a fan of Seagate, but that drive is the only survivor of that tower.
I have 3 slots left, so that over time I can add 3 more of the 3tb drives, and then I can start kicking green drives out and replacing with more new reds, if need be. I also can have an external cage for an additional 4 hard drives for a little over $100 that can connect to eSata or USB3 on my motherboard.
So now I have 5 hard drives and it's all good, 8 should be fine as well. Keep in mind that HDDs barely consume anything compared to the processor and fans, which is really all you're powering. Add a tiny bit more for everything else on the motherboard, the case LEDs, and if you have anything power hungry connected via USB. Should be fine.
Our i3 consumes 65w, all fans a maximum of another 120w, and each WD Red consumes less than 6w on full power. Those are good numbers. Some would say that 300w is cutting it close, and I might be since there's something up with the case fan header on my motherboard so the 2 case fans are running at 100% all the time, connected directly to the power supply, but it's all good so far.
I think the 3220 is 55w which is even better. There is a 35220T which is 35w at peak, but seems harder to find and lower clock speed.
My wish list would have included an eSata port and USB 3, but haven't been able to find one with dual Intel NIC's. Trunking two ports, may be overkill in this case, but I'll probably be using this NAS as an NFS mount for a test VMware lab server.
So with Win7, are you seeing separate drives for each drive in the enclosure? Server 2012 or Win8 storage spaces may be useful fro you to have all drives appear as one pool of storage.
Backtrack this thread, somewhere in the last 5 pages where we discuss our builds I remember someone mentioning a mobo with 2 NICs and it might have the other features you're looking for. Search for 'Gigabyte' that might have been the company that it was. Mine is also a Gigabyte, so tread carefully.
Yes, with the AOC-SASLP-MV8 each drive has its own volume in Computer. I like the premise of pooling, but its impractical for me. Makes things too complicated when something goes wrong. Not like I need to store a single 6tb file or something across 3 drives. Every drive has its own purpose and type(s) of content, and as my collection grows, I can migrate content. I can copy 1 TB of files between drives in under 24 hours. That's less than someone else's server would take to format their RAID configuration
As far as Win8 (on my main laptop where I'm typing this right now) goes, I sort of like the File History feature for backing up to a shared network location (I've mounted everything as a mapped network drive).
As a heads up, keep in mind that the MV8 card doesn't officially support any drives above 2tb. There's a 4.xx driver that's available on the net if you know where to look that will allow the card to deal with a 3tb+ drive without bluescreening your server.
Will be happy to assist with that when the time comes.I received the NSC-800 chassis today and I'm a little disappointed with the QC. Most of it is OK, except the drive trays aren't as good as they should be. Some are a little hard to pull out and the worst part is that they don't all sit flush with the front of the chassis. It seems like the front of the tray with the handle is a little bent on 7 of the 8 trays. I'm hoping it will still work OK, but it comes down to the fit and finish of the chassis. I also find the tray for the first tray has more play (it shifts left to right) versus the other bays. Maybe with an actual disk attached to the tray, it will help guide the tray/disk into the SATA interface. I may attempt to bend it back myself, but will contact the vendor first.
Did any of the others that received their chassis have this issue or are your trays all OK and sit flush?
Did any of the others that received their chassis have this issue or are your trays all OK and sit flush?
Yeah, I purchased the Gigabyte GA-Z77N-WIFI, which has 2 NICs and supports etherchanneling and esxi. Gigabyte makes another version GA-H77N-WIFI. The main difference is the GA-Z77N-WIFI allows you to overclock you processor.
I have all my hardware except my processor. I want to get an i5-3470T or i5-3570T (I know it's overkill but I believe in future proofing), but I can't find one for a good price.
Here's my build so far:
Processor (Not Yet Purchased)
i5-3470T (Dual Core 35W) or i5-3570T (Quad Core 45W)
Heat Sink
Noctua NH-L9i
Motherboard
GA-Z77N-WIFI
Power Supply
Athena Power AP-U1ATX40P8
SSD
Samsung 840 Series 2.5 inch 120GB
Memory
Crucial Ballistix Sport 16GB Kit
Raid Card
IBM M1015
Cables
SAS to SaTA and SATA III Cable
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For those interested I've got a build thread and some photos on OCAU - http://forums.overclockers.com.au/showthread.php?t=1084681