this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2023
13 points (88.2% liked)

Selfhosted

39250 readers
481 users here now

A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

Rules:

  1. Be civil: we're here to support and learn from one another. Insults won't be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.

  2. No spam posting.

  3. Posts have to be centered around self-hosting. There are other communities for discussing hardware or home computing. If it's not obvious why your post topic revolves around selfhosting, please include details to make it clear.

  4. Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or github here. Just post the link for folks to click.

  5. Submission headline should match the article title (don’t cherry-pick information from the title to fit your agenda).

  6. No trolling.

Resources:

Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.

Questions? DM the mods!

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

I'm replacing an SFF PC (HP ProDesk 600 G5 SFF) I'm using as a server with a larger one that'll function as a server and a NAS, and all I want is a case that would have been commonplace 10-15 years ago:

  • Fits an ATX motherboard.
  • Fits at least 4-5 hard drives.
  • Is okay sitting on its side instead of upright (or even better, is built to be horizontal) since it'll be sitting on a wire shelving unit (replacing the SFF PC here: https://upvote.au/post/11946)
  • No glass side panel, since it'll be sitting horizontally.
  • Ideally space for a fan on the left panel

It seems like cases like this are hard to find these days. The two I see recommended are the Fractal Design Define R5 and the Cooler Master N400, both of which are quite old. The Streacom F12C was really nice but it's long gone now, having been discontinued many years ago.

Unfortunately I don't have enough depth for a full-depth rackmount server; I've got a very shallow rack just for networking equipment.

Does anyone have recommendations for any cases that fit these requirements?

My desktop PC has a Fractal Design Define R4 that I bought close to 10 years ago... I'm tempted to just buy a new case for it and repurpose the Define R4 for the server.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Two good cases for this are the fractal node series. Not ATX, but great.

Node 304 can do 6 HDDs, ITX board, SFX-L supply.

Node 804 is twice as big (still smaller than tower cases) but can do mATX board, 8HDDs, and an ATX power supply.

Watch out for ITX builds because they only have 4 SATA ports, so you need to get an M.2 expansion card or PCIe expander if you aren't using a video card.

mATX can usually expand via the extra PCIe connector.

[–] dan@upvote.au 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I'm leaning towards the Node 804 now, and just getting an mATX board instead of an ATX one. The Node 804 can also fit a larger (160mm) CPU cooler, so my preferred cooler (Noctua NH-D15) should be able to fit if I replace the 140mm fans with 120mm ones - with the smaller fans, it needs exactly 160mm clearance.

I love Fractal Design and they seem to be one of the only manufacturers still producing older cases that can fit a lot of HDDs.

[–] Cyber 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If you change your mind on mobo again, +1 for the Node304. It even fits Ikea Kallax shelving 🙂

I have a 6 drive NAS in one, with an ASRockRack mobo... cool & quiet.

[–] dan@upvote.au 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Which motherboard? And do you use ECC RAM?

[–] Cyber 1 points 1 year ago

I'm using the ASRock Rack C2550D4I - good piece of hardware (for what it's doing...)

And yep, ECC... I had read about needing lots of it for ZFS, but TBH after watching several videos about testing RAM, I'm not sure 64GB of ECC RAM was worth the cost...

Plus, I went with BTRFS instead 😉