OT - NAS cases

[grumpydoc]

Has anyone built themselves a large-ish (i.e 6+ bays) NAS server recently?

If so what case did you use?

My current server is squeezed into an old Morex Venus 669 case. A couple of Icy Dock caddies allow 3x hot swap 3.5" and 2x hot swap 2.5" drives to be installed and there is a further 3.5" drive internally. Currently it has 20TB of disk in mirrored pairs (2x 6TB and 2x4TB), the two 2.5" slots contain 2x2TB drives used for "very near line" backup.

However it is starting to show its age and I'd like to upgrade.

Main duties are media serving (very popular with the family for the DVD collection), email & web server and, usually because it is powered up 24/7 my main PC.

There seem to be very few suitable cases on the market though - I'm looking at 8-bay NAS which can take a Z370 Mini-itx M/B, i7-8770 CPU (despite the shenanigans with Spectre I can't see Intel coming up with a sensible solution in a sensible time frame) and, given the CPU spec, ideally enough room to squeeze liquid cooling in. Not interested in o/clocking beyond perhaps getting as many cores as possible running at the full turbo speed. One of the 1st duties will be to transcode my current h.264 library to h.265 (purely to get a bit more life out of the storage space, though I would plan on almost doubling what is available with a pair of 8TB drives).

The U-NAS NSC 810/810A would appear to be good starting points but:
 - they are rather expensive at £240 for the 810 without PSU
 - I can only find one supplier with any stock in the UK, and then only a single 810
 - no actual data, drawings or measurements on the 'net, no max fan height specified anywhere
 - it looks a  little, ahem, cramped internally.
 - no room for liquid cooling

That leaves the Silverstone DS380 and, errm not much else. A couple of dodgy looking items on Alibaba.

To be honest the DS380 probably does fit the bill, it's a bit larger than I'd like but not too massive and it's a lot cheaper - however some reviewers have expressed concerns regarding airflow across the disks, one use even limiting himself to using every other slot to get temperatures down below about 65^oC. It doesn't look as nicely made as the U-NAS case (not taht matters if i can't get hold of the latter).

Suggestions very welcome.

Edit: Ah, realised I didn't put size constraints in the "spec" which I had intended to do. Limited space means I'm looking for a case as close to the Morex as possible given the other requirements.

[rstofer]

I built up a workstation using the Fractal Designs case:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00Q2Z11QE/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Holds 8ea 3-1/2" drives (plus 2 SSDs) has plenty of room for everything including CPU water cooling.  In fact, it also has accommodations for water cooling the GPU.  My Gigabyte motherboard holds two m.2 SSDs

Don't know about availability over there but it claims Scandinavian design

http://www.fractal-design.com/home/contact-us

This is a very nice case!

[grumpydoc]

I built up a workstation using the Fractal Designs case:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00Q2Z11QE/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

That does look to be a nice case, it's readily available in the UK (£79.99 from Scan at the moment) as well.

However it is huge - I really need something not much larger than the Morex. The U-NAS 810 is 315x275x197mm (sans feet) and the DS380 is 211x285x360mm.

I have a second PC which was built mainly to run Kdenlive for video editing and to run windows but I found myself using it less and less and I'm increasingly questioning why I have two boxes. If I stick with two boxes I'll certainly look at the R5 case.

[rstofer]

It is a very wide case.  That is because the motherboard mounting panel is spaced away from the right door such that power cables can be routed between the mounting panel and the door.  The 2 SSDs mount in this area as well.

It is an excellent case but it is large...

[rdl]

The Fractal Design Node 304 is popular, but probably not big enough for you. There is a larger Node 804 though.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811352047

[grumpydoc]

The Fractal Design Node 304 is popular, but probably not big enough for you. There is a larger Node 804 though.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811352047

Yes, I looked at the 304, ultimately decided against as not hot swap and, while I can transplant the existing disks, I can't add any. The 804 is, indeed, too large - I have limited space as the server lives under a shelf so just over 20cm is the max height possible - I can, just, move the system past the end of the shelf but for a system which is > ~220mm high I would be limited in width to about 250mm.

I know that the "hot swap" aspect of these cases is not true hot swap because you can't power down the tray and interface to safely remove the drive but I've had enough disk failures that not having to take the whole case apart to swap one is a plus.

[grumpydoc]

OK U-NAS NSC 810 it is.

(Semi) Officially there is 47mm clearance for a CPU cooler - an i7 8700K is going to be fairly toasty in there with just a Noctua NH-L9i to cool it (about all that will fit) but we'll see how things go.

Fun weekend ahead trying to squeeze an ASROCK Z370M mini-itx and an i7 8700K plus various disks into the case