for redecoration purposes I’m looking for a new case for my NAS. I’m running 6 HDDs, one SATA and a µATX Motherboard with an ATX PSU. These are the extra wishes I have other than the obvious hardware requirement:
A white case
Should be compact to be girlfriend-approved
Descent Cable management
No glas panel
Optionally has an extra 2,5" SSD Slot, but not a must, the SSD can just hang around
Optionally somewhat soundproofed since it goes into the living room
Preferably under 150 €, but I’m willing to go higher
I actually ordered the Jonsbo N4 NAS in white, but I don’t like that it needs molex power cables. Also the airflow for the HDDs non existent. And finally it only fits a SFX PSU which I bought quite expensively for 115 €, but I also saw in review videos that the standard length of the power cable for the motherboard is usually too short. I haven’t unpacked the case yet because I’m fixing some hardware and pool issues atm. I was thinking of upgrading to the N5, but they don’t have a white version.
What other things can I do to make it as silent as possible? Upgrade to Noctua fans? Tbh the loudest things are the drives probably. I might also upgrade the CPU cooler (stock cooler from Intel for the G3220).
I couldn’t find any case other than the Jonsbo that met the visual criteria (white and compact). I would sacrifice white for compact.
You’re looking for the “Sagittarius” 8-bay NAS case, available on AliExpress and Taobao. It’s pretty cheap (though the shipping might be expensive), and satisfies most of your requirements:
It’s available in white or black
It’s compact (about as tall as 8 3.5" drives stacked, plus a little space between them, and cubic-shaped)
Cable management is pretty decent. The hardest part is probably routing cables between the two sides of the case, the motherboard side and the HDD side. There’s two holes for this, but you’ll need to route the cables before you install the motherboard.
There’s no glass
There’s no 2.5" slot, however there are some mounting holes on the bottom of the motherboard compartment for 2.5" drives. If you want more 2.5" drives, there are very cheap mounting kits for these on AliExpress; it’s basically a small cage for 2-4 drives and screws into the case. You might have to drill some holes though. But if you just want 1 SSD drive, there’s already holes for this in the case.
No soundproofing, and honestly it’s not the most attractive case in the world. It doesn’t look horrible, but personally I keep mine in a closet.
I’m not sure what the price + shipping would be to EU.
Bonus: you can use a full-size ATX power supply. The caveat is that you need a low-profile CPU cooler, because the P/S is directly over the CPU. I use a SFX P/S with an adapter plate, but honestly there’s enough space for a regular ATX. So do pay attention to the height of your cooler before buying.
It uses Molex power cables. I’m not sure why this is a negative though. For all 8 drives (or even 6) you’ll need 4 Molex plugs. My P/S (Fractal) only had two, on a single cable, so I had to order an additional cable to get the other two. My P/S is modular, so I had an additional unused socket for this. Be sure that your cable pin-out matches your P/S pin-out so you don’t fry your HDDs! (I actually had to change the pins on the cable on mine, because it wasn’t an exact match.)
There’s no issue with motherboard power cables being too short on this case, unlike the N4. The P/S is mounted directly over the MB so length isn’t an issue.
Airflow is very good, esp. for the HDDs which have their own dual 120mm fans (you may need to buy these separately, depending on which package you order; I prefered to buy my own Arctic fans instead of using the no-name fans that some sellers package with the case). There’s also a decent amount of space between the drives, and the backplane PC boards have large holes in them for airflow, unlike a lot of these NAS cases. Overall, my system is not loud at all unless it’s under load.
Plus I don’t have any.