New NAS Build

[HEADRAT]

Hi,

Haven't treated myself to new toys in a while so I've just nabbed the following for a NAS upgrade from my trusty Gen8 Microserver.

SilverStone SST-CS381 (case was probably overkill but I can see it lasting me for years in one guise or other)

Supermicro X10SDV-8C+-LN2F (Intel® Xeon® processor D-1541, Single socket FCBGA 1667, 8-Core, 45W) - Nabbed off the MM, nice lower power and enough grunt for what I'm doing.

Sedna - M2 (2280) PCIe M Key to 5 x SATA 6G Adapter Card (to give me a few more SATA ports)

600W be quiet! SFX-L PSU

2 x SanDisk SSD PLUS 480 GB (going to play with SSD cache put might just end up being "fast storage")
6 x WD 6TB Red (I have 5 drives already), room later for 2 more discs
Intel 520 10 GigE NIC (10GBASE-T copper SFP)
16GB DDR4 PC4-19200 2400MH

Not 100% sure what NAS software I'm going to use yet, I know to some peoples disgust it might be XPenology again but time will tell

Will hopefully recoup a little from selling my Microserver on the MM once I'm done!

HEADRAT

 

[HEADRAT]

I had Intel NICs and SFP already

The Sedna - M2 (2280) PCIe M Key to 5 x SATA 6G Adapter Card (to give me a few more SATA ports) didn't seem to work with the Supermicro board so I returned it. Bought some 16TB discs to replace the 6TB as well.

Had a bit of a headache with some mini SAS cable didn’t realise you need SATA (host) to SFF-8463 (target) cable, I just thought it’s was all the same, got the right cables and all was good

 

[HEADRAT]

I guess it depends on your use case, mine is for a home NAS with relatively light use so at the moment I have no concerns, see below.

NAS is sat in a warm office room in my home office.

 

[HEADRAT]

OK but the operating range for an EXOS drive is between 5°C – 60°C so I'm not overly concerned, the one running at 40C is in the middle so I'm not surprised it's a bit warmer as it's in a sandwich.

I thought the general consensus was

25°C to 40°C: Ideal
41°C to 50°C: Acceptable
More than 50°C: Too hot

Would the case benefit for some active cooling on the drivebays, yeah I think it probably could but I guess there also then might be an issue with noise etc. As with all chassis I guess there are compromises, if running a drive 20C less than it's max then I guess this isn't right case for you.

 

[HEADRAT]

So the QNAP TVS-872XT £3.5K (approx) professionally built NAS is running cooler than my homebuilt system I built for £1.2K, I can live with that. I have 10GigE, I have 8 Cores, I can have upto 128GB of memory, I can easily upgrade my MOBO to any M-ATX board, there are compromises

As I add more discs then I can see myself modding the case, maybe getting the dremmel and drill out and adding some extra fans, this is part of the the fun of "homebuilt", it's not a negative. The dissipation of heat from drivebays is a common issue on many chassis and unfortunately not unique to the SST-CS381. In fact I'm finding it hard to find any "off the shelf" NAS type cases with active cooling of the drivebays.

The £2.3K I've saved over buying "off shelf" leaves me plenty of scope for improvements.

 

[HEADRAT]

All it is is 2 x 120mm fans blowing on the back of the drives though

Just need to get a bit creative, dremmel/drill time

One of the simplest options, while not the most elegant, would to put a couple of 80mm low profile fans between the case door and the drive bays.

The drive bays are recessed back and there is quite a lots of space between the cage and the door.