DIY External enclosure

[jtomasrl]

I was starting my research on a NAS project and realized that I can use unraid to use my gaming rig (the one at my signature) as a gaming and NAS at the same time without noticeable performance losses according to Linus.

 

The problem is i’m using an ncase m1 which can barely fit all those components and nothing else, so I did some research and ended up looking at usb closures, which has the obvious usb 3.0 bandwidth limitations. BTW I’m planning on using 2 hdd as data storage, 1 hdd for parity and 1 ssd as cache on my NAS setup.

 

So I ended up reading about this mini SAS connectors (SFF 8643) which run between 6Gb/s to 12Gb/s and I was wondering if I can make a DIY enclosure that uses this connectors and connect the 4 drives to the m.2 slot on my motherboard using some adapters.

 

I’m just starting my research on this so i’m not sure if i’m overthinking this or if it’s a good approach. What would you guys suggest

[Dujith]

I would check Ebay or whatever 2nd hand site you use for tech and get a Raid card that has an external SAS connector. 

You'll also find all kind of enclosures for just that. Like: https://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?area=en&pid=423

 

Just make sure both have the same connector  and check how many channels the card has.

 

[jtomasrl]

1 minute ago, Dujith said:

I would check Ebay or whatever 2nd hand site you use for tech and get a Raid card that has an external SAS connector. 

You'll also find all kind of enclosures for just that. Like: https://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?area=en&pid=423

 

Just make sure both have the same connector  and check how many channels the card has.

 

yeah the thing about using a card is that I don’t have card slots. I’m using an itx board

[Dujith]

I dont think there is a M2 to SAS. You could use something like: https://www.delock.com/produkt/62584/merkmale.html

And either plugin a card there somehow  . If you can remove that heatsink (If its only there for the M2 drive.)

 

[jtomasrl]

1 hour ago, Dujith said:

I dont think there is a M2 to SAS. You could use something like: https://www.delock.com/produkt/62584/merkmale.html

And either plugin a card there somehow  . If you can remove that heatsink (If its only there for the M2 drive.)

 

Before I figure out how to fit that into my setup, which I think I can, is a raid controller really necessary? can I try to look for a simple pci to mini sas adapter?

 

I’ve seen that most raid cards offers 6Gbps bandwidth, that’s not much an improvement against usb 3.0 isn’t it? wouldn’t that be a problem? shouldn’t I use 1 mini sas per 2 drives in that case?

[Acedia]

Just one quick question: Why not simply plug the drives in your current os and create a file share from that?

Why the additional virtualisation layer?

[jtomasrl]

1 hour ago, Acedia said:

Just one quick question: Why not simply plug the drives in your current os and create a file share from that?

Why the additional virtualisation layer?

this is out of the scope of the questions here. The problem is plugging the drives on my system