Rackmount server recommendations

[OSUwrestler]

Hi everyone,

 

looking to build a NAS in the next 2 years and am trying to do some preliminary research.  Where can I find 2U rackmount chassis? I want it to hold maybe 15+ 2.5inch drives. I want to DIY all of the internals. Every nice case I’ve found makes you buy all the drives and internals from them in one package. I haven’t found an option that has just the case. And suggestions?

[exhaustedbrit]

There's are a number of manufacturers in Guangzhou and similar places which construct commodity 2U chassis for self-built servers. Typically these are for businesses which want to package up their service as a piece of installable hardware - such as a proprietary DVR for CCTV, firewall appliances or as you describe, NAS.

If you're going on the cheap you might want to say goodbye to the idea of having nice hot-swappable drive bays or consider getting an older ex-corporate storage array chassis by HP or Dell if you can stomach the cost of the caddies. You might get away with buying a server that has a 2x5.25" bay and buying a 5.25" bay replacement that has a SATA/SAS backplane from the likes of Icy dock, I've had success with the express cage for 2.5" solid state disks personally.

If you've money to spare I can recommend the Inwin RS212 provided you'll get some suitable HBA/RAID controllers, it's a fantastic case for NAS purposes. It can be dear though and costs around £250 here in the UK. It has 12 hot-swap bays for 3.5" drives can take the wider ATX motherboards (w 10.5") and is relatively short depth.

[Windows7ge]

I've been in your position. You're unlikely going to find a system like this for any reasonable price. I"ve seen some supermicro enclosures on eBay that fit the bill that accept standard ATX motherboards but they're still a pretty penny.

 

I myself went the DIY off the shelf chassis route and just added my own 5.25" bay adapters for 2.5" drive storage.

[OSUwrestler]

17 hours ago, Windows7ge said:

I've been in your position. You're unlikely going to find a system like this for any reasonable price. I"ve seen some supermicro enclosures on eBay that fit the bill that accept standard ATX motherboards but they're still a pretty penny.

 

I myself went the DIY off the shelf chassis route and just added my own 5.25" bay adapters for 2.5" drive storage.

Where do you get the DIY off the shelf chassis?

[Windows7ge]

2 hours ago, OSUwrestler said:

Where do you get the DIY off the shelf chassis?

You want 2U. My own implementation is 4U. That and the chassis is rather flimsy. I can't recommended it unless you run out of options.