Mini PC for Truenas with x16 pcie or m.2

[Torbenc]

I am trying to design a small factor NAS to 3dprint, instead of my full size atx cabinet. 

I would really like to run it, as close to passive cooled as possible, eg. with an Intel NUC6i3SYK style.
I am building it all around a Chenbro 4x3.5" HDD caddy with a backplate that has 2xMolex power and a mini-sata to plug into my M1015.
It will be cooled with a 120/140mm fan 

As fare as I know, a NUC6i3SYK's m.2 is only x4 pcie, and the M1015 is x8. I would also like to add a 5 or 10gbe pcie card, that is x4/x8 depending on model.
I would adapt from m.2 to pcie to 2xpcie - If that's even possible? 

If anyone have a suggestion for a mini PC that can be used, with a 4 cores / 4 threads min. cpu.

It may sound crazy, but ain't that why we watch LTT

[jaslion]

Honestly just get a matx board, use a small tower cooler as the cooling fan for the hdds and cpu put in eco mode and then all is good.

 

The nuc cannot split its m.2 so that plan goes out the window. Also keep in mind m.2 to pcie is NOT A GIVEN. It is a legit cointoss if the device allows it

 

It's VERY important to have airflow as the 10gb nic, raid card and hdds need cooling especially in such a compact enviroment as they'll easily reach too high a temp in a only passive case.

 

Besides a 120mm thermalright cooler is near silent to actually too quiet to hear if you lets say just use a 5600g in eco mode as it technically could run passively on just the tower.

 

You'll see in the nuc that even the vrms and all that get some form.of active cooling as the fan takes air in over the metal they have a thermal pad on.

 

 

[Needfuldoer]

That's a lot to ask from a NUC motherboard. Those things are basically laptops.

 

I think you'd be better off with a Mini ITX motherboard that has at least four onboard SATA ports (so you don't need the HBA), a 16x PCIe slot (for high speed networking or a transcoding GPU), and an M.2 (for a boot SSD). 

[Torbenc]

I've been looking at matx X79/X99 and go xeon - but it also don't quite add up with as passive cooling as possible. 

I have a 3570k cpu, but at 77w it's also around the limit. But it's running with a coolermaster 212, and it's as quite as possible. It's just bulky.

The chenbro chassis has a 80mm fan on the back, that are louder than my vacuum cleaner 

[Torbenc]

5 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

That's a lot to ask from a NUC motherboard. Those things are basically laptops.

 

I think you'd be better off with a Mini ITX motherboard that has at least four onboard SATA ports (so you don't need the HBA), a 16x PCIe slot (for high speed networking or a transcoding GPU), and an M.2 (for a boot SSD). 

I'm running SAS drives via this 4x3.5 drive bay.

[Needfuldoer]

11 minutes ago, Torbenc said:

I'm running SAS drives via this 4x3.5 drive bay.

Any particular reason for SAS drives?

 

I'm running twelve SATA drives in my home server (a PowerEdge R730XD for now).

[Torbenc]

Only that I already have a stack of them and all accecories to use them. 

[Bersella AI]

If you intend to print a NAS chassis, be aware that without appropriate cooling, the plastics may melt around heat sources. Check out whether your material could sustain under 100°C before printing.

As aforementioned, a Micro-ATX board would be preferred in favor of flexibility. With NUC boards, you would be stuck in limited M.2 slots, and would have to make cables to source 12V power for HBA or NIC cards. The Asrock N100M board would be a good candidate for this, with 2 PCIe slots, 2 on-board SATA ports & 2 M.2 ports available. Also, a chassis design with at least 4 drive bays, a Flex power bay & plenty room for a mATX board would be recommended.