[Discuss] 4-Bay NAS

[tmetro-blu at vl.com (Tom Metro)]

Richard Pieri wrote:
> I'm shortly going to be in the market for a 4-bay NAS box for my home storage.

See prior thread:
http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss at blu.org/msg03133.html

  Re: [Discuss] D-I-Y NAS enclosures
  ...I recently ran across Acer's product in this space:
  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16859321016

  a smaller 8.5" x 8" x 7" cube with a 2 TB drive. (Plus 5 USB and 1
  eSATA ports.) Currently selling for $260. Possibly discounted due to
  being loaded with an obsolete version of Windows Home Server.

NewEgg has since discontinued all the Acer Easystore models it carried.
Google tells me other vendors still have it, but for $360+, which is not
cost effective.

The search also turns up several vendors selling just a refurbished
motherboard for this product at prices ranging from $131 to $212, which
seems to confirm my fear mentioned in the above post that it uses a
proprietary motherboard.

I think these small servers aimed at the Windows Home Server market are
pretty close to the ideal hardware arrangement for a small D-I-Y NAS
platform, if they just: 1. used commodity ITX motherboards, 2. came
without Windows, and 3. had a price around $150. (Screwless/trayless
drive bays would be really nice, too.)

I'm still disappointed that there aren't better options for a mini-ITX
case with 4 or 5 screwless/trayless drive bays. There are a few, like:

http://www.e-itx.com/cfi-a7879.html
http://www.google.com/products/catalog?hl=en&q=mini-itx+nas&cid=6160286187527426797&ei=eCwsT4HaF9uwmQeG8tTMAg&ved=0CAkQrRI

(I like the layout of the first case better, but it uses superfluous
trays and costs $140.)

but they're generally priced at $120 or more. Add a motherboard, RAM,
boot device (Flash), and you're well over $200.

Clearly this is more a matter of sales volume than raw materials, as you
can get much larger steel enclosures with higher wattage power supplies
for half the price.

Consider that you can get a 5-bay eSATA enclosure with port multiplier
electronics for $150:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816132015

or a 4-bay version for about $100:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816111177&nm_mc=OTC-Froogle&cm_mmc=OTC-Froogle-_-Server+-+RAID+Sub-Systems-_-SANS+DIGITAL-_-16111177

which means you should be able to get a similar case + power supply for
about $60 ~ $80.

For a real D-I-Y approach, I'd start with a CD duplicator enclosure like:
http://www.directron.com/5baybk.html

and then put a 5-bay trayless hot-swap cage into it, like:
http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=BPU-350SATA&cid=15975077119275943947&sa=button#scoring=tp

In theory there should be enough space to mount a 6" square mini-ITX
motherboard at the bottom or near the top of the enclosure. The end
result is no cheaper, not smaller, and probably not better looking, but
will have better quality drive bays. (You might see a cost advantage if
you scale it up to a 7-bay CD duplicator case with 2 5-bay cages, but to
support 10 drives you'll need to add port multiplier hardware
(http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000VEMNAU/). Or replace the expensive cages
with bare-bones versions: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001LF40KE and either
manually wire them up, or add a port multiplier backplane, like the hard
to find CFI-B53PM used in the Backblaze server
(http://blog.backblaze.com/2009/10/07/backblaze-storage-pod-vendors-tips-and-tricks/).)

 -Tom

-- 
Tom Metro
Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA
"Enterprise solutions through open source."
Professional Profile: http://tmetro.venturelogic.com/