Greetings from Brampton, Ontario, Canada!

[rfielder]

Just a quick intro here. Greeting to all! And thanks to iX for providing forums!!!

Current Windows Home Server V1 user. There - I said it! In public!!!

I suspect that my WHS system is a bit past it's best-before date. It still runs well, but it can only act as a NAS for some of my stuff - the limitation of 2Tb drives became an issue some time ago. The system is running on 32 bit hardware, so all I can do is replace and scrap. At least the case will be reusable - very nice case, with room for 8 3.5" drives plus one or two 2.5" drives.

After looking around, the choice of a NAS applicance from QNAP, Synology, etc, seems very attractive. Just put your money down, add drives, plug it in, and go.

Why does that not seem like a good choice for me?

Guess I am still in the DIY camp. After working in the IS field for many years (30 years at my current job, third job in IS), I have been dealing with vendors and appliances and delivered systems for a long time. As good as they can be, I always like to get my hands in. Learning the applications and using them has been a career, but not getting at the stuff in the back has been more than a bit frustrating. Those systems where I end up as sysadm have always been the ones that provided the greatest bang for the buck for my employers.

Plus, you learn very little from buying appliances and delivered systems. I like to learn. I like to know new things. I hope this attributes will let me fit in here!

At this time, I am specing out the hardware for an 8 bay FreeNAS server. My questions will go to the appropriate forums. This will be the first real "server" I have built for home, so this will be fun!

 

[HoneyBadger]

At least the case will be reusable - very nice case, with room for 8 3.5" drives plus one or two 2.5" drives.

Greetings! Curious about the make and model of this case; it would seem to fit the bill for a lot of users here.

 

[cJZ]

Welcome to FreeNAS. I am a believer now after a few failures and successful recoveries and resilver operations.

edit -- I am also a fellow Canuck. From way out east, NB.

 

[rfielder]

Greetings! Curious about the make and model of this case; it would seem to fit the bill for a lot of users here.

HoneyBadger:

My apologies for taking so long to reply.

The case is from Antec. It is a few years old, and I don't recall the model number. I was unable to get behind it to see if there was anything to indicate the model.

The case has three 5 1/4" bays at the top, six bays for going down the front for drives 3.5" drives, and one or two bays kind of hidden for 2.5" drives.

What is nice is that there are 120mm fans down the front, right in front of the drives, so those drives get fresh air.

The case is wider than usual. That is because the six bays are mounted sideways. That is to say, when you are facing the front of the case, the wiring for the six drives is on the right side of the case. The drives go into carriers that slide in from the left.

I tried to find an equivilent case in the Antec lineup, but was unsuccessful. The cases may be there, I just wasn't able to see them.