JBOD in a normal PC case

[SSSSAT]

I have teh cooler master elite 330 (https://www.coolermaster.com/catalog/legacy-products/cases/elite-330u/) case. Aim of the project is to have at least 8 SATA HDD’s (2.5 or 3.5 inch) in this case. Maybe even more, 12 or 16 could fit in the case with some fiddling.

System will only run about once every 6 months to backup data. Will run for 24 hours and then be shutdown again. Hence I don’t really care about power usage or silence or aesthetics, this is a cheap & fun project.


Question; apparently SATA expanders do not play nice with FreeNAS. Is this still true anno 2021?

Also FM CPU’s apparently also do not play nice with FreeNAS.

This case only has 1 120mm fan in the front, do you think this is enough to cool 8-12 HDD’s?

I’ve also read before that for so many HDD’s running, the vibrations are risk to the HDD’s. Is this true or just bullshit?



I’ve used FreeNAS before and I was pleasantly surprised by how user friendly it was with the new GUI. But I really want more than 8 SATA HDD’s and this severely limits the amount of mobo’s I can use since not a lot of motherboards have 8 SATA ports.
All these questions lead me to the question; is FreeNAS a good fit for my project? Or do I have to look at ‘competitors’ like TrueNAS?

 

[Arwen]

There is a name change in progress:

FreeNAS -> TrueNAS CORE

TrueNAS, (not the CORE version), is a commercial product, (meaning you pay money for support).


Next, SATA port multipliers were an add-on standard that not all vendors properly support. So, no, for a NAS device you never want to use SATA port multiplier(s). SAS Expanders however, work great, (but of course require a SAS HBA).

As long as you have a free slot, you can get second hand SAS HBAs pretty cheap. Others here follow the price, but I have seen a card as low as $30 US, (may not including shipping). That gives you another 8 disk ports. Just need to add a break out cable of the right type.


For the case, I'd suggest more cooling, as the nature of the build is to run it at full tilt until your backup is done. Otherwise I can't really make comments about the case.


Don't know what you mean by "Also FM CPU's".

 

[Herr_Merlin]

If you use the system so seldom go for other hardware. Used server parts. Make sure of ecc etc. Take a good power supply