Seeking Feedback on My 1U Short-Depth (<14 inches) TrueNAS Build

[amusso]

Hello everyone,

I live in a small apartment and space is quite limited. My wife has graciously allowed me to build a homelab, provided that it fits within one cube of our TV stand/media center furniture. I managed to find a 6U open frame rack that's 14 inches deep and fits perfectly in the allocated space. The rack is currently filled with my network gear, 1 liter x86-64 computers, ARM64 SBCs, and a UPS.

While my main workload cluster has ample space (~20TB), I'm in need of a dedicated storage solution. My requirements are that it be fairly quiet, energy-efficient, and able to fit within a 1U / sub-14 inch rack spot. I don't need hot-swappable drives, and I won't be virtualizing anything or performing tasks beyond storage. I have offsite backups for everything. The 14-inch depth is the main challenge. Here's the build I've come up with:

• Chassis: IW-RF100S-S265 from Neural Servers (9.8-inch depth, 4x bays - 2x 2.5", 2x 3.5") https://neuralservers.com/products/iw-rf100s-s265
• Cooling: 3x generic 40x28mm cooling fans
• Mobo: ASRock Rack C246 WSI https://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=C246 WSI
• CPU: Intel Xeon E-2278G - 2.6GHz 8-core 16MB LGA 1151 CPU-processor
• RAM: A-Tech 2x 32GB DDR4 2666 MHz ECC UNB UDIMM
• Storage:
  • 2.5 inch: 2x Seagate IronWolf 125 SSD 4TB
  • 3.5 inch: 2x 14TB WD Red Pro
  • Boot: I have several spare NVMe SSDs and enclosures on hand, so I'll choose one of those.

I would really appreciate any feedback or suggestions you may have for my build. Is there anything I should consider changing or adding to optimize this setup? Any potential issues or compatibility concerns?
Thank you in advance for your input!

 

[Samuel Tai]

The C246 WSI is a workstation board. You may want to use the server board equivalent without audio, the E3C246D2I. Your CPU will work with this board, but you'll need to use RAM off the QVL for this board. In particular, for 32GB ECC sticks, the only one that's qualified is the Samsung 901 K4AAG085WM BCTD.

 

[Samuel Tai]

Also, if you're only going to run storage loads on this box, and aren't going to host VMs, then you can opt for a cooler-running CPU, the Xeon E-2104G, with a 65 W TDP, instead of your E-2278G, with an 80 W TDP.