New build - upgrade from NUC to something new

[Nicodem]

Hi

so I use at home old NUC system (based on i5 6th generation) with 16GB and with... 2 USB 3.0 12TB drives, 1 SSD 2TB as cache. No parity.

Its for media server mostly + some dockers and VMs for my fun use.

I decided that its a high time to move forward to something more like NAS, not like frankenstein that I have now.

 

What I need:

- 6 HDDs 3.5" place inside the case, do not have to be hot swappable etc. I plan to put there 3-4 drives now and when needed add more in future and forget. No swapping.

- I am thinking now about Fractal Design 304 case, white as it looks nice and fits my cabinet under TV

- HAVE to be quiet, super quiet as it goes under TV in living room

- should be power efficient but this is not priority no.1

- as I have now 6th gen i5 and 16GB and all works fine with me - I do not need anything super-strong.

In most cases the max load is when we use at home 2-3 streams from Plex at same time, while 2 of them are always direct play, one can be reencoded. So quicksync is needed but I dont need any external GPU (I suppose).

 

Any ideas?

 

Edited March 31, 2022 by Nicodem