Mini-ITX NAS Server Chassis w/ 8 Hot-Swap

[Talos]

Did a quick search on the forums but couldnt see these mentioned anywhere else.

 

Stumbled upon these over at Overclockers.com. Seems that they can be bought for about US$200. Has a few quirks and hardware limitations but for an 8 port mini-ITX hot swap unit seems pretty good. Very similar to the DROBO's in style.

 

http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=694435

 

http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/484820141/NAS_Server_Chassis_w_8_Hot.html

[evlo]

Well, it is (nearly) impossible to order

[gfjardim]

Norco will release them in US soon:

 

http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1038990557&postcount=872

[Talos]

Norco will release them in US soon:

 

http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1038990557&postcount=872

 

If you read the rest of that hard forum thread you linked to you will find that the poster mistakenly thought the unit was a Norco and was redirected to the thread in my first post. Norco will not be releasing this unit.

 

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

[spylex]

Looks really good! Perfect for a mini-itx build.

[jowi]

If this was available earlier, i would have chosen it to build an 8 bay server... looks really nice, Synology/QNAP like

[evlo]

I actually found qnap that was build based on this case - http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/QNAP/TS-859_Pro/

[jowi]

I actually found qnap that was build based on this case - http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/QNAP/TS-859_Pro/

No, its not.

[gfjardim]

Norco will release them in US soon:

 

http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1038990557&postcount=872

 

If you read the rest of that hard forum thread you linked to you will find that the poster mistakenly thought the unit was a Norco and was redirected to the thread in my first post. Norco will not be releasing this unit.

 

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

If you had read the rest of the topic, you would notice that Norco is in the development process of an similar case, and odditory had encouraged them to make an OEM agreement with the fabricator:

 

odditory [H]ard|Gawd, 4.6 Years

 

 

Doesn't change what I said, nor were those cases any secret. The problem is they've been unattainable as I saw it already half a year ago, nobody in the U.S. was sourcing them and since then I've been harping on Norco to set up an OEM relationship with the fabricator along with a few needed design tweaks, if not design their own variation - which as it turned out was something they've had in development since last year, and that all may finally be coming to fruition. That was the point of the tease.

 

So much like my original mockups on an avsforum thread and subsequent discussions with Norco that directly led to the creation of the RPC-4224 and DS-24E expander, when a cost effective 8-bay mini-ITX box along these lines are available everywhere including newegg and friends, you'll know who to thank.

 

This form factor is so overdue in in the home storage segment its not even funny, and when Norco finally release theirs then much like the 20 and 24 bay boxes, it'll once again become a defacto building block in this home/enthusiast storage segment.

 

So it's very possible that Norco will release a similar (if not the same) case.

[AwesomeD]

Going to hold off for this case, it's what I've been looking for. Nice!

[Barbapappa]

Great looking case! Thanks for the heads up, I will put this on my short list for a future build.

[Ice_Black]

I am trying my best to order that case - too difficult and out of stock!

[AwesomeD]

Back in stock just got one:

http://www.u-nas.com/xcart/product.php?productid=17617&cat=0&featured=Y

 

Any suggestions for parts for this?

[aiden]

Wow, this is a very nice little case! Hopefully someone can do a full review on it soon.

 

EDIT: Found a user review - http://forums.overclockers.com.au/showthread.php?t=1084681

 

Seems like a very tight fit, which means it's likely about as small as you can get with that number of drives. Very efficient use of space, and surprisingly good cooling considering how crammed everything is. Some QC issues with a little plastic and metal warping, but that's standard fair with these kinds of imports.

 

Need to use a super low profile CPU cooler, like the Noctua he's using. Since you'd have to add offboard SATA channels (like m1015), you could use a 4 port mini-ITX board and still have enough ports for the job.

 

I'm starting to like this box quite a bit as a replacement for the Microserver, which is sadly removing a lot of mod-friendly features in the next generation.