0-20k New to NAS, looking for a cabinet

They said the same price.
I'm actually ok with 6 HDD
Same, but the problem is there was too much wasted space on their 2U, and it's a wasted opportunity since the HDD cage is also modular.
True that! Just an itch to try a rack case
100% :tearsofjoy:

I sent the below image for re-design consideration, and it came out very similar lol
WhatsApp Image 2024-05-04 at 3.38.11 PM.jpeg
 
They said the same price.

Same, but the problem is there was too much wasted space on their 2U, and it's a wasted opportunity since the HDD cage is also modular.

100% :tearsofjoy:

I sent the image below for re-design consideration, and it came out very similar lol
View attachment 197122

If they keep the price same then it'll be a really great option to try out. When I asked about the price of the upgraded case on WhatsApp they stopped responding.

[A little off-topic but their official WhatsApp number has a DP of a young lady with dreamy eyes... not something you would expect on a company's official WhatsApp number. I was a little concerned when I messaged them and asked if it was Extreme Machines in the first message I sent. Got a yes and then proceeded to converse with them. :)]
 
If they keep the price same then it'll be a really great option to try out. When I asked about the price of the upgraded case on WhatsApp they stopped responding.

[A little off-topic but their official WhatsApp number has a DP of a young lady with dreamy eyes... not something you would expect on a company's official WhatsApp number. I was a little concerned when I messaged them and asked if it was Extreme Machines in the first message I sent. Got a yes and then proceeded to converse with them. :)]
Actually this extreme machine and fourdotcoolings are same. I think owner is some lady for fourdotcoolings and wud be same for extreme machines.
 
Already have the 6 drive variant, wish they'd replace mine with the 9 drive one.

Any plans for the 9 drive modification for the existing chassis (older version)?
 
The thing that concerns me about these rack mount cases is that they hardly have in space for cable management. I have a spare 800W non-modular PSU that I plan to use in my NAS build but I think if I put that PSU in this case I won't have any space to tuck in the extra unused wires.

Also, the absence of hot swappable HDD bays is another con. To take out a HDD from the rack one will have to detach an entire caddy and then take it out to take the specific HDD out all the while having to deal with the wire mess inside the case.

I'm still not 100% sure if I'll get one of these or just use my Corsair 780T Full Tower case which is presently lying unused for the NAS. I remember @gREen built his NAS build in a Phanteks case recently. Looked spacious and very well cooled with Arctic fans inside.

At 6.3k (with Axis Bank discount) might be worthwhile to pick a rack mount case up and see how it works out.
 
Please update your final build when done!
I tried to shift my optiplex usff 3010 (was it 990?) and found some issues with power button, usb port etc. And gave up because of that. I think power button and usb was bundled and I didn't know which was which. Maybe I can check datasheet and find out now.

I might build a nas with the system.
 
So yeah totally forgot to update the final build here, once it was done I kept delaying posting until I had it perfect but never got a chance to post and forgot about it once I was done

I bought the Corsair 600T limited white edition cabinet from @Skynet, thanks again btw, and since the case was solid and pretty reliable I drilled small holes in it for where my motherboard had holes, obviously, no case will have holes for these custom mobos, but this case was solid enough for that and I had the option to change places of the screws in the case so that helped,

After that another problem I faced was no CPU fan bracket as that Dell 3420 tower had that bracket inbuilt, I tried a lot to pull that sheet of metal from that Dell case but had no luck so I gave up on it and used the extra screws from the corsair case itself to attach the CPU fan, took two people to do this because it was hard and I was scared that the mobo might break but works amazing, no issues till now

Then I had to create a back plate, cuz again in the Dell tower it was inbuilt in the case, so I just traced a piece of paper around the i/o and traced it on a piece of cardboard, electric taped that cardboard, and using that as the backplate now

For USB luckily This Corsair case is old and they provided a USB 3 to USB 3 cable to get the front single USB 3 port working, as you can see in the images, there's a USB cable I have in the front i/o of the mobo, that cable simply runs the front USB 3 port, to get the 2.0 ports working I tried to DIY a USB to 9 pin header but I think dell blocks it or maybe I messed up somewhere
1729950764033.png

this

Another USB in the front mobo i/o is the pendrive I installed my Truenas core in, I know it doesn't recommend doing it, but I did it when it was in the Dell system, and changing everything now to export and import all the vdevs seemed like too much work for me, so I'm keeping it there only, maybe in near future ill buy a 112 GB SSD and put the NAS on it, and this time Truenas scale, cuz core has many limitations that I now know of.

The custom pc from Dell also means that there will be a custom power supply as well, which is an 8-pin connector to power the mobo, but the new power supply I bought had a 24-pin mobo connector, did a lot of research and at first I shorted some cables out to get it working, using this guide, but when I had some time, I actually bought a connected 24 pin to 8 pins from amazon, works great!

Now coming to the biggest problem I had and @msvsme is facing that as well as the power button, so these idiots at Dell create these custom pins for the power button in their custom mobos, which instead of being 2 pins for reset, 2 pins for power, and 2 pins for power button led it's a 5 pin for all
1729950825338.png

At first, I thought I would drill a hole in the new case and put the old power button only, but after a lot of research on this, I found out shorting pins 1 and 4 will turn the pc on, but it would show something like problems with power button during bios check and would stay stuck at that and since I won't be connecting any monitors with the nas I had to find a solution, came across Harbin repairs, they actually have some open source adapters for it, but ordering that was a really big hassle, so I went through their documentation on github and tried to simulate that using the 1 pin shorting cables and once all the cables were in place it worked!

this is the view of their adapter board for 5/6 power pins
1729950776391.png


1729950787167.png



considering the area with no pin as the 6th pin to number them, it was working when I shorted 1,2 and 4 to turn on without the error message, and the 3 and 5 pins were used for power led, I couldn't get the diagnostic LED to work but that doesn't matter to me, also the restart button doesn't work.

AND VOILA! My first NAS from a custom Dell 3420 mini tower was done!

some other pointers, had to remove the case fan from Dell and replace it, without that it again gave an error message, also removed the speakers from it, because sometimes in NAS it was beeping very loud.
got one m.2 to SATA connector as a trade from someone here, and using one PCIe to SATA connector for my HDDs, I had more 1 TB HDDs back then, hence I needed all these SATA ports, but later I removed all 1 TB ones and now I just have these 6x 4TB HDDs

Well, this was my whole journey to get this done, I will be open if anyone needs some similar help!

Also shifted into this new house 2 weeks back so just showing off my setup and yes I put the NAS away behind the bed but it has enough space for ventilation even if it doesn't look like it, HDD temps never went more than 40 - 45 C even on loads,
 

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Wow, it's amazing work!
And thank you for taking time to write such a detailed experience.
For my case, I think I'll just use my old pc and attach the 3.5 inch HDDs outside the case for some time.
I remember finding out about the power pin issue in my optiplex when trying to transfer to another case and trying to take out the power button and somehow I gave up knowing the work needed. Nice to see yours working!
 
The thing that concerns me about these rack mount cases is that they hardly have in space for cable management. I have a spare 800W non-modular PSU that I plan to use in my NAS build but I think if I put that PSU in this case I won't have any space to tuck in the extra unused wires.

Also, the absence of hot swappable HDD bays is another con. To take out a HDD from the rack one will have to detach an entire caddy and then take it out to take the specific HDD out all the while having to deal with the wire mess inside the case.

I'm still not 100% sure if I'll get one of these or just use my Corsair 780T Full Tower case which is presently lying unused for the NAS. I remember @gREen built his NAS build in a Phanteks case recently. Looked spacious and very well cooled with Arctic fans inside.

At 6.3k (with Axis Bank discount) might be worthwhile to pick a rack mount case up and see how it works out.
If you are spending money to get a tower cabinet, I do recommend the Silverstone Cs380 but it's not for everybody. https://www.silverstonetek.com/en/product/info/server-nas/CS380/
Someone did put up good pictures.
I've been using it for little over 3 years now. My thoughts:
Pros:
ATX standard with cable management
You don't think you need the hotswap, but once you can toollessly pull out drives and reinstall them, it's hard to go back.
It comes with 8x3.5" drive bays and 2x5.25" where I am going to be installing 3 more ( https://www.silverstonetek.com/en/product/info/storage/FS303/) for a total of 11x3.5" HDDs.
Lockable front is good to have.

Cons:
Fan and mesh placement is crap. So HDDs do heat up a little when run hard like uraid parity check.

Cooler height is limited to a downdraft, 92mm tower or noctua d12L. No aio
Dust fiter isn't very effective.
Retrofitting it to rackmount is hard
Expensive
 
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