Every NAS Case/Enclosure on AliExpress - The Best and Worst!

The Best NAS Enclosure Cases on AliExpress for Your Custom Server Build nascompares.com/2023/09/15/th...
s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_Dn4...
Retro Style 8-Bay M-ATX 8-Bay Case £208 s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DDe...
Orico 1 Bay Wireless Drive Case s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DFi...
1-Bay Wireless NAS Drive s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DdW...
RGeek Custom NAS Server 4-Bay £137 s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DBQ...
Innovision 6 Bay NAS Desktop £63 s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DkS...
Retro 8-Bay NAS Case #2 £187 s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DmZ...
8-Bay Glossy NAS Case desktop £123 s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_Dkh...
12 bay Desktop Case £173 s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_Dch...
4 Bay 2U rack-mount server case ￡153 - s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DC3...
4U 24 Bay Server Case - s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DB6...
3U 16 bay rackmount server - s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DB4...
12 Bay Rackmount - s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DDE...
2U 12 Bays HDD Hotswap Rack Server ￡126 s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DdI...
The BEST NAS Enclosures on AliExpress for Your DiY NAS Build nascompares.com/guide/the-bes...
I Built the Jonsbo N2 NAS - • I Built the Jonsbo N2 ...
Recommended Jonsbo N3 NAS Builds For $300 - $500 - $1000+ nascompares.com/guide/recomme...
JONSBO N2 5/6-Bay Case £80 s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DCp...
JONSBO N1 5-Bay Case £66
JONSBO N3 8/9-Bay Case £77 s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DeX...
s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_Dn4...
Retro Style 8-Bay M-ATX 8-Bay Case £208 s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DDe...
Orico 1 Bay Wireless Drive Case s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DFi...
1-Bay Wireless NAS Drive s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DdW...
RGeek Custom NAS Server 4-Bay £137 s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DBQ...
Innovision 6 Bay NAS Desktop £63 s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DkS...
Retro 8-Bay NAS Case #2 £187 s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DmZ...
8-Bay Glossy NAS Case desktop £123 s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_Dkh...
12 bay Desktop Case £173 s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_Dch...
4 Bay 2U rack-mount server case ￡153 - s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DC3...
4U 24 Bay Server Case - s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DB6...
3U 16 bay rackmount server - s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DB4...
12 Bay Rackmount - s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DDE...
2U 12 Bays HDD Hotswap Rack Server ￡126 s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DdI...
Best Jonsbo N2 Build for Under/Around £250
Jonsbo N2 - s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DD9...
Topton N5105/N6005+4GB - s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DCl...
SATA x6 Cable - s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DeD...
400W SFX PSU - s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_Dk3...
300W PSU - s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_Dmu...
--
Best Jonsbo N2 Build for Under £500
Jonsbo N2 - s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DD9...
SATA x6 Cable - s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DeD...
400W SFX PSU - s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_Dk3...
Mobo+Intel i5-12490F+16GB - s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DCM...
Cheaper CPU Fan - s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_Dd9...
Better CPU Fan - s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_Dk1...
2x M.2 NVMe Card - s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DmF...
---
Best Jonsbo N2 Build for £750-1000
Jonsbo N2 - s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DD9...
SATA x6 Cable - s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DeD...
Cheaper CPU Fan - s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_Dd9...
Better CPU Fan - s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_Dk1...
2x M.2 NVMe Card - s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DmF...
600W SFX PSU - s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DFm...
H610 mini itx Motherboard - s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DlX...
i5-12600K CPU - s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DkQ...
Corsair 16GB Memory - s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DlY...
Video Chapters
00:00 - The Start
00:15 - Why Shop at AliExpress for a NAS Case?
01:27 - The Rules!
02:24 - The Jonsbo N2/N3 is STILL the Best Desktop Case - Full Stop
03:26 - The WORST NAS Case on Aliexpress...
04:31 - Do 1-Bay NAS Enclsoures Exist on Aliexpress?
05:57 - 4-Bay NAS Cases - Good and BAD
10:47 - 6-Bay NAS Server Cases - Much of a Muchness...
13:32 - The LOOKER of the pack!
14:21 - Might Be Better than the Jonsbo N3 for ONE reason
15:59 - 8-Bay Cases - Going their own way
19:57 - 12 Bay Desktop - Yes, and it's pretty f'ugly
21:11 - A brief Diversion into Caddies and 5.25" cages
23:44 - What the F*&K and I even looking at here...
24:40 - A 3-Bay Rackmount... because....reasons
25:27 - A 2U 4-Bay Rackmount...eh?
27:47 - Big Budget Rackmount NAS Cases!
28:46 - Get a Bargain with ex-Chia Case Designs!
32:32 - Verdict and Conclusion

[@MoraFermi]

That 1U rack mount is definitely designed for networking first. A DYI router / high performance firewall, perhaps.

[@Yandarval]

AliExpress search is only slightly worse then Ebay or Amazon. Which is a damning indictment.

[@abel4776]

Yet we're spending billions on AI...

[@manimac7238]

Not all rack chassis need many hard disks. Perhaps people use it with proxmox, Linux server etc. Some need short depth chassis. That is why there are some strange solutions.😂

[@geekbitzone]

Love your renewed focus on DIY solutions as there is only so much you can talk about off-the-shelf case solutions 👍🤓

[@nascompares]

Oh, I'm not changing lanes. I just know that I've been lax on the subject in 2022 and I wanted to address the balance a bit! Hoping that #DiYFriday on the channel kicks off properly and every Friday will be a video dedicated to anything/everything that's Build Your Own NAS. Coming in future weeks (either filmed, shipping and/or already scheduled) is the Jonsbo N3 series, more on the Zimablade, a new system in the works, Amazon DiY case guide, U-NAS deep dive and follow up on the U-Green and Lincstation devices

[@vencibushy]

The "weird" 19" enclosures are just about 300 to 350 mm deep. That allows the user to put them in a network rack which has typical depth of about 400 to 450 mm. Not everybody has the space to install a server rack which is usually 800mm to 1000mm deep.

[@blahorgaslisk7763]

The hanging drive configuration predates Chia mining by a decade or so. It's simply the most compact storage you can create for rackmounts and when you pay for each U in a data center they pay for themselves pretty quickly. Though I've never heard the term Hanging drive before. These systems absolutely need to have good integration with the HBA or RAID controller used so it is easy to identify the individual drives. There's few things worse than realizing you just pulled the wrong drive when swapping out a dead drive. So individual signaling LED for each drive is a must have. The 1U one drive chassis is not intended as a NAS or storage server, obviously. They are usually used as application servers where they have one discrete machine for each server instead of using virtual servers. It's old school thinking but still often used for it's simplicity and because they are cheap. But they do eat the rack units! Some times you see them mounted two at a time in a rack with one on the front and one on the back. When doing that it's important that the fans are blowing the right direction, which is front to back for the one in front and back to front for the one in the back. Getting a PSU with an inverted fan can be a problem. There's also possible to mount some of these rear wards in the rack, that is at the back it will look as if you have a long full size 1U chassis mounted. Then all fans can be mounted in the "normal" direction. This doubles up the capacity per Unit in the rack, but can be a bit tricky to maintain. Finally you have blade server variants where you have two to four blades in a 1U rack, each with their own dedicated 3½" drive. Again they are sometime able to be mounted in a front / back config, so up to 8 blades per 1U. But again they are not intended to act as NAS or storage servers.

[@gavinguy148]

I’ve been looking at these this week 😂 great to see your opinions

[@nascompares]

Thanks for the kind words man

[@user-hg6ni8eh8s]

very informative thank you

[@blakeparry1983]

I looked around and ended going with the antec p101 silent atx case. 8x hdd bays (more if you use the 5.25, plus 2 ssd mounts. Good ventilation and sound proofing plus full atx support for expansion

[@imperiosfei]

Perfect timing. I was looking for a new case myself.

[@nascompares]

No worries man!

[@jskemp4]

I think the big difference with those “weird” rackmount cases, is that they prioritize short depth. They are wider than they are deep. This could be very useful! I considered rack mount for my last build but the depth of most cases makes in impractical in my apartment. Think about the ikea “lack rack” style builds.

[@nascompares]

I don't think (or wasn't suggesting) that half depth 30/40cm racks are "weird", but the ones what shmoosh 4 bays into a 2U on one side when there are plenty of 8bay examples of 2U half depth cases...those seem a bit off. Oh and the 1U/1bay is just a hate crime...

[@williamp6800]

@@nascomparesthat 1U/1 bay case is good for building a router.

[@genelevi1]

The odd rack-mount cases are probably trying to appeal to users who need a shallow rack depth. When there is no space to go deep, you have to go high.

[@nascompares]

True, very true. But half depth 4/8 bays existing in 1U and 2U in plenty of places and more efficiently too in 2023. It's a design that made sense before as a half depth solution, but has now been largely superseded.

[@volatileant]

@@nascompares Do you have links to a 2U short depth (~300-350mm) 8 bay case?

[@watdakwan]

13:32 - I have the case and my mates have it too. it's really a nice case to have :) it's 8-bay with 1u PSU, 6-bay with SFX, and 4-bay with ATX. I don't think you can get the top glass panel anymore. the wood panel is an actual wood panel, which you can replace it with a widescreen. It has a single USB port on the side but the cable is not included. The official case name is "Warhead Treasure". Pro version also exists which fits ATX motherboard and SFX PSU - still 8-bay which is great because you don't have to deal with the PSU noise. There's no manual so you'll have to figure it out yourself.

[@mikegrok]

I like the enclosure at 18:56. I would put a passive pcie slot cover sas internal to external adapter in there and run 8 sas drives in a raidz2. Or I could get 2 anclosures. To populate a 16e sas card. Sas also allows 10 meter cables so I could put it away from my desk and ears.

[@annebokma4637]

The first removable hard drive bays I build into my system was when I build a 486 with IDE drives. It rocked 😁byes I am old and so are removable drives I wouldn't buy a 4 drive for 3x5,25 just get a 5 drive for the same space. The only case I would buy is 6x2,5 and as silent as possible. PCIe slot(s) is a must. But I would need 3... ceph cluster yay 😁 You want a cheap rackmount case for your storage? Go second hand. Loads of cheap ex datacenter stuf. Also nice.. asrock sp3 mini itx board. It has 2x10g and 6xu2. And sp3 processors are cheap..

[@danmcmahon1656]

'This is some Tron-level Logan's Run-style casing...' too funny. I don't do any NAS but am a hardware fanatic but I would tune in just for the entertainment value. Keep 'em coming.

[@ats1995]

I enjoyed the video, great! For me, I'll skip the flex atx PSU tho because of of noise and availability. I built one with SFX type.

[@healthy5659]

Really enjoyed this video! Recently this has become a new hobby for me - looking for new NAS cases on Ali :) I own the one at 9:04. Has a full height slot which is nice, but only 80mm fan + motherboard is a nightmare to fit it. In hindsight, I think the best case in this form factor is the U-NAS NSC-410. 4 hotswap bays, 120mm fan and support for an ITX motherboard that mounts on the side (which is much easier than cramming it at the bottom), only downside is the price. I also own a 6 bay NAS chassis sold under the brands Yufu and Auriga. It's not the most compact, but it does support MicroATX motherboards with full height PCIe as well as a standard ATX PSU. This one was not featured in this video, but I think it is a really good case for home labs because it looks nice + easily expandable with standard components. Cheers!

[@nascompares]

You are gonna have a blast man! Welcome to the world of NAS, blue!

[@MoonMugsUK]

That rack mount one bay Glad to see your doing diy hopefully you sell them too

[@nascompares]

I don't sell these, but I will be deep diving those innovision case soon with any luck

[@JimKJ3N]

I've always been of the DIY persuasion when it comes to my NAS. I recently rebuilt my NAS using an Antec VSK4000E-U3 case and a Rosewill RSV-SATA-Cage-34. Both parts cost me just under $130 USD. Popped in a m-ATX board, Ryzen 4600G 6-core CPU, and 16GB of RAM. The case is large enough to fit an ATX board, if I wanted to. This new setup is so much nicer to service than the old Antec Nine Hundred case I was using. Is it a bit ugly? Maybe. You decide. Video of the rebuild is on my channel.

[@nascompares]

Thanks for sharing. Added your channel to my watch list. Sounds a beast for the price

[@kenyakking]

Looking forward to the 8bay Glossy review.... Looks like it might fit a mATX board...

[@nvdsraemuna7833]

Oh man, only found out about the n3 the other day, looks like ill be changing my n1 for that, there is also a low profile rtx 4060 out now, i just wish 20tb drives were cheaper 😅

[@fnlvalek]

One thing to keep in mind when checking rackmount chassis, is depth. I have a 18U rack with about 23” depth, and really need to be careful because most chassis are larger than my rack.

[@nascompares]

That is REALLY true and I should have mentioned that! Thanks for keeping me on the straight and narrow man

[@pixlhound]

I have a 1u 1bay chassis as a router running opnsense. It doesn't need a ton of storage so I have a couple of 128gb m.2s in raid 1 and a 1tb ssd in the bay for logging. Sure, I don't use it as a NAS, but not everything in a rack needs dense storage

[@IEnjoyCreatingVideos]

i might be the only one hear but i really enjoyed this video i like looking at different nas / server cases i guess my dream is to make a custom case that does it all so more ideas the better :) Thanks for sharing the video with us💖👍😎JP

[@geraldo-land]

@NASCompares, any suggestion for eatx cases? I have an old dual CPU X79 kit that is ready to go, but I couldn't find any cheap case for it

[@sergeyzherebkin4531]

I built my DIY NAS using an 8-bay Nas case ( 16:00 ) and mATX FUJITSU D3417-B21 GS2 + Core i5-7500T, but I'm going to replace CPU with a Xeon e3-12xx (v5 or v6 ) to use ECC memory.

[@diablobarcelona]

Why did I end up here? I was searching for nail extensions on AliExpress and WTF.. here I am.... I understand nothing about what you're talking about, however thumbs up and you have a new subscriber 🤣

[@nascompares]

Thanks! I think

[@diablobarcelona]

@@nascompares Just kidding... found your information invaluable. Just ordered one of those new CWWK 8 x SATA mobos after watching your review of it... on a plane from China as I write. And it'll be going in my 13 year old TrueNAS Core.... needed a hardware refresh. Thank you for your videos... they're great!

[@nvdsraemuna7833]

Ooh some of those 8 bays that take mATX look like a nice upgrade as an n3 alternative, when it becomes time to ditch my ITX it will have more mobo options

[@malcolmhutchison]

The cheapest 8bay Innovision NAS08 (at 19m40) looks like it can have a CD-drive or a wee front panel with display/usb/etc on the front

[@richardahlquist5839]

So I have an enclosed rack that is short depth(stupid idea on my part), about 375mm depth max for any case. In it my Home Assistant box is just a Intel N95 based cpu mini pc sitting on a shelf in it. I want to keep it simple, but may replace it at one point with another small, energy efficient device build. So something like that 1U may be perfect because it wont need a ton of space since I have a NAS. What I would like to find is a short depth 4-5U rack mountabe with full size ATX board capability and 4-12 drive hot swap.

[@marcogenovesi8570]

the most puzzling decision is having a 1U PSU even for the 8+ bay NAS. Yes it is technically a PSU and you can technically get even 1000w PSUs in that form factor but it's far from the best and cheapest when you start going above 300w, which is what you probably need for 8 drive spinup loads

[@liftsalot]

The 1U case doesn't seem to be marketed towards NAS use. Bet it would be nice as a PC case for those who rack mount their PC's and can get by with a 1U. It seems to even support 2 slot GPU's.

[@jasonperry6046]

Craft Computing featured the 8 bay you are looking at.

[@nascompares]

Cheers for sharing man

[@jimcallahan448]

Very useful because I keep having the nagging doubt that there must be something out there that could be scrapped together to do "Docker for Data Science" by day and backup by night. I am just afraid that a Celeron with 16 Gig RAM max won't cut it for the by day Python/PostgreSQL workloads -- even for a single user setup run from a laptop. I am hopeful that the NAS manufacturers will soon introduce something with a little more CPU and RAM. Otherwise I am creating a Frankenstein Apple Mini connected to a NAS perhaps via its own Ethernet or USB 3.2.

[@berndeckenfels]

That 13:50 looks like the one from craftcomputing which required some metal flexing

[@nascompares]

Yep, it is. Nice spot!

[@The-Wise-One]

What's you thoughts on the SLVERSTONE CS382, and CS380 8 bay tower cases? Im concerned with lack of ventilating for cooling. Thanks

[@nascompares]

I bang on about Amazon listed brands next week, but in the few occasions I've been hands on with SS cases (I used/handed alot of the DAS systems years ago and a couple of the NAS systems in '22) they've seemed to be very well built..if larger than most cases.

[@The-Wise-One]

@@nascompares thank you

[@richardnpaul_mob]

Yeah the delivery costs make reasonable cases seem very unreasonable costwise all of a sudden. That's when you need a third party like a Groupon for geeks which will get the orders together, fill up a container and ship it for the cost of just a few shipped cases but shared over a large number of people it would be reasonable (I don't know what local shipping costs would be like but PC cases seem to get shipped about regularly enough that I can't imagine that it's too expensive)

[@Kahana82]

Would you consider doing a DIY compact SSD NAS? What I have in mind at this point: - a case with 3x 5.25" front bays, like the iStarUSA S-35EX - mini-ITX mobo with low power CPU - M.2 to 4/5/6x SATA adapters and/or M.2 NGFF 4x cards + pcie 4x to multiple SATA ports - 3x 5.25" to 4/6/8 2.5" drive tray (depending on SSD thickness) - high capacity SATA SSD's (like the Samsung QVO 8GB ... expensive though) - fast NIC, either 10gbe or multiple 2.5Gbe (depending on mobo connectivity) Would love your take on this.

[@nascompares]

Working on a build plan for an NVMe one using a sister board, but U-NAS and Silverstone do a very good 2.5" SATA nas with a tonne of bays!

[@i_hate_google_]

Honestly it's like they are trying to make a bad design (and they are insultingly expensive), in my opinion a nas good for most personal use's doesn't have to be a very powerful machine, you have to take in account power usage (electricity cost's money) and noise as it most likely going to work near people. The motherboard should be placed preferably on top for good heat dissipation with an air vent or option 2 on the side and top vent, in both cases with enough room for a beefy cooler (to reduce fan usage and noise) . Jonsbo n3 is good but they just had to insult us with not having a top vent and some decent hdd bays also the price so high and your getting so little especially considering that the users are going for this option precisely because they don't want to spend to much money and the build quality could be better !

[@mph8759]

Man I love how you take the piss about all these products

[@nascompares]

I mean, it's quite a lot of cheap shots. I should be ashamed of myself...but...a 1-Bay, 1U rackmount NAS chassis..get the F out of dodge mate!!!

[@mph8759]

@@nascompares never said I disagree but watching tech videos and having people stare at you watching it because you’re smirking and laughing is just the best

[@isrnick]

How about looking into the Silverstone NAS cases? I've been eyeing the CS380 and CS382.

[@nascompares]

That's in the follow up video to this, about Amazon. Featuring Silverstone, U-NAS, Audheid and more.

[@Finns-Projects]

does cases do look decent. but as most its max 8 drives. seams to be hard to find something that do 11+ drives . Like the Define 7 XL but isnt as nice as does 2 u posted.

[@isrnick]

@@nascompares Nice 👍 You could consider including PC cases with a lot of internal HDD bays in the video too, like the Fractal Design's Define series of cases.

[@The-Wise-One]

These are the two exact same ones from Silverstone that I'm looking at, too. CS382 and CS380.. Please review.

[@MoviesFlaFla]

Hello @nascompares and friends. I've found one in Ali which look pretty decent for 6 bays it's the sky arrow / arrow case . Cost around 195$ and shipping is crazy ... screw system isn't the best but the rest seems good :)

[@r3vd4wg18]

You mentioned about the screen option on so many of the cases but seem to have missed the screen option on the Treasure 8 bay. You even put a picture of the black version with the screen turned off. I have been eyeing this one up for a while but pulled the trigger on the Jonsbo N3 earlier this week. Maybe once I have the Jonsbo build done I will pick one up. Granted I know the screens not an official option but when on ali ...

[@nascompares]

Tbh if I missed it in this vid, it might have been unavailable during my initial research and hidden by sales algorithm. I've added it to my research pile for the Amazon and Ali express article. Also, one thing I noticed when lining up the solutions for this vid is that many pages still have images bulked in with solutions that are either different or utterly EOL, so I skipped those.

[@r3vd4wg18]

@@nascompares Yeah i understand not all of the listing on Ali have details of the screen even if they do show images of it. It isn't exactly a stand alone screen either since its basically a monitor depending on which os you use on the NAS would depend on what and how you can output but personally I was thinking about a Grafana dashboard. Anyway heres some info on it. 2-1 Compatible model NV126B5M-N42, resolution 1920x515 screen, purchased separately 1688 source screen separate purchase link - there is no warranty for this link, the price is cheap The Taobao source screen has a separate purchase link - this is Taobao link, which has a warranty, and the driver board is the 110 yuan version - 2-2USB HUB wire is compatible with straight 20p wire. This front interface wire must be used after replacing with countersunk screw, model 4 # - 40, length * 1/4 USB Taobao source purchase link Screw Taobao source purchase link And heres the link on Ali that has images of the screen with more info. www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004999792961.html

[@DiYei]

23:49 that is not a NAS chassis it is a regular server chassis, it is perfect for an ITX router board (the one with 4 2.5gb ports, or any ITX board actually), I'm thinking getting one of those, 26:23 I got the 8 bay 500mm deep version a month ago and the quality is excellent, got that version because you can fit a regular ATX PSU and a mATX board inside (kind of, I had to flip the fan bracket and fans to fit an Asrock B450m Pro4 R2.0 ) and the length is perfect for my 9U networking rack (650mm deep, usable 550mm), shipping to Mexico was expensive (3466 Mexican pesos, around £165) but understandable, the box it came in is massive and it is very heavy, also it was delivered by FeDex so no complains there, if you want some pictures of my chassis I'll be happy to send them

[@hrenes]

Jonsbo it will be, DIY, thank you.

[@nascompares]

No worries. It's a solid choice!

[@geraldh.8047]

Jonsbo N3 would be so great if it would would support microATX. MiniITX in an 8 bay case is borderline stupid because there are no miniITX boards with 8xSATA ports.

[@night_h4nter]

i'm not particularly certain about those "ex-chia" cases, as you called them, in terms of how the drives are mounted. there's no backplane in those things, and i don't think there is any sort of mechanism to secure the drives, so, i think the case is gonna become a giant speaker. the smaller ones (4-8 bays) are also different in terms of fan sizes. afaik you really want to have fans as big as possible to avoid spinning them up too fast

[@nascompares]

To be fair, a good % of the ex chia case desires aren't massively suitable..but there ARE also some real gems there!

[@truckerallikatuk]

Those big "Chia" machines look like clones of the 45 drives cases. Those things start at a grand.

[@marcogenovesi8570]

they are not even close. (also don't have any backplane so good luck connecting the drives) The idea of stacking drives vertically isn't an invention of 45 drives either. all "big boy" server storage like DellEMC or HPE whatever storage appliance they have are also like that. Btw 45Drives has made a "homelab" version of their case with 15 slots for "only" 800$, but it comes with the backplane at least.

[@tombouie]

Thks Robbie buts; ??Why not just get a 4/6/8/10bay external HDD enclosure & attach it inexpensive small/micro computer (nuc, stick, mini, etc) or maybe a fancy-pants wifi router??

[@jurajjanosik7451]

I have two of your presented cases at home. The first ugly one in 8-bay configuration and the silver one you almost buy (kzbin.info/www/bejne/bGnWppd_ntyba9k) without display. On the ugly one there has very little space between the HDD cage and fans even for a standard Sata cable. I had to buy special cables with short connectors and 90 degrees cables to be able to fit them in without too much strain. Also the space for CPU fan is cramped (about 40mm max) and definitely has not enough space to cool powerful CPU. The silver one has one great feature that not many of other NAS cages have, and that is SFF connector to connect disk backplanes. So, if you use external RAID card you can end up only using two cables to connect 8 drives. It also have removable plate for installation of motherboard which is useful at least in the building process. And it has nice space for CPU fan.

[@MarcBehar]

craft computing did a build in the 8 bay one with the wood panel and it has a lot of flaws

[@nascompares]

Thanks for sharing! Just ordered this unit for the channel to do a review on it, so I'll be sure to check CC for their vid. Cheers man

[@ledoynier3694]

He did some dubious hardware choices for that build. It's not really the case fault if you chose components that don't fit ;)

[@MarcBehar]

True, but the fact there's no way to pass the fans cables back into the case is kind of a weird design choice

[@fanshaw]

If you want to run an SSD at network speeds you'll need a 10Gbs NIC - probably a PCIE card. If you want multiple SSDs you'll need to balance your NIC and carrier SSD card (if you're not using sata SSDs). Probably at least two PCIEx8 slots on the motherboard or multiple x4 if you're doing individual nvme drives. I'm not sure SATA ports are good for much beyond your video library and backups. You could RAID SATA SSDs, but I'd be concerned about that as a future-proof strategy, given how nvme seems to be the direction.

[@nascompares]

Don't forget the price per TB of most NVMe, or the lower heavy write endurance, or the necessity of enough PCIe speeds/lanes on your mobo, or the benefits of RAID to HDD performance, the price per TB and simply that most users only need 'super speed' on a small % of their overall total data storage (scratch disk, os, vms, containers). There is still very much a place for HDDs and still will be in a decade. Remember, they said HDD was dead a decade ago

[@fanshaw]

@@nascompares Absolutely - pick the your approach: are you doing NAS to store data you commonly share, or are you trying to put all your data in one place so its easy to manage or swap between a workstation at home and a laptop offsite. Don't underestimate the price/ capacity/ performance of five not-huge sata HDDs. Also, VMs don't always need fast storage if they spin up and then just run in memory - firewalls etc.

[@zyghom]

I just bought N2 and N3, will see which one works for me better. Issue is: shipment and tax costs from Ali doubles the price seen on Ali

[@nascompares]

Nice 1!

[@zyghom]

@@nascompares but, I have also Orange Pi 5 Plus, this is a beast SBC and only 5W in idle mode. I added NVMe to 5 SATA - will try also this one. Pity TrueNAS and UnRAID are not on arm64... ;-(

[@nvdsraemuna7833]

I'm running an older N1, I looked at the N2 as a sidegrade but have been holding off for a while so the N3 looks exactly like what I'm after now can't wait till NAS compares cover the N3

[@zyghom]

@@nvdsraemuna7833 right? that is why I bought... both ;-) But I am quite sure one will be with mobo (N3) and one with Orange Pi (N2)

[@basdfgwe]

Dony really understand why a normal computer case is not good enough. Yes, they dont have hot swap hd bays. But i dont know if thats important.

[@BoraHorzaGobuchul]

It's rather go with roswell or 45droves case

[@willywolf6186]

the shipping cost for an 8 bay are sometime insane… 160£ if the case alone cost you 116£

[@origionalwinja]

the first rack mount case you showed would be a router case, not a NAS case

[@AkhiSyahmi_]

That 14:24 case is literally the worst type of case. You can still use 8 bay but you can't use ATX in it. If you want to use ATX PSU, you need to remove 2/4bay HDD from that case to put it. Here's the video about that case: kzbin.info/www/bejne/hIHEdXafrr5mgdk

[@nascompares]

Cheers for sharing mate!

[@DergEnterprises]

Roasting AliExpress NAS chassis' for an hour.

[@dktol56]

Shipping costs to the US for these AliExpress cases is awful. Just not worth it (for me) to buy them from China. I'll have to stick with Amazon.

[@nascompares]

Tbh I agree for the most part, but most of the time the same case on Amazon will be free delivery but 20% more expensive (so they just rolled the shipping in) or still has delivery anyway...either way, same 20-40 day delivery time. I'll cover this more in next Friday's vid on Amazon NAS Cases

[@AndreasA.S.]

if i wanted stuff from ali express, id goto amazon. really, i dont trust it anyway, and its damn near the same stock. when it comes to electronics the 1/3U "server" chasis are most likely be ideal for only the server itself with a 16+ bay mounted next to it. if i had the choice, this honestly is how i want to build out. but im poor, and can only afford a boring box. the 4U is shallow, and better for homelab setups.