I Made My Own JBOD Enclosure For CHEAP

[@Seanbyford]

Dude I’m so bored of listening to KZbinrs pushing products .. this was a really good idea and was well described and presented. Thank you!

[@haydenc2742]

IKR...what would be awesome...even if HH did decide to show a few "shill" gimmes...do a comparison of "DIY or BUY" like GreatScott! (YT) does for electronic trinkets and stuff... Showcase the sponsored stuff right next to something "equivalentish" he built himself... HH willingness to try and keep it "homelabber friendly" unlike some of these other bozos is what sets him apart! And why we appreciate him so much!

[@evildoervoltaire666]

Definition of cereal: ce·re·al noun a grain used for food, such as wheat, oats, or corn. a grass producing a cereal grain, grown as an agricultural crop. "low yields for cereal crops" a breakfast food made from roasted grain, typically eaten with milk. "a bowl of cereal"

[@SlightlyTechnical]

he wouldnt have to push products ,if youtube stopped coming up with weak reasons to steal ad revenue from creators

[@tim3172]

He "pushes" several products in this video: The LSi HBA, the eVGA 650 watt, the Add2PSU adapter, not just 80 mm fans... Redux Noctua fans, etc.

[@JFat5158]

​@@tim3172thats not pushing lol. There was no push or emphasis on choosing the specific brand of those products, just grabbed what he needed and also advised of alternatives with no shilling for specific brands.

[@UndyingShadow83]

I have 24 drives in 3 stacks of 8 like this, running off two 16e HBAs passed through proxmox to a TrueNAS core VM. It works without issue. I did the exact same as the video with individual fan-out cables and SATA power expanders. The whole thing is cooled by a big ol box fan that keeps room temp.

[@HardwareHaven]

That's awesome!

[@Todrak]

Why proxmox to truenas vm and not just truenas?

[@UndyingShadow83]

@@Todrak I got other VMs I run on that machine.

[@worldking348]

Did thou know thou can use a expander card to easily multiply thine ports? It lets thou use up to 512 drives at least on the 4 port hba I hast.

[@guiorgy]

​@@worldking348cool, but y do u speak that wae?

[@MarcoGPUtuber]

Hardware Haven also built his own KZbin channel. It's great!

[@HardwareHaven]

Also a bit janky

[@jburnash]

@@HardwareHaven 🤟

[@DrDipsh1t]

​@@HardwareHavenif it was anything but, I wouldn't be here 😂and the opening titles you come up I always enjoy

[@romanrm1]

Maybe too obvious, but remove the internal 400W PSU, and put the 650W one in there to handle everything (PC and JBOD).

[@HardwareHaven]

You know, I thought of that.... as I was editing 🤦‍♂️ The jankiness was worth it for the video though haha

[@Kambayusa]

@@HardwareHavenlenovo using its own connector from the psu to the mainboard. its not regular ATX 24pin, its more like ATX12VO.

[@guiorgy]

This is assuming there's no proprietary bs connection between that PSU and motherboard

[@romanrm1]

@@guiorgy from markings on the side seems to be a standard FSP power supply.

[@Andy-fd5fg]

You can adapt the connector... i have a lenovo m92 sff board transplanted into an atx tower running off a standard atx psu

[@treypop123]

When ever I research something like this 90% of the time I get people telling me not to do this. I'm glad to see this video cuz it makes me confident I can do this with out to many problems

[@haydenc2742]

With processor speeds able to handle MUCH more IO ops, setting up software raid is actually faster than some of the 90's hardware raid compatible hardware... Just imagine ZFS parity computations on a AMD K6-2 (or a pentium 4)...LOL

[@Elkarlo77]

@@haydenc2742 There was a big leap with the Softraids in the 00's. Then it became viable to make it on Pentium III or Athlon as Servers. Using Softraids for your own Machine became viable with the Athlon X2 Family as most Programs were still single tasked. For intel it was the C2D Series. The HT Processors were not realy good at Softraid and Gaming. I tried Softraid on my Athlon XP 3000+ and went back to the Hardware Raid controller, as 10-15% CPU Performance on a Single Core is a big sacrifice. But it was much less power then earlier.

[@stevesteve8098]

@@haydenc2742 nothing to do with CPU speeds...... , it is PATHWAYS..... that is why companies still buy servers, specifically becasue of the way he pathways are structured.... like all these clowns randomly sticking in 10GB optical connectors..., if they took time to actually READ the diagnostics from the cards..... they would see the pathways are saturated and the cards are throttling. Also like people saying well i checked and the temp is fine..... What they really mean is they have not understood the real issue and function of the systems..., you have to power cool these drives, becasue under specific circumstances they can suddenly have a 10-20 deg rise in temp in a matter of minutes. And many of these drives are speced at 50 deg and they die... or disable, manufacturers firmware. So you might be happily wanking off about what a wonderful job you did, and suddenly the drives start to heatup and before you have time to throw on extra fans the internal head coils have expanded and crashed the heads or twisted the drives. It's not about building system by throwing shite together......... any clown can do that... any clown can build a working system from working parts... but if you suddenly have a single drive failure and the system then has to start recovering data from every drive to rebuild & reconstructing the data in real time... then suddenly you can have a very very bad and expensive day.... as you hammer the head coils... I have systems that have been running 8 years 24/365..... are way way over the 50,000hours MTBF and have zero errors... zero bad blocks, and no disconnects.

[@p0358]

With such PCIe card in HBA/IT mode it's actually 100% fine. What people advise against is using USB connections for this. You could also put some rubbers etc. around screws and on ground to counteract vibrations.

[@JohnnyYeTaecanUktena]

@@p0358 inb4 someone reads that wrong and use actual condoms

[@nadtz]

Only thing missing is the supermicro backplane to clean up the cabling. I did something similar to this a while ago and I thought the fans would be overkill, ends up they were useful when actually doing large copies from my workstation. Used that setup for a couple years just because I was proud I'd built it myself.

[@germanenriquezillescas9421]

did any of the disks die because of vibration?

[@nadtz]

@@germanenriquezillescas9421 no, didn't have any of them die and I still have the drives even though they currently are not in use.

[@TomR459]

Supermicro backplane?

[@nadtz]

@@TomR459 Are you asking what a supermicro backplane is?

[@OrigaZuku]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="620">10:20</a> Lifehack: instead of cutting a support bracket - you can bend it in or out, that increases gap to really shove any connectors through. I've got Graphics card through razor connector in a very slim PC and because of that I was forced to connect to card's ports inside the case. So I bent bracket, thrown DVI through and bent it back.

[@truckerallikatuk]

With the price of the prebuilt jbod enclosures, this is a very good option. Another good option is a real server case if you have space. I got my 4u case for £400, and spend another £30 on a trio of Arctic P12max fans to get a quieter build. This one has 24 front drive bays, and works great.

[@flamixin]

I have exactly the same thought. A 4U case will take less space than a external hdd caddy.

[@Coldfirebe]

This was a pretty nice idea ! Just make sure to print out the serial numbers and put them on the side so if a drive fails you can end up identifying it easier!

[@kingneutron1]

Thanks! Don't tear it down, you put all that labor into building and filming, use it as a backup target. Veeam or AOMEI will bare-metal backup and restore your Windows to VM and you can restore over Samba.

[@HardwareHaven]

Thanks for the thanks haha. Sorry it took so long for me to see it.

[@arsenalfanatic09]

a lot of libraries have 3d printers available, you might be able to make drive sleds for that acrylic enclosure. Or get a friend with a 3d printer. The biggest life-hack for getting cheap components is knowing people. I learned where the cast-off computers go for some departments in my university and you're allowed to just walk in and go picking, but it's also a slight secret.

[@Elkarlo77]

There are good user friendly 3D Printers around which are inexpensive. The biggest Problem is to avoid the Cheap Printers which needs lot of knowledge to run well. My Advise at the Moment: Bambu Lab A1 Not the Combo with color changer, the simple A1. Very good Printer easy setup and prints out of the Box very good prints. While Printers like the Creality Ender 3 V2 Neo or Anycube Cobra 2 are cheaper, they need lot of more knowledge of printing and especially mantaining those. Rebuilding one of those ATM.

[@AlexeiTetenov]

Consider asking your university friends when they plan to replace an entire lab of pc's, so that you can score the best of what's being swapped out, and maybe even 2 of them.

[@BringusStudios]

I built something similar, but it was just... too janky for my liking. I ended up buying a SilverStone CS382 case, it fits a mATX board and has 8 3.5" hot swap bays. It's a fantastic NAS case and solved all my high drive count issues pretty much completely

[@CorwinPatrick]

Holy Crap! I just bought this 2 weeks ago. lol Edit: Also, once you went SAS, your connectivity and Stability became infinity better than USB. It's well worth what little you paid for them. Way back, I built a FreeNAS server and used USB to expand. Totally against any recommendation from the FreeNAS Forum. Needless to say those four external boxes eventually bricked. 4x USB = 4x failure rate. I've gone SAS Card with an External open frame using a SAS Expander Card. A Graphics Miner PCIe expander to Power the SAS Card (even though the SAS Expander is an PCIe x4 card, it only uses the power from PCIe, all data is over SAS), and it works like a charm. The SAS Expander does need an Extra fan though, it gets Hot! So I use a 1-Slot Scroll Fan (Used before Graphics Cards regularly had their own Fans).

[@darthkielbasa]

I love this channel for the tidbits of info you dish out. Like the "add to psu" hickey. I had no idea that type of thing existed and didn't have much luck finding reference points for inspiration. You're providing a positive service to tech humanity. I threw together a JBOD shelf that was full of jank. This was an enjoyable view.

[@jumpmaster5279]

There is an other version of this enclosure where, we can mount a psu and it looks like a huge genga block, i am not sure if it was a concept design or what, but i found it cool. I am sure after a few videos, nas bro will find a entire pc case made out of a acrylic panels

[@tomdillan]

I did this with an Amazon stainless 4x hard drive cage with a 120mm fan. Added a thin mini itx motherboard with dc power supply on a sheet of plexiglass with a female sata power to 4x sata power.

[@BenjaminBuell]

I made a similar (but less professional) setup recently. LSI HBA in my Dell R620. HBA off EBay was ~$35 and came with both cables for 8 drives. Currently they live in a pile on top of my server with a box fan cooling them. Powered by a small form factor power supply I pulled from an old Inspiron desktop. Was having issues with a TrueNAS VM so I decided to do ZFS in proxmox directly. It’s been working great. I do plan on getting a proper enclosure made, and you video makes me think laser cutting or CNC might be the best option, especially since my schools shop has both. Love the content, I actually setup my first server (2008 Mac Pro) after watching your video about crafty with CasaOS. Upgraded it basically immediately for more RAM. Paid $210 for a R620 with 2x E5-2680v2 CPUs, and 256gigs of DDR3 from a local shop. My boss gave me eight 2 terabyte HDDs from some of our old servers and a HP 48 port PoE+ gigabit network switch (for a future project)

[@BozesanVlad]

You only need some aluminium/ steel plates and a bunch of holes for hdds

[@Larz99]

Thanks for your great videos! You are exploring all the options I've been playing with and helping me make sure I'm looking at lots of options. I've seen these racks on Ali Express for a while but didn't want to have to take it apart to change a drive. For just a few pence per drive more, you could have the drives on rails. Use plywood or MDF panels and screws to form a rigid box. I'd go with 3, top, bottom and middle. A pair of screws/pins/stand-offs on each side of the drive could ride in a slotted acrylic rail attached to the side panel. The drives can slide in and out, and the case is wider by only twice the thickness of the acrylic. A 3rd locking screw could fix the drives into the slots. This allows for vertical or horizontal orientation of the array. I hope some enterprising reader puts out a kit! I'm using a Yottamaster 5-bay, USB-C, 10Gig external enclosure. It identifies each drive by serial number on Unraid on my Asrock Taichi, but not on the little Lenovo minis. The Serial numbers are visible to Proxmox/Truenas on any platform I've tried. (I imagine that's a driver's issue with Unraid.) I've never seen any of the "drop-out" issues described by some posters, whatever drop-outs are. I paid £210 direct from Yottamaster and haven't looked back. It's quiet, cool, and very clean with only the A/C and USB C cable. I'd really like to see a SAS or PCI attachment option on these. I've also used the Icy Dock 4x 2.5 inch drive SATA housing. I used the 4-drive version because it accommodates 15mm drives. The enclosure fits in a 5.25 inch drive bay. I use 4x 5TB notebook drives in a zfs zraid1 array for 15TB net storage. More than I need. Next time, I'll use a zraid2 array for 8T net. Thanks again for your excellent videos and for doing the hard work for the rest of us!

[@jburnash]

There's something quite endearing when you've done a DIY and it all "just works (tm)". I guess that's because you've done it yourself, it's non-trivial to put together and get all the right components ... and it's yours. If you've saved money - even better 😎 I think video like this inspire us tired everyday Sysadmins to pick ourselves up and do some cool tech for ourselves - and if this was mostly built out of "stuff I had lying around", the cost would be very little. Thanks - another good idea! As for what to do with it now that it's assembled, up and running ... maybe make it available over you 10Gb connection(s) as an iSCSI host that allows other systems to mount the storage remotely (that is what we do with VMs at work).

[@HardwareHaven]

Thanks! I love hearing that these videos are at least entertaining if not slightly inspiring, especially for people that work in IT. Also thanks for the idea!

[@notune424]

Your comment is 1 day before ?!?!?!?!?!?

[@CorwinPatrick]

@@notune424 KZbinrs regularly publish content early for Patreons or Subscribers. The Time Stamp would therefore be before the Live Publish, since KZbin doesn't force them to re-upload content.

[@jburnash]

@@notune424 I'm a channel supporter - we get early access 😃

[@notune424]

Oh thanks@@CorwinPatrick

[@Standbackforscience]

This was a great video simply for how it demonstrated the SATA-to-HBA and Add2PSU combination. With that mechanism you can effectively create any DAS of your choosing.

[@jamescampbell6728]

I wish it was more common to to sell JBOD enclosures that look like a PC case, but don't use USB and just expose sata connectors on the back

[@orangewhipster]

FYI, just built my own copy of this. Love it, love doing DIY, fit exactly what I needed. I decided to just use the internal PS of the server PC (an old gaming PC) and its just fine.

[@faisalnafees8413]

I have added this acrylic piece on my wishlist for quite sometime. I'm glad i found your video. I'll be doing this jbod thing once i get to this point in future. Thanks for this amazing video

[@nestorkropotkin8952]

I have been looking at those JBOD racks for a bit, thanks for making this video! On the issue of the fan brackets on the back, if you use IPS Weld-On 16 cement on one side when you have screwed in one side of the drives it is MUCH easier to assemble. You can add cement to the other side after the rack is fully assembled for additional stability.

[@T3hBeowulf]

In a past life, I used an erector set to group pairs of drives together in a stack. These days, there are external single bay metal enclosures sold in pairs on Amazon for $6. They hold a drive with integrated rubber mounts and have a provision on the front for screws. They slide and lock together for easy stacking and come in power-coated black out of the box. I picked up 4 bays for my NAS as an external mirror and I only turn it on for weekly archives.

[@xSpaceDementia]

Can you please provide a product link to the stackable enclosures you're referring to?

[@AlistairBrugsch]

Got a search term for those? I've only seen these acrylic ones

[@T3hBeowulf]

@@AlistairBrugsch I think the link is causing the comment to be suppressed. Naturally, the cages I bought are out of stock and going for exorbitant prices now. As requested, here is the listing title: Phanteks - Stackable 3.5" HDD Bracket Duo Pack Cases PH-HDDKT_03

[@xSpaceDementia]

@@T3hBeowulf I found the product. How do you stack them?

[@T3hBeowulf]

@@xSpaceDementia They slide together on rails and lock in place with a spring tab. You can stack as many as you want.

[@marcogenovesi8570]

If you want to make a bigger JBOD enclosure you can also get a SAS expander (to mount in the JBOD enclosure) and a SAS card with only 2 external ports. You need A LOT of mechanical drives to saturate 8 SAS 6gbit channels.

[@hotswapster]

This comment is as useful as finding out eSATA comes with and without multiplexing...thanks for the tip. I'll be looking for an expander!

[@marcogenovesi8570]

@@hotswapster Sata multiport/multiplexing is not reliable and has limitations (and not all controllers support it). If you want to do a multiplexing setup you should go SAS and use expanders, it is stable and there it's more or less plug and play.

[@marcogenovesi8570]

@@hotswapster I mean SAS cards and SAS expanders, you can use Sata drives with that, no problem. Just DO NOT use Sata port multipliers

[@TheQuickSilver101]

I think that's pretty awesome! Not only do you save a few bucks and have a fun little DIY project but you don't limit compatibility as you mentioned that so many of the USB enclosures do. I ran into that with USB enclosures repeatedly and it's a huge headache. If I were you I'd keep it and use it. You built it and although it may be a bit janky it looks pretty slick if you keep it facing front. Thanks!

[@HardwareHaven]

"if you keep it facing front" 😂

[@Brian_Buckley]

This is OUTSTANDING! I have also been struggling with storage, i use an older HTPC case for a NAS/PLEX server with TrueNas Core (terrified to swap to Scale) I am using a 7th gen i5 Commercial Matx board, with 16gb ram, the case has room for roughly 6 drives, but with some ingenuity was able to use some single Drive enclosures and some extra Metal slot covers and Pop rivited the enclosures to the slot covers and BAM! Two more secure Drive bays in the unused space where a full ATX board would be! I will say for your solution, you may have been able to power those drives with a MUCH smaller PICO power supply or even a used OEM SFF PSU for much cheaper! Just a thought! Drives don't need all that power! with a few molex adapters you are golden!

[@naomie2680]

About a pico PSU, I have some doubts it's actually safe. When starting up, some drives can pull over 30W, so you'd need a pico psu that's still able to handle 240W at peak (for a few seconds). You can counter that with staggered spinup, but that's more complex, and you can't use that if you put your drives to sleep after some time. Also, you need about 1A (constant) on the 5V per drive, and I'm not sure that those pico PSUs can handle a constant 8A (40W) on the 5V as they provide it through a little converter

[@LordSaliss]

If you want a bunch of HDDs but don't want to add a whole second PSU to power them, Corsair sells a little $30 unit that takes a PCI-E 12v power input and sends out 20ampsa of 5v power for connecting a bunch of drives to. Basically expanding the 5v rail a bunch of the one PSU you have.

[@user-pc9th4xr6i]

What is it called?

[@LordSaliss]

@@user-pc9th4xr6i ​Corsair +5v Load Balancer. You can run 8 HDDs off each unit and it only pulls from the 12v rail of the PSU instead of the 5v rail. So no more worrying about 5v load ratings. 1PCI-E cable in, 8 HDD SATA power plugs out. Looks like the price went up to $40 now, so I guess try and find them on sale when they go back down to $25-30

[@LordSaliss]

@@user-pc9th4xr6i My reply keeps getting deleted for some reason. Sorry. Just try and search for Corsair Load Balancer

[@LordSaliss]

Ive tried typing things out 3 different ways now and my reply keeps getting deleted. Sorry

[@NiHaoMike64]

@@user-pc9th4xr6iIt's a buck converter, just a bit expensive for what it is. Cheapest solution is to use an older PSU that's rated for something like 30A on the 5V, those were popular for Perk mining back in the days to power up dozens of cheap smartphones.

[@claylinco]

This is the kind of stuff I’m here for!! Legit affordable options and totally thinking outside of the box (or case in this matter)! Love it.

[@4bl0xx30]

It’s funny that in the last few days I experienced the same problem. I want to build a little NAS with 8 HDD’s but there is no ITX case available with enough space. And I also don’t want a big case. I really had an eye on the Jonsbo N3. But I can’t buy it anywhere. So I concluded I have to go DIY. My two requirements were all HDD’s internal and it has to be a cube. So I build a little ITX cube frame from metal where I can mount my board, psu, all 8 HDD’s on anti-vibration mounts and fans for the board and the storage. And then I build a acrylic glass shell for my frame. Looks actually not that bad and very clean. And because I love cube cases I just have to like it.

[@Enigma8750]

I loved this episode. I have done things like this for over 10 years and it makes my heart warm to know that builders are still thinking outside the BOX or Case. I loved the idea that you painted the plastic and that you found the Noctua 80 mm fans. Back in the past those 80 mm fans had the sound of an angry bee hive so you did good choosing the Noctua silent 80s. I also found the idea of JBOD since I am running out of drive letters in my home computer. The old Cooler Master modules from the classic computers cases work great for an external mount for drives but those are hard to come by. The plastic on the cheap plastic mounts probably soak up some of the drive noise also. Overall it was a great little modding tutorial for us out of the box guys.

[@marcogenovesi8570]

I've tried all sorts of external enclosure, USB is often flaky when loaded and USB hubs are trash and often just reset when you are writing to multiple drives. Yes everything had its own power brick, this is just controllers hanging and resetting. SAS cards and sas expanders are turnkey and rock-solid, and in most cases much cheaper than large USB enclosures

[@ModelLights]

For the washers, just get a thin strip of plastic, say 3/4 inch wide by 6 inches long. Really you could use cardboard. Notch in one end to go around the washer. Get the drive in with just screws, then put the rubber washer between the side of the drive and flat plastic, then use the strip to move the washer into place, then put the screw through. It's really easy enough to make a simple positioning tool to slide the washer around between the drive and acrylic board, shouldn't take a minute or two with a pair of scissors.

[@hagak1679]

Don't worry about leaving those washers out. They would provide ZERO noise isolation since the screw is still hard connected to the panel and the drive. To provide isolation you cannot have a hard mount between the drive and the panel. Something like those screw grommets you might see would do this, but a washer will not.

[@lucianoaguero6795]

I've always liked your diy solutions for home use, ever since that diy server nas board video you made in the beginning. If you ever get a 3d printer, I'd put some kinda panels for the front and rear of the jbod.

[@WhoWatchesVideos]

Man, as someone who doesn't hoard data but does have a 3D printer... this is making me want to start hoarding data.

[@TheWolfster001]

I did something very similar, I used a drop of hot glue to hold the washers (I used silicone washers) in place.. I also just made my own case, I used a metal HD rack as a pattern, and the one you bought is very very close to what I made, I had some plexiglass that was left from a different project. I was able to put 10, 10TB HD's.. I'm going to redo how mine is connected and use the way you did it, the way I did was basically use them as connected external drives.. I also used a separate power supply to power mine too, I had a older one, I repurposed to power my HD's.. I wish you had this video out 4 months ago.. Thank you for sharing..

[@kristof9497]

Nice JBOD made without glue or tape 😇

[@bradwicks5438]

Very pro way of DIYIing them, of which I had previously wondered about a best approach to using those open drive holders. Thanks for showing the best way to do it.

[@ToucheFarming]

you can also do this with shelf tracks for about ~$6 right now, but that works as well :)

[@RoshiGaming]

$6 where?

[@ToucheFarming]

@@RoshiGaming Amazon sorry, might be cheaper at a local hardware store so check there as well. You just cut it into 4 even pieces and bend the ends so it stands and you mount the drives like he did except it’s 4 pieces

[@marshallwebber9682]

I love the idea when you already have most of the bits. This is clearly in the realm of "you could...but should you?"

[@darkforcesjedi]

I hate the marketing for Magic Spoon. There is no such thing as grain-free cereal. Cereal is, by definition, grain. That's like saying water-free water.

[@tfkoincognito]

That and the price for such a little box is like 2x-3x the price.

[@CrispyCircuits]

In the Boy Scouts, we always brought dehydrated water. Small and easy to use. Just add water.

[@tfkoincognito]

I've seen the ingredients, I'm not putting that in my body.

[@user-jm8ky1kn2t]

Who cares. Its something you pour milk over and has better nutrients than more of the other sugary junk out there.

[@natalielee35]

It's so expensive for what it is too lol Just add a scoop of whey into your cereal and it's basically the same thing macro wise

[@bader51500]

You can make the acrylic enclosure a bit taller and put the PSU in the bottom, and you can use an IEC Y splitter to reduce the power cables to one instead of two (one for each PSU). Also, there are many cheap fan controller boards with thermal probe to controller the fans' speed, I think that will make it a bit quiter while it's idle

[@mx338]

It's really not bad honestly.

[@simplexicated]

Great video, I actually made something like this myself recently apart from I did not end up using some acrylic kits. I had some spare 3mm plywood lying around and I must say if you have the means to cut it straight and pre-drill the mounting holes after you have spray painted it it can do just as good a job as those acrylic kits you bought from China. You did a great job my only comment and advice would be you can purchase far smaller power bricks which provide 12 volts and up to 9 amps which would be more than enough to power all of those drives meaning you could ditch the pc power supply but you'd lose the power on functionality. You could then mount one of these power bricks to the side or top of the case. Most of them use barrel jacks but they sell converters. Even hanging out the back but more clean. Great work, keep it up Edit: P.S I also own one of those sabrent x4 2.5" enclosures and they are indeed trash, why companies wish to hide drive serials and labels with they're own name and branding is a mystery to me.

[@Soulicer20]

not related to the content of the video but- I'm disappointed by who you chose to sponsor you. That cereal is inedible and anyone who's tried it knows it too. I cant take anything you say seriously after you tell me the chocolate flavor is your favorite. Cardboard has a more interesting flavor profile. And then the price!? $9...and the box is so tiny you literally only get a few average size bowls out of it. Now there may be some people that do genuinely like this (there's also people that like well done steak) but there is no place on gods green Earth other than this sentence where this cereal and the word "delicious" are even remotely close in proximity. Only slightly serious rant aside, if you don't maintain your integrity through ad reads how can I expect the rest of the video to be any different?

[@HardwareHaven]

I'm sorry to hear that, and I get where you're coming from. That being said, I never said it tastes as good as Cocoa puffs or something lol. Obviously there are sacrifices when making cereal with those requirements, but there are people that are looking for that knowing it won't taste exactly the same as other options. I actually do like the two flavors I mentioned, especially for what they are. As far as integrity goes, I turn down a lot of sponsors because I don't find them to be consumer friendly. But just because someone doesn't like a product doesn't mean it's a scam. My kid doesn't like ice cream (super weird), but I wouldn't be upset with someone advertising Ben and Jerry's just because of that. I get where you're coming from, but a product you don't like doesn't equate to a scummy business. That being said, if you ever think an advertiser I work with is engaging in malicious or anti-consumer behavior, I'm open to hearing it; I've cut ties with sponsors for that before.

[@davidGA殿]

The cereals looks a lot like those sponsored products that cost too much for what they are, appear in a whole lot of KZbin videos, and that could be made for cheaper. I’d have the same opinion as ridge wallet, it’s stupid expensive, but it’s a quality thing that helps the channel. I don’t know anything about those cereals, but seem to be the same idea.

[@D1g1tal_H1ppy]

They give him a script to read, chocolate cardboard isn't too sweet. LOL

[@Misterz3r0]

What does his AD read have to do with the quality of information he's presenting in the video? The fact that you're unable to compartmentalize and independently process a set of DIY instructions on how to setup a JBOD from an AD of a food product that you personally dislike sounds like a skill issue.

[@Soulicer20]

thanks for your response! Integrity was probably too strong of a word to use (not trying to imply you're a bad person or anything) and I get where your coming from too but if you're willing to read whatever another company wants you to off a script regardless of your own opinions then how can I know you wont do the same in the regular video content. You said above that there will obviously be some flavor sacrifices but you never made that clear in the ad (how's that obvious?) I fully recognize this what YTers have to do make money to grow their channel these days and this is %100 a personal issue between me and this brand... but in this case this product so offensively bad to the senses and gets review bombed everywhere but its own website so often that the only way I believe its even still around is bc youtubers constantly promote it and clueless people buy it. I'd have a very hard time believing there are very many repeat buyers. And your endorsements of it here in the comments are useless bc of obvious bias. not really mad at you, just the state of advertising on YT, apologies for directing it at you.@@HardwareHaven

[@edwarddesposito4476]

I came across one of these jbod kits recently when looking for a cheap nas box. I like the aux boards you chose. It makes the entire idea very functional. The only thing I would change is ditching the ATX power supply for a pico power supply. You can mount it underneath like you have with your other small boards. You power it via an AC to DC adapter and the pico power supply converts that 12-19v to the other voltages. To make it still more simple, I have seen some IO shields with molex connectors embedded, allowing you to ditch the power supply all together. Some IO shields exist that also offer SATA\eSATA connectors. If you had enough internal headers and don't mind making a bit of spaghetti in your case, you could route your internal SATA externally. Just note the overall cable length, at some point you may have signal issues. Extending the power and sata from your main system would greatly cut the cost of this "enclosure".

[@thetruemorg]

I think this is a really great solution because of the expandability. True nas + a little bit older computer that can handle the data transfer has so much more appeal to me than $1,000 16 bay nas. If you don't need instant access but want to be able to store a bunch of old videos, that's such an easy way to have all the hard drives with all the old stuff on it that you can just stick in the closet in a very organized kind of way. It looks like it's a bit annoying with the screws and washers and the cable management, but it's definitely a worthwhile endeavor. That's very expandable. Love the videos

[@fwiler]

It's amazing how big the market is for storage, yet there is so few solutions that work well. That includes m.2, sata ssd, and mechanical drives. I've got a half dozen ssd's and another of nvme drives just sitting here from upgrades done in the past. I would love to be able to buy a product to hook them up to my server for storage that wasn't usb. I like that you found a solution to the power issue that normally plagues users with external storage needs.

[@farreach84]

Hey for the washer replacement, you might wanna consider felt tape put on the side of the hdd. Inferior to the silicon/rubber vibration reduction but still can get the job done somewhat (experienced it with my synology nas) and it'll be a bit easier to slide in an out after you have bunch of drives on the said acrylic housing

[@cffcs]

I like this idea. I am all for doing stuff like this. I have an old case I used for a workstation, and I made my own 4-drive enclosure, which fits right inside the case. I even made a video of it but have not edited any of it. It has been over a year since I did mine. I think I might throw some of the footage up on my channel one day. Essentially, the enclosure design as it slips right into the existing bay. It is pretty cool.

[@jimmyscott5144]

If you're looking for 30 printer I do highly recommend the Bambu labs one. They are workhorses and large ish build areas. The app is easy to use and cloud connected and live camera view. Plus if you want to do multi material colors they have those AMS systems. They aren't really cheap but for what you get I have been very happy with my X1 carbon

[@HardwareHaven]

Spoiler... I got the A1 Mini. Its printing right behind me as I type haha. I imagine at some point I'll want something with a bigger print bed, but I'm loving it so far. Especially for someone like me that doesn't have the time to dive into the details, it's perfect.

[@msvaughan]

Good video, if the size of array is going to be an issue, there is an alternative. Icydock do a 6 x 2.5" to 5.25" drive adaptors (MB326SP-B) but these do cost around $90, You could probably get away with a 250W PSU to power the drives. Unless your using SSD's, the 2 fans they have may be adequate, the drives may get warm if used long term so additional ventilation may be required.

[@blackpaw29]

Hard to find high capacity 2.5" drives that aren't SMS

[@VainGames]

I love DIY solutions like this. Many of us don't have the budget for enterprise hardware. This is very helpful.

[@MickeyMishra]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="126">2:06</a> I have the SAME 9010. Stuck in two 23TB drives in the same location. Dell is ALL STOCK. Love the fact it has WOL (Just need to set it up properly! ) The plastic drive cages are wonderful, and quiet. and just sits there. Plenty of expansion and speed for hooking up large drives to back up all your old data for the last 25 years or so. Built in Display just means more room for PCI-e add in cards in this simple and quiet well built system. I see you used a Lenovo afterwards after watching the video. WHoops! Anyways, these plastic enclosures are PERFECT if you use some aftermarket hardware bits, and put them inside of an old PC Case. Or even a Mini ITX case as they are easy to gut out.

[@MasonzeroDigitalWorks]

I actually did something slightly differerent to get my drives into my case. I have a MicroATX case (Thermaltake Versa H18) with a MicroATX mobo. It has a power supply shroud, but no drive bays (just places to screw in some drives). I bought a 5-drive hard drive cage that is supposed to fit in a 5x 5.25-inch bay, I think. Then I just used double-sided tape to attach it to the top of my PSU shroud at the front of the case. The case and this cage and perfectly sized so that the cage and drives don't interfere with the motherboard, and they fit with the case's side panel on. They also get easy access to air from the front panel. This won't work in every case, but it was perfect for my scenario! And since this was internal, I was able to easily connect each drive with SATA cables directly to the motherboard.

[@Gersberms]

I really like your solution. I've been looking for something similar, and everything out there is expensive & wasteful. But not this! I love the power supply extension and how the HBA works.

[@aros2300]

Was just thinking about this! Yesterday I hacked out the 5.25 inch bay separating the two front slots on my p410 (same case, different chipset) for a cheap 3 bay enclosure i wanted to add more drives soon, this video was right on cue! great video :)

[@ksymx]

I have a similar setup with a ThinkCentre m720q, I'm using a 2-port hba to make the NAS. I need to find a way to use the 650W PSU to power the drives but also the 3-node of ThinkCentre... So that I don't have 3 psu for the nodes and 1 for the drives... Also I'm thinking of getting a sas expander to expand my drives collection.

[@chrisa.1740]

Using a PSU as the power source for three minipc's is an interesting idea. You could do it with three DC voltage regulators I suppose, but that would require some wire splicing and probably another 3d printed enclosure.

[@night_h4nter]

> So that I don't have 3 psu for the nodes and 1 for the drives... why tho? and how does this even work? what if you need, say, to hard reset a node? does soft rebooting one node not interfere with the others' work?

[@chrisa.1740]

@@night_h4nterhard resetting the node could still be accomplished via removal of the plug in the back of the MiniPC. The only difference from having the default number of power bricks/psu's is that you would be pulling power from the PSU to serve it to the MiniPC's power plug, essentially bypassing the in-line power bricks. It would just take some DC voltage regulators and soldering the appropriate power connector to a power plug on the PSU.

[@halo4life166]

Looks awesome! Simplicity is key with something like this though. Especially if you can get away with it for half the cost of a JBOD. as someone who bought a 4U case for 15 drives. I can say those HBAs work great. Just need to make sure you spec the PSU the correct size and / or "balance" the drives per power rail so you don't overload one over the other. Found this out the hard way in proxmox when it dropped drives in the middle of the night.....

[@tiju000]

What a great video, love it when it describe real life and not try to sell some products. I'm just curious, you used Red WD drive, how did you achieved over 800 MB/s read speed between your PC and your NAS. On my system I'm connected at 10 Gb/s from my PC to my TrueNAS box and even if iperf show me 9.9 Gb/s when I do a copy I rarely go over 220 MB/s

[@eljefe7070yt]

Perhaps adding a mount to the enclosure to hold the PSU? Its a cool DIY idea. Thanks for sharing!

[@alex84632]

I second this idea!

[@kane587mad]

You could take a second PC case, throw everything but the PSU out and fill it with these acrylic stacks. Some cases have build in fan controllers too and are cheap af used.

[@kunka592]

Working on something very similar at the moment. My power solution is to use two different SATA cables from the PSU, and ziptie them as they hang out of a vertical PCI bracket hole in the case so they stick out a few inches and just use SATA power extensions and splitters to power the drives. Currently running 4 drives off one SATA power cable but I'm hoping I can hook up 8 to one without anything melting.

[@CptBlackEye]

Great video! I'm a bit confused about the power requirements, and the need to go with a second PSU (@<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="470">7:50</a> 'I don't quite trust that the power supply could handle the extra disks'). Maybe someone can help me understand when power available isn't enough power? Thank you!

[@HardwareHaven]

That probably get's out of my area of knowledge a bit, but I think it's fairly common for PSUs to only be able to support a certain amperage on each rail, and without knowing how it's configured, you might trigger over power protection or something similar. If it was spec'd to originally just provide power to two hard drives and an optical drive, 8 drives on top of that might cause issues. I could be totally wrong though!

[@CptBlackEye]

Awesome reply! If I were to add too many drives internally, what would be the outcome (how would I know I went too far)? Would it just be a failure to perform or something more damaging? @@HardwareHaven

[@shanent5793]

One HDD can draw up to 30 watts at startup, so you need an additional 240 watts to cover eight disks if they all start at the same time. You can reduce this if you start the drives in smaller groups or one at a time. Some newer drives inhibit start up if the 3.3V input is pulled high, otherwise the 12 and 5V inputs can be switched on in sequence using relays or MOSFETS

[@leexgx]

​​​@@CptBlackEyepsu will turn off when it powers up (or power off randomly) or random data corruption or system crashes or psu blows up due to no overcurrent protection (last one isn't ideal) The main issue is peak currant load at startup when all the drives are spinning up (why in the past servers would stagger start the drives so you don't have 70A on the 12v rail)

[@marcogenovesi8570]

There are PSU calculators online. In general the rule of thumb is that each mechanical 3.5 drive is 20w peak power (on boot, when they spin up), and you want the PSU to be strong enough to survive that. Using a weak PSU means you overload it on power on, which leads to power off

[@cjcox]

Using 4 bay SAS hotswap "internal" components (4 bay), you might have been able to do this just as cheap, but have the convenience of hot swap and trays and such. Would have used straight SAS connect to each (you buy 2 of them) and the the rest, use your PSU and power board, etc. Would the fans on those ready made hot swap bay units be better than Noctua? Probably not, so YMMV with regards to "noise" of the fan on such 4 bay units.

[@Aruneh]

My NAS is a Fujitsu SFF with the drives in one of the drive cages from a Fractal Node 304 sitting on top, with SATA and power cables coming out through the hole where the optical drive used to be. The case has no internal mounting for harddrives, so this is what I came up with. I would like to move to a different case, but everything in the PC is proprietary so that's a pain. Maybe something could be 3D printed, but I also don't have a printer. Or knowledge on how to design things. Eh, it works, you know?

[@HardwareHaven]

If it works, it works!

[@williammeredith2182]

Hey! Just wanted to thank you for putting this video together. I followed it almost exactly and just got it online today! 35TB of usable storage running TrueNas Scale!

[@VincentdeKoning]

You don't believe this! I was actively preparing a similar JBOD. But I go for an old PC case. The small chip to to switch the powerblok on was new to me. Thank you for this cool video!

[@marcogenovesi8570]

You can also us a paperclip or a metal wire to bridge two pins in the 24pin ATX PSU connector (look up a pinout diagram). That's all the switch does, closes a contact between the two wires, to signal the PSU to turn on

[@VincentdeKoning]

@@marcogenovesi8570 i believe this one does a bit more. It only goes on if the pc is on. Nothing fancy but still pretty cool!

[@ROFLMAOwithExtraCheese]

If you are using a seperate case check out the Supermicro CSE-PTJBOD-CB1 JBOD Power Board. A little bit more costly than the solution in the video but enabling the power button makes it easier to move the case between systems.

[@IHateCS]

I love your videos dude, I've learned a lot from watching your NAS and Router tutorials, I've yet to see anyone do a tutorial on how to access your NAS from outside your local network though, I think it'd be cool if you made one.

[@graemewiebe2815]

I did a very similar thing with my server, but for my own needs I went a fair bit over what you did. I'm using the same HBA, but instead of using the mini SAS 8088 - 4x SATA, I have an 8088-8088 cable plugged into a SAS expander. This means I can use much cheaper mini SAS 8087 to 4x SATA (or in my case, SAS, which is basically an upgraded version of SATA) cables - with the added bonus that I can now connect up to 32 hard drives per 8088 port - for a total of 128 drives on a single host pcie slot. There are some drawbacks to my version, primarily that I'll be limited by pcie lanes when I add more drives in the future - the main HBA is pcie 2. The drives on the expander can go up to 3gbps per drive, which isn't going to be an issue for rust disks, so if you're using ssds, you should use something else. All of this fits into a corsair ATX case that I've filled with fans, a 3D printed drive rack that goes in place of the motherboard (holds 16 3.5" drives), an always on PSU, plus an additional 6 3.5" drive bays that come with the case. Its a bit jank and I have some issues to work out, but its pretty darn cool and it looks sick, if I do say so myself. If @hardwarehaven wants some pics/more info let me know and I'll get in touch - it could be an interesting video.

[@kingneutron1]

You should team up and do a video on this, would be an interesting alternate build. Make sure to include links to buy parts list

[@xxxyz721]

Mine is the same but with only a 2 port hba…

[@JamesMusicCo]

Im running everything on a DIY Zimaboard NAS with 2 Harddrives in a woodworking diy case. This is exactly what I was looking into to add more drives. Thanks!

[@V1N_574]

For the ppl that don't have 3d printers you can still look for an STL file of this rack or any other hdd rack that fits your needs and send it over to a 3D printing service company which will print it and send it over to you. You could choose color, material type and other customisations on many of this companies. Some aren't cheap though.

[@David_Quinn_Photography]

I tried those 2 5.25" drive bays and many times even with a fan in them the drives get hot, very very hot. They just seem to be not spaced enough for air to realistically get through.

[@triplerinse]

Those sata extensions cables work really well for the 3.3 volt problem for shucked drives. You can peel the back cover off and just take the 3.3 volt cable out and put the covers right back on.

[@LeadinLP]

This was really good bud. I think people who tinker with things like TrueNAS and Unraid have the DIY bug and are going to gravitate to something like this. It’s a great way to keep going when you’ve run out of space… like me 😂

[@GhostieXV]

I have one of those EMC KTN-STL3 JBODS attached to my Truenas server running SAS drives. You can run both SAS and SATA with SSDS they come with 2 controllers are if you run SAS you can get full 10GB or 25GB speeds out of them. 3xSSD 6xHDD and 6xHDD with 2 arrays. Works really well.

[@kingneutron1]

Same. I impressed one of my coworkers the other day when I casually mentioned I had a 15-bay SAS shelf running ZFS DRAID ;-)

[@SomeGuyInSandy]

I've built two 12 bay JBODs using used SuperMicro gear I bought on eBay. The first one was kind of tough because i wasn't sure which cables and adapters to use, but the second one was a breeze! Not including drives, I have 24 slots for under $500.

[@winstonreid1395]

they have 3.5-inch Hard Drive Cage, 16-compartment Shock-proof Expansion rack, Multi-bay mobile External Hard Drive Cage on ali express and then you could add any slide in or hotswap drive mount or use the provided ones. You could even go down the rabbit hole of sata backplanes for the power so all you would need is prob 2 molex to power it (like on the silverstone 380b) for example. Cheers

[@marsovac]

You could have split one sata power from the original PSU into 8 quite safely. One Sata connector can handle 75W with quite of bit of tolerance margin. Even at only the 12V rail it is 60W. And even 16TB enterprise drives dont use more than 10W in peak when starting. If you have staggered startup of the drives it would never go over spec. So you could have just powered all those drives through one. But ofc if you don't trust the PSU that's a different matter.

[@benpoulin5637]

I've been looking at these strictly for a mounting point for the drives to screw into. I wanted to build a wood enclosure to hold the psu, and hide the wiring. I was also going to add an sff-8083 pass through port to the back of the wood case. I also want to build some type of vented front panel so the fans would be mounted to the case and not the drive enclosure. My main concern is the lack of reviews on these plexi sheets, and plexi can start cracking under stress and shock, so I'm unsure how they will hold up to the screws being tightened then the vibration. Thank you for this video and if you continue using it, any updates would be awesome.

[@406Steven]

I've had good experiences with my Oyen Digital Mobius 5 bay enclosure but I love the DIY nature plus the ability to have twice as many drives.

[@blendpinexus1416]

i've done this in a slightly different manner. if it commects to the big power workstation i run a sata cable inside and use sata expanders. i have a usb to sata adapter in case i need to use that but i'm also not using truenas or anything like that. just labeled the partitions and use them like that. just don't have a spare computer (or really the space) to setup a dedicated nas machine.

[@FlashPan73]

Been wanting to do this for a long time but was stuck about powering a seperate PSU (and gracefull power off). A note about fans Have a look at Gelid...been using these for years, silent, slower but much cheaper. In a 4 drive internal enclosure (like your external enclosure) my spinning disks are always around 30-35 C - I reckon you do not need huge speed to push air over drives if the fan is quite close to them.

[@Shryp]

Instead of the SATA power splitter cables you can buy SATA punch down power connectors. You basically can just push more connectors onto your existing cables so you can space them as far apart as you want to cut down on some cable clutter.

[@nanoflower1]

This is just what I was looking for. I had considered one of those JBOD cases but avoided it because of the cost. Thanks for the information.

[@alexa-n-gramps]

Have you considered placing it in an old/unused tower or mid-tower PC case? My grandfather is designing a similar JBOD and we have several old tower cases. He's thinking of doing something simialr to what you did, except he'll be mounting it all in an old tower case and running the cables out of the back of the case into the back of our main PC. Oh, and his thinking of putting those 5-8" USB powered "personal" fans inside the case for added air flow! Could be a great DIY project and video for the future. Enjoyed the DIY!

[@AgentAsteriski]

I have actually been considering this as an option while shopping for a case for the family... thing... so it's really helpful that this dropped today!

[@haydenc2742]

See...now THIS is what I'm talking about!!!! Within reach of the home lab, and most peoples pocketbooks! Keep em coming!!!!

[@willcarter7079]

I got a used enterprise 12bay with the option to expand two more 12 bay jbods. The unit i got was $600. It was alot of money, but it runs Synology dsm and it's super easy to use for a beginner. And i don't feel like i have to worry about expanding in the future.

[@LordSaliss]

I had a Corsair case, cant remember which, but it supported 8 drives by default, and could expand up to 12 with buying another drive bay that bolts into the tower when you remove the 5.25" bays (So 12 tall). When I got past 12 drives, I ended up buying 3 more bays and stacking them onto each other the same as they support, and then drilled a few holes in the bottom of the case and stacked them right next to the other ones (2 stacks of 12). Ended up with a tower that allowed 24 HDDs inside it 😁 When I outgrew that, it was time for a rack and a drive shelf connecting to an HBA. lol

[@donankeny5013]

Nice build! A way cheaper but very reliable way to remote the second PSU is a relay with a 12 or 5 V trigger. With the NO and C outputs on the relay hooked to the 2nd PSU's power on pin and ground. The trigger is obvious, any spare 12V or 5V connector from the first PSU. Been using this method for my Hotswappable cages on my NAS for years without a hiccup.

[@panosangel2883]

What a creative project which solves a real problem. I was thinking recently to expand my storage solution and this seems like a very viable solution.

[@slothnium]

If you want vibration dampening without the hassle, one thing you can try are silicone grommets for M5, M6, or #6-32 screws. You may need to drill the holes out to a slightly larger size as grommets are supposed to fit inside the hole. Some older cases, particularly Antec, used to come with those. Oh, and one more thing you can do for vibration dampening the entire thing is adding earthquake-resistant gel pads. They are usually clear blue in color, and you should be able to find them at most online stores in the Asia region.

[@nathanmiddleton1478]

That's awesome! I have an old PC that I went with the icy dock solution and 2.5" SSD's but was not very happy with how it turned out. In this case I used an internal hardware raid, which in doing reading later found out wasn't really hardware raid anyways. Here, your CPU will deal with the drives and that doesn't take a lot of processing power! So for an older machine you don't want going to e-waste I love this. Thanks for sharing!

[@zo1dberg]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="617">10:17</a> Did you consider just bending the PCI slot a little to fit it through?

[@xxxyz721]

Did the same myself or similar anyway with an old pc case and motherboard plus a sas expander card. The pc is just to power the card and hold the hdds. Then just added a hba card into the server, plugged in one cable between the two and bingo, quadrupled the available drive bays :). Probably cost about $150 all in plus drives…

[@Yandarval]

One thing for you to investigate. Does your HBA firmware of software support staggered drive spin up. If yes, it will greatly help when using a smaller PSU.

[@EvilDaveCanada]

I'm thinking of buying one of those vertical test stand units and then build a shell around it. After watching this video, I'm now thinking that the test stand and something like this plastic HD stand maybe the way to go. I am looking at making a shell that would enclose both stands by using those four(4) side slotted aluminum extrusions in each corner. Connect the extrusions to the bottom and then just slide the five(5) sided lid on to the extrusions. Filtered fan ventilation is the only part of the design that I'm having problems coming to grips with.