Has anyone been able to source an external multi-bay 5.25" enclosure recently? I have only seen them advertised a few times but they've always been out of stock / discontinued when I inquire about ordering one.
I need 3+ bays for optical drives, specifically Blu-Ray drives. Internal BR drives tend to perform better than external BR drives when it comes to ripping content, in my experience. I encounter fewer encryption issues with internal drives compared to my external drive. I have 1,000+ discs to backup, hence the desire for at least 3 drive bays.
My setup has grown organically, in retrospect I definitely should have gone with a rack cabinet but I didn't expect my hobby to move along at this pace. Common story I'd imagine ;-) I do plan to switch to a rack cabinet in the next 2-5 years. I just upgraded a fair bit of kit (APC UPS non-mountable, 2x U-NAS 810A cases for Server + JBOD, consumer router & switch, new metal shelving to hold said hardware, etc. ), I just can't justify re-buying these things until I've put some miles on them.
That being said, I don't want to keep buying consumer hardware if there is a rack mountable option that would work, on a shelf, until I get a cabinet. I have no idea, is it a terrible idea to run a 2U server on a shelf? I've read they can be noisy, can that be tamed with PWM and Noctua, or similar, fans? I have a spare mATX board, i7, 16GB, 500GB M.2, etc. so I believe I could turn a 2U or 3U case into a standalone 4-6 bay ripping (no-encoding) machine that wouldn't likely ever see high temps...
I'd love to hear input from members that are a lot more experienced with server racks... Is this stupid idea?
Thanks everyone, lurking on this forum has been incredibly helpful.
I need 3+ bays for optical drives, specifically Blu-Ray drives. Internal BR drives tend to perform better than external BR drives when it comes to ripping content, in my experience. I encounter fewer encryption issues with internal drives compared to my external drive. I have 1,000+ discs to backup, hence the desire for at least 3 drive bays.
My setup has grown organically, in retrospect I definitely should have gone with a rack cabinet but I didn't expect my hobby to move along at this pace. Common story I'd imagine ;-) I do plan to switch to a rack cabinet in the next 2-5 years. I just upgraded a fair bit of kit (APC UPS non-mountable, 2x U-NAS 810A cases for Server + JBOD, consumer router & switch, new metal shelving to hold said hardware, etc. ), I just can't justify re-buying these things until I've put some miles on them.
That being said, I don't want to keep buying consumer hardware if there is a rack mountable option that would work, on a shelf, until I get a cabinet. I have no idea, is it a terrible idea to run a 2U server on a shelf? I've read they can be noisy, can that be tamed with PWM and Noctua, or similar, fans? I have a spare mATX board, i7, 16GB, 500GB M.2, etc. so I believe I could turn a 2U or 3U case into a standalone 4-6 bay ripping (no-encoding) machine that wouldn't likely ever see high temps...
I'd love to hear input from members that are a lot more experienced with server racks... Is this stupid idea?
Thanks everyone, lurking on this forum has been incredibly helpful.