Building a FreeNAS Tower

Notice: Page may contain affiliate links for which we may earn a small commission through services like Amazon Affiliates or Skimlinks.

josh

Active Member
Oct 21, 2013
615
190
43
CSE-M35T-1B | Mobile Rack | Accessories | Products | Super Micro Computer, Inc.
"5x 3.5" Host Receptacle Connector, Hot-swap SAS/SATA HDD"

At the end of the day its just a backplane that just passes the signal through, I'm using a pair of 8TB SAS HUH721008AL5201 so I can assure you SAS works.
I'd still need some form of SAS expander for serving multiple of these right?
If I'm sticking these in a 4U I might as well go for a proper 24-bay 4U chassis like the CSE-846 suggested since it already comes with a built in backplane? Might still need to connect the SSDs via direct pass through though
 

josh

Active Member
Oct 21, 2013
615
190
43
I've come across something of interest:
Antec P101
8x 3.5" and 2x 2.5" and 1x 5.25"
I figured I can stick a 4x 2.5" in the OD bay
Could downsize by 2x 3.5" and 2x 2.5" drives and have everything look nice but I'll have to forgo the hot swap for the rest of the drives

If I can find a decent backplane/expander to wire the 3.5s into a single SF8087 I'll be happy
 

itronin

Well-Known Member
Nov 24, 2018
1,233
793
113
Denver, Colorado
I'd still need some form of SAS expander for serving multiple of these right?
If I'm sticking these in a 4U I might as well go for a proper 24-bay 4U chassis like the CSE-846 suggested since it already comes with a built in backplane? Might still need to connect the SSDs via direct pass through though
hmmm... so I assumed from the title you were just looking for storage. However you mentioned a GPU and pass-through.

What hardware do you already have and intend to re-use?
You mentioned an E-ATX motherboard?

What's the real use case, goal you have?

All-in-one? Including daily use PC?
Single OS or virtualization platform?
How many cores/threads?
How much memory?
Total spinning disk storage?
total SSD storage?

Applications/servers you want to run?
FreeNAS?
Emby or Plex?
Firewall?
Torrenters?
Game servers?

A little more on Size and Noise
Full tower is okay but 4U is not? Note a Full tower , heck mid-tower is usually wider than a 4U on its size, the
Its going to be in the open around the house so size may be an issue as well as noise?
 

itronin

Well-Known Member
Nov 24, 2018
1,233
793
113
Denver, Colorado
I've come across something of interest:
Antec P101
8x 3.5" and 2x 2.5" and 1x 5.25"
I figured I can stick a 4x 2.5" in the OD bay
Could downsize by 2x 3.5" and 2x 2.5" drives and have everything look nice but I'll have to forgo the hot swap for the rest of the drives

If I can find a decent backplane/expander to wire the 3.5s into a single SF8087 I'll be happy
no more hot swap?

Phanteks Enthoo Pro
Corsair Obsidian series <- may have to drill standoff holes
 

josh

Active Member
Oct 21, 2013
615
190
43
hmmm... so I assumed from the title you were just looking for storage. However you mentioned a GPU and pass-through.

What hardware do you already have and intend to re-use?
You mentioned an E-ATX motherboard?

What's the real use case, goal you have?

All-in-one? Including daily use PC?
Single OS or virtualization platform?
How many cores/threads?
How much memory?
Total spinning disk storage?
total SSD storage?

Applications/servers you want to run?
FreeNAS?
Emby or Plex?
Firewall?
Torrenters?
Game servers?

A little more on Size and Noise
Full tower is okay but 4U is not? Note a Full tower , heck mid-tower is usually wider than a 4U on its size, the
Its going to be in the open around the house so size may be an issue as well as noise?
I'm planning to reuse:
X9DRI-F w/ 2xE5-2670
HUSMM1640ASS201s
WD4000F9YZ SATA which I plan to replace with SAS in the (near) future
LSI 9240-8i Intel Raid Card which I'll be using for the SAS drives

The plan is to run a FreeNAS/XCP-ng ZFS system with virtualized VMs for various purposes.
The HGST SSDs are for OS and high perf storage, the WDs for bulk storage.
Eventually I'm planning to insert a couple of GPUs to pass to a VM for some ML projects.
Considering adding some PM953 as scratch drives/cache.
 

josh

Active Member
Oct 21, 2013
615
190
43
no more hot swap?

Phanteks Enthoo Pro
Corsair Obsidian series <- may have to drill standoff holes
It was essentially a trade off between which features I valued the most. I started convincing myself that I wouldn't really use the hotswap feature much, maybe once or twice max a year and I would rather have the full functionality of the e-ATX board.
As to why a tower case over 4U, it's mainly about the sound level of server chassis, mobility and presentability. I might be looking at this wrong but my experience with datacenter equipment (I have a full rack of that in the office) is they are unbearable to be around especially in the home environment. Also, I'm trying to avoid a server rack and towers are easier to hide around in random corners of the house.
I've looked at the Phanteks, there isn't enough 3.5 drive bays but the 750D is one of the cases I'm considering.
The other being the Antec P280 (I'm still researching about the conflicting reports about it fitting e-ATX).
The Cosair seems to have everything I require so far but I'm still looking for some backplane/expander I can use to wire up 8-10 drives to a single SFF8087. It's not an immediate need as the mobo has 10x SATA ports but I'll need them in the future when I replace the drives.
 

Spartacus

Well-Known Member
May 27, 2019
788
328
63
Austin, TX
I have the 750D (with a bunch of cage expansions) for my main and an antec 1200 with a few of those 5.25" to 3.5" for my backup.

Both are capable of holding 20x 3.5" HDD assuming you're using an ATX board (otherwise its only 17 in the 750D).

750D Imgur
This is a little older of a picture, I have a 3x5.25" to 3.5" enclosure installed now so the 15 shown + 5 in the enclosure (which im using for the SAS drives). Then lastly the 2.5" SSD installed on the back side for a cache.
 
Last edited:

josh

Active Member
Oct 21, 2013
615
190
43
I have the 750D (with a bunch of cage expansions) for my main and an antec 1200 with a few of those 5.25" to 3.5" for my backup.

Both are capable of holding 20x 3.5" HDD assuming you're using an ATX board (otherwise its only 17 in the 750D).

750D Imgur
This is a little older of a picture, I have a 3x5.25" to 3.5" enclosure installed now so the 15 shown + 5 in the enclosure (which im using for the SAS drives). Then lastly the 2.5" SSD installed on the back side for a cache.
What HBA are you using to connect all the drives? Do you use an expander?
 

Spartacus

Well-Known Member
May 27, 2019
788
328
63
Austin, TX
What HBA are you using to connect all the drives? Do you use an expander?
I'm using Dell H310 flashed to 9211-8i IT-mode, no expander needed because I planned my build out and bought motherboards that have enough slots and builtin ports.

System 1: Supermicro X10SRH-CLN4F (2690 v3)
8x SAS 3008 flashed to IT-mode (on mobo)
10x Sata (on mobo)
1x GPU (16x 3.0)
1x 10g Network (8x 3.0)
1x H310 (8x 3.0)
1x PCIe NVME Card (4x 3.0)

System 2: Supermicro X10SRA-F (2660 v3)
10x Sata (on mobo)
2x H310 (8x 3.0)
1x 10g Network (8x 3.0)
1x Open Slot
 
  • Like
Reactions: Serhan and itronin

josh

Active Member
Oct 21, 2013
615
190
43
I'm using Dell H310 flashed to 9211-8i IT-mode, no expander needed because I planned my build out and bought motherboards that have enough slots and builtin ports.

System 1: Supermicro X10SRH-CLN4F (2690 v3)
8x SAS 3008 flashed to IT-mode (on mobo)
10x Sata (on mobo)
1x GPU (16x 3.0)
1x 10g Network (8x 3.0)
1x H310 (8x 3.0)
1x PCIe NVME Card (4x 3.0)

System 2: Supermicro X10SRA-F (2660 v3)
10x Sata (on mobo)
2x H310 (8x 3.0)
1x 10g Network (8x 3.0)
1x Open Slot
Don't you find it a waste to allocate a full SAS3 port to a spindle HDD?
 

Spartacus

Well-Known Member
May 27, 2019
788
328
63
Austin, TX
Don't you find it a waste to allocate a full SAS3 port to a spindle HDD?
I would except I'm using 4x HGST SAS SSD now as a cache with it :), the other 4 are kinda a waste, but the price was right for the board here on the forums.
 

vangoose

Active Member
May 21, 2019
326
104
43
Canada
This looks really good, now need to find a reasonable price.
Pay attention to different variations for back-planes, there is SAS back-plane with miniSAS-HD connector, SAS back-plane with SATA connector, and there is SATA only back-plane.

Also if you want very quiet chassis, get the SQ model, it's 28 db.
 

josh

Active Member
Oct 21, 2013
615
190
43
Pay attention to different variations for back-planes, there is SAS back-plane with miniSAS-HD connector, SAS back-plane with SATA connector, and there is SATA only back-plane.

Also if you want very quiet chassis, get the SQ model, it's 28 db.
I presume I only need the lowest end model with SATA backplane since I'm only sticking spinning drives in it? Even that is $350. Wish there were some used ones on sale..
 

itronin

Well-Known Member
Nov 24, 2018
1,233
793
113
Denver, Colorado
hmmm. Have you looked at something like a used Chieftec Dragon? (New may be virtually impossible to find.) I have one that has 6 internal 3.5, 2 external 3.5, 6 x 5.25". Mine is actually not in use. I don't know how well an EATX would fit in there but I can look if this is a path you might go down. I'm decomming an X9DRD and can see if it fits - assuming the DRD has the same screw layout as the DRI.
 

josh

Active Member
Oct 21, 2013
615
190
43
hmmm. Have you looked at something like a used Chieftec Dragon? (New may be virtually impossible to find.) I have one that has 6 internal 3.5, 2 external 3.5, 6 x 5.25". Mine is actually not in use. I don't know how well an EATX would fit in there but I can look if this is a path you might go down. I'm decomming an X9DRD and can see if it fits - assuming the DRD has the same screw layout as the DRI.
Not a fan of out of production cases, don't like to buy them at inflated prices