Zeus V2 : U-NAS NSC-810A | X10SL7-F | E3-1265 V3

[BigServerSmallStudio]

That thing is a real 180 from what you were looking at building.

• It is very expensive, even considering what you get with it
• You'll be lucky to find one for sale (they appear sold out/unavailable in many places)
• It runs QuTS, QNaps proprietary OS. There are apps and such for it like Plex, of course, but you are limited to them, their update schedule, etc. It also supports Docker/LXC so it is flexible in that regard, though the Qnap forums indicate some level of compatibility/other problems with that setup.

That isn't a box that's meant for BYO gpus, etc. You go with what it supports. It's an appliance, not an open ecosystem you can easily customize. Think about things like spares for power, etc. - the power supply in that, from the looks of it is proprietary; how will you replace it if it goes bad? Etc.

Not saying it's a bad idea, just that again, it is nothing like the BYO approach you were looking at and has a different set of pros/cons. It is a nice form factor, which is the advantage of going custom design like Qnap did for the motherboard/ps/etc. but on the con side limits you to their supply chain if something fails.Etc.

I agree, i don't think I can use the h1288X unless I know it supports Unraid without issue. I never would've thought QNAP/Synology type device would suit my needs but the above two devices are very high powered in a a very rare chassis format (i.e. literally you cannot buy this chassis format right now until UNAS comes back in stock). That's why it's so expensive, there are no good competing alternative products freely available.

QNAP direct has both in stock it seems, the 1288X with 16GB ECC (2*8) for $2000 and the 12-bay 1688X with 32GB ECC (2*16) for $2400 (latter actually seems like a better deal).

The power supply has connectors for GPU and 550W should be plenty. QNAP has the space for a dual slot GPU as well as two x4 devices (and comes with 10GBe vs. I've been worried what I can jam into the 810A's two ports), so it seems pretty decent from a compatibility standpoint.

Again - this really hinges on unraid compatibility as last thing I want is buying a server for next 5-10 years and being locked in a shitty EOL supported mfg'er OS.

 

[Ixian]

That box is not meant to run Unraid. I'm not saying there might not be a way to do it, but it would certainly be a workaround and, not incidentally, defeat most of the purpose of the thing in the first place.

You do that, even assuming you could (and good luck) then you just spent $2k+ on a bunch of proprietary hardware soley due to the form factor that you get to support yourself and limits what you can do in the future.

I'd completely give up on thinking that's a remotely reasonable solution. Go DYI or go all in on QNap, don't try for some best of both worlds hybrid because the likely outcome will be the worst of both

 

[BigServerSmallStudio]

Point taken. I'll further research unraid compatibility / how QNAP implements Docker, but may likely stick to the 810A build if I find any issues at all with simple things like fan control or PCI compatibility.

I guess best of both worlds would be someone selling the QNAP chassis standalone and putting all my same components in that case...a man can dream about best of both worlds

 

[Marsh]

I have different opinion.

Regarding UNAS case , on paper , it is a great idea.
Price wise , it cost too much for what the product offer, not a well make case for the price.

If they just make the case 1" wider and 1" higher, I would hate it a bit less.
Execution and design is terrible. Cooling is less than ideal. You will spend lots of time tweaking it.

Think before jam all the components in the case , it is not design for maintenance .

Full disclosure.
I own 2 UNAS 4 bay case installed with ITX motherboard
Six 8 bay cases, turn it into DAS . I am much happier.
I do not want to spend countless hours to cram all the components and cable in it.

 

[BigServerSmallStudio]

I have different opinion.

Regarding UNAS case , on paper , it is a great idea.
Price wise , it cost too much for what the product offer, not a well make case for the price.

If they just make the case 1" wider and 1" higher, I would hate it a bit less.
Execution and design is terrible. Cooling is less than ideal. You will spend lots of time tweaking it.

Think before jam all the components in the case , it is not design for maintenance .

Full disclosure.
I own 2 UNAS 4 bay case installed with ITX motherboard
Six 8 bay cases, turn it into DAS . I am much happier.
I do not want to spend countless hours to cram all the components and cable in it.

I somewhat agree, it is a very pricy build unless you are specifically going for older used components off eBay like a high TDP 3-5 year old Xeon, taking up the PCI slot with a HBA card and using a low-wattage PSU as an exclusive NAS system.

The below build would cost almost as much as the QNAP h1288X standalone which has dual 10GbE + quadruple 2.5GbE + 4 hot swap SSDs + good air flow + free and clear PCI slots for dual-slot GPU / PCI SSDs / RAID cards.

Custom Xeon W​	Product​	Price​
Case	UNAS NSC-810A	250.00
Motherboard	AsRock Rack W480D4U (LGA 1200)	298.20
CPU	Intel Xeon W1250 (3.3GHz, 6C/12T, 80W TDP)	283.99
CPU Cooler	Noctua NH-L9i	49.95
RAM	Crucial 32GB ECC DDR4-2666 (2*16GB)	230.00
GPU	–	–
PSU	Enhance ENP-7660B 600W (80%-Platinum, Modular)	213.90
HDDs	128GB Array: 8x 16TB WD Easystore	–
SSDs	–	–
M.2 Drive #1	1TB NVMe 3.0 M.2 SSD (Samsung 970 EVO)	129.99
M.2 Drive #2	1TB NVMe 3.0 M.2 SSD (Samsung 970 EVO)	129.99
HBA Card	–	–
Network Card	–	–
O/S	Unraid Plus	89.00
Case Fans	Noctua NF-S12A PWM Fan (120mm, 1200RPM) *2	45.80
Other	Noctua NF-A4x10 PWM Fan (40mm, 5000RPM)	–
Other	PCI-E Riser Cable / Miscellanous Cables/Extenders	75.00
	GRAND TOTAL	1,795.82

 

[Ixian]

I guess best of both worlds would be someone selling the QNAP chassis standalone and putting all my same components in that case...a man can dream about best of both worlds

Again, that form-factor only works because they are using custom PCBs for their mainboard and built the power supply in to the chassis, among other design decisions. Most of the AIO NAS manufacters (Synology, et all) do this - you can't compare apples to apples here, because it's apples to oranges (so to speak).

There's a reason you don't see that kind of form factor in just a case, it's because BYOD components based around iTX, etc. don't work with them.

Supermicro OEM'd a chassis that Ix Systems (TrueNAS) uses, that uses an iTX board, there are a couple other variants like that but even they aren't the same form factor (taller, for one). And lets face it, this is a pretty low volume/bespoke market for this particular kind of case so not a lot of manufactors looking to jump in it with a BYOD solution.

The UNas comes closest to what you are looking for in a form factor that also takes standard motherboard sizes and fits 8 drives, and it is full of compromises like the power supply, constrained space for addon cards and heatsinks, and the like.

I know I sound like a broken record and also no pun intended when I say "think outside the box". You are putting a lot of effort and potentially time, money, and comprimise, in to getting a solution you can fit in that small media center. When, as we've established, it doesn't even really need to be near the TV in the first place. You'll make your build experience (and wallet) happier if you start compromising on where you put the NAS vs. all the comprimises you are staring it trying to fit it in one particular spot.

 

[BigServerSmallStudio]

Again, that form-factor only works because they are using custom PCBs for their mainboard and built the power supply in to the chassis, among other design decisions. Most of the AIO NAS manufacters (Synology, et all) do this - you can't compare apples to apples here, because it's apples to oranges (so to speak).

There's a reason you don't see that kind of form factor in just a case, it's because BYOD components based around iTX, etc. don't work with them.

Supermicro OEM'd a chassis that Ix Systems (TrueNAS) uses, that uses an iTX board, there are a couple other variants like that but even they aren't the same form factor (taller, for one). And lets face it, this is a pretty low volume/bespoke market for this particular kind of case so not a lot of manufactors looking to jump in it with a BYOD solution.

The UNas comes closest to what you are looking for in a form factor that also takes standard motherboard sizes and fits 8 drives, and it is full of compromises like the power supply, constrained space for addon cards and heatsinks, and the like.

I know I sound like a broken record and also no pun intended when I say "think outside the box". You are putting a lot of effort and potentially time, money, and comprimise, in to getting a solution you can fit in that small media center. When, as we've established, it doesn't even really need to be near the TV in the first place. You'll make your build experience (and wallet) happier if you start compromising on where you put the NAS vs. all the comprimises you are staring it trying to fit it in one particular spot.

CS381

To fulfill the needs of enthusiasts looking for a compact, flexible NAS chassis, SilverStone created the CS381 with unprecedented level of space efficiency. Designed to house a Micro-ATX motherboard, it gives users a wide array of hardware options that includes robust backplanes to support...

www.silverstonetek.com

What do you think of the CS381? This seems slightly more larger (3.3" wider, 1.6" deeper, 1.1" taller) but with easier PCI slot access, 8 bays, 4 SSD slots, more PSU compatibility and 4*120mm fans. Coincidentally, ServeTheHome has a pretty detailed video on this.

 

[Marsh]

It is a great case, price is higher.
Since you are looking at a bigger case now,
How about the Fractal Design 804 that was mentioned in other threads.

 

[Ixian]

CS381

To fulfill the needs of enthusiasts looking for a compact, flexible NAS chassis, SilverStone created the CS381 with unprecedented level of space efficiency. Designed to house a Micro-ATX motherboard, it gives users a wide array of hardware options that includes robust backplanes to support...

www.silverstonetek.com

What do you think of the CS381? This seems slightly more larger (3.3" wider, 1.6" deeper, 1.1" taller) but with easier PCI slot access, 8 bays, 4 SSD slots, more PSU compatibility and 4*120mm fans. Coincidentally, ServeTheHome has a pretty detailed video on this.

If you are going up to that size, we're back to the Node 804 I won't repeat my earlier post in this thread other than to say I've gone through this exercise a few times now and it always wins. Once you get past the whole "but it doesn't look like a NAS case" thing you'll quickly find that even cases that cost hundreds more (like all the ones you are looking at) don't stack up to it, and it is cheaper to boot.

Edit: I've read several reports that the CS381 has cooling issues with the mainboard area. I haven't tried it myself but that was definitely a failing of the 380, which I did try. Different case in a number of respects but the same side-ducted airflow layout.

Again, you don't need hot-swap in your environment - a case like the 804 that makes switching out drives easy is just as good as one that has hot swap trays for all practical purposes in a home enviroment where drive swapping operations are very infrequent and small amounts of downtime tolerable, and you have far fewer tradeoffs (and cost) to worry about.

 

[Ixian]

Proof is in the pudding, as the saying goes: Here's my two file servers built around Node 804s, stacked on top of my gun safe in my (ventilated) closet:



The 3.5 hdds (8) are on the other side of the motherboard. Here's what that looks like, from my build thread:



The 2.5 ssds (2) are behind the front cover. There's room for 2 more of either type on the floor, below the PCI cards. You can also fit one (3.5) or two (2.5) more on the opposite side. in front of the power supply, if you are creative.

Swapping the drives out is easy; use a piece of tape (or label maker if you want to be fancy) to add the last 5 digits of the serial # on each so you can id them easy - this is good practice even if you do use hot swap trays. The cooling capability is this is excellent, the options for addons and such, very flexible. And it still can fit in unusual and/or out of the way places - like mine.

And they are cheap and fit regular ATX power supplies. Again, I don't work for Fractal - ultimately you have to live with what you pick. Go with what makes you happy. I'm just sharing my experience having been through this decision making process.

 

[alaeh]

NSC-810A will do a decent job if you work through its limitations.. understanding that the space is limited, you would want to maximise airflow by having as few components inside as possible. It will make more sense to pair this case with an all-in-one SOC board which already come with integrated HBA and 10Gbe SFP+ or 10Gbase-T (Atom C3000, Xeon D-15XX). Lower than 45W TDP the better.

FYI, I'm using Asrock Rack D1541D4U-2O8R with this case with, running Proxmox and have virtualized PiHole, FreeNAS, Plex,Win10 and iSCSI (Drive D:\) mounted to my Windows desktop. I use Quadro P2000 passthrough to Centos for Plex transcoding. I live in a tropical country so CPU temps average between 50C-65C depending on load... My build has been running stably 24x7 since Feb only needing to be rebooted when I update Proxmox.

 

[BigServerSmallStudio]

NSC-810A will do a decent job if you work through its limitations.. understanding that the space is limited, you would want to maximise airflow by having as few components inside as possible. It will make more sense to pair this case with an all-in-one SOC board which already come with integrated HBA and 10Gbe SFP+ or 10Gbase-T (Atom C3000, Xeon D-15XX). Lower than 45W TDP the better.

FYI, I'm using Asrock Rack D1541D4U-2O8R with this case with, running Proxmox and have virtualized PiHole, FreeNAS, Plex,Win10 and iSCSI (Drive D:\) mounted to my Windows desktop. I use Quadro P2000 passthrough to Centos for Plex transcoding. I live in a tropical country so CPU temps average between 50C-65C depending on load... My build has been running stably 24x7 since Feb only needing to be rebooted when I update Proxmox.

By "Quadro P2000 passthrough to Centos for Plex transcoding", do you mean you have a P2000 installed in your PCI slot? Do you have any other cards installed? What are your HDD temps like with that mobo/CPU/GPU combo?

@Ixian your experience is greatly appreciated. Too many options! Back to the drawing board. I hate having settled on a nice 8+1 810A with its petite 17L chassis only to "just go a little bit bigger" to the 28L 8+4 CS381 to now reconsidering "a little bit bigger" in the 41L 10+2 Node 804. I think as long as I don't really need a GPU today, I will have to decide between the 810A and the CS381, the Node is simply way too big vs. these two options.

Both are really compelling. I specifically like that the CS381 has enough space for future PCI expansion (either dual slot GPU / large PCI-e SSD / extra PCI x1 SATA slots for the SSDs / 10GbE etc.), slightly more roomier (seen a few people now mention "I wish the 810A was an inch or so bigger in dimensions", well this CS381 is exactly that but not twice as large like the Node 804), doesn't run into SATA-on-the-edge issue, better PSU options / fully modular, can directly hookup the HDD backpanes using a cheap SFF-8643 to 4*SATA cable, and the cooling should be be substantially better with 4 Noctua 120mm fans.

One thing I'm considering in the CS381 is a Corsair H100i 240mm AIO liquid CPU cooler which are supposedly very quiet and use 2*120mm high-static fans to pull air in. That could both keep a 80W TDP CPU cool and potentially the HDD bays cool. Any thoughts as to how effective replacing the back fans with radiator fans be in cooling the HDD bays? Curious if having the side fans routed in either pull-in or pull-out would change the temps using a radiator-fan setup on the back.

 

[alaeh]

By "Quadro P2000 passthrough to Centos for Plex transcoding", do you mean you have a P2000 installed in your PCI slot? Do you have any other cards installed? What are your HDD temps like with that mobo/CPU/GPU combo?

Correct. I'm using Quadro P2000 on my PCI slot.. I also used 4 SATA SSD (2x120GB Proxmox OS, 2x480GB for Proxmox VMs, 1 SATA M.2 passed through for Windows 10 VM). Below are my temps.. not sure if it makes sense for your use case since I'm in a "warmer" location.

	MB Temp	48 ° C
	Card Side Temp	46 ° C
	CPU Temp	62 ° C
	TR1 Temp	Not Available
	DDR4_A Temp	47 ° C
	DDR4_B Temp	53 ° C

 

[BigServerSmallStudio]

Correct. I'm using Quadro P2000 on my PCI slot.. I also used 4 SATA SSD (2x120GB Proxmox OS, 2x480GB for Proxmox VMs, 1 SATA M.2 passed through for Windows 10 VM). Below are my temps.. not sure if it makes sense for your use case since I'm in a "warmer" location.

	MB Temp	48 ° C
	Card Side Temp	46 ° C
	CPU Temp	62 ° C
	TR1 Temp	Not Available
	DDR4_A Temp	47 ° C
	DDR4_B Temp	53 ° C

wow talk about a tight build! What is in the second PCI slot, or how are you connecting 4 SSDs?

 

[alaeh]

Forgot to mention I also use Intel P3700 800GB on the second PCIE slot which is passed through to my FreeNAS VM as L2ARC / SLOG. not the most ideal setup but it works well for caching my iSCSI mounted drive (D:\) which stores all my games. My motherboard can support 14 SATA + 2 X M.2 SATA/NVME out of the box.

FYI, I also have another NSC-810A box which runs baremetal FreeNAS (X10SDV-2C-TLN2F) which I use for "cold" backup. I bring it up every 2 weeks to rsync all my files from my Primary FreeNAS box then shut it down afterwards.

 

[alaeh]

If you still wanna go for the U-NAS case, perhaps you can setup an AIO to help cool down your CPU... I recall seeing/reading someone setup watercooling on a U-NAS 8 Bay case before.. I forgot where I saw/read it from but the radiator was externally mounted at the rear.

NOTE: below pics are not mine, I just happened to save them for future reference in case I wanna do something similar.

 

[BigServerSmallStudio]

that seems a bit excessive, probably makes more sense to watercool the CS381 but cool nonetheless!

You have a great setup, that's something I'd like to do eventually (two similar UNAS, one that serves as an offsite rsync every month to my main server). Maybe for later on!

 

[BigServerSmallStudio]

If you still wanna go for the U-NAS case, perhaps you can setup an AIO to help cool down your CPU... I recall seeing/reading someone setup watercooling on a U-NAS 8 Bay case before.. I forgot where I saw/read it from but the radiator was externally mounted at the rear.

NOTE: below pics are not mine, I just happened to save them for future reference in case I wanna do something similar.

So I ended up purchasing this same chassis, the U-NAS NSC 800. eBay had a good deal for $130 including the PSU but excluding the SSD mount / screws etc.

I'm trying to figure out how to best use the limited space alongside the iTX mobo. Would there be any issues with using the below IO Crest M.2 -> 5xSATA adapter with something like the Asrock Z490M-ITX/AC so that I can leave the PCI slot unused for potentially a 10GbE card or small GPU in the future? Curious if there is any downside to using this M.2 adapter vs. a LSI 9207-8i.

https://www.amazon.com/Internal-Non-Raid-Adapter-Desktop-Support/dp/B07T3RMFFT/

 

[MrTacoMan]

Correct. I'm using Quadro P2000 on my PCI slot.. I also used 4 SATA SSD (2x120GB Proxmox OS, 2x480GB for Proxmox VMs, 1 SATA M.2 passed through for Windows 10 VM). Below are my temps.. not sure if it makes sense for your use case since I'm in a "warmer" location.

	MB Temp	48 ° C
	Card Side Temp	46 ° C
	CPU Temp	62 ° C
	TR1 Temp	Not Available
	DDR4_A Temp	47 ° C
	DDR4_B Temp	53 ° C

Do you know what the max size GPU you could fit in there? Thinking about getting the same card but I see some good deals on FB market place that are a bit longer.