I am getting ready to build a NAS box for standing up my HexOS environment. I am looking for recommendations for two key components.
NAS specific case that has the following attributes
A case that will support at least 8 x 3.5" drives.
Hot swappable drive support built in.
doesn't break the bank cost wise (budget is <$400.00), the lower the better taking into consideration decent build quality. I love Fractal Design cases, just wish they had more options for NAS cases. especially that supported ATX (not just Micro ATX and Mini ITX motherboards), and hot swap drive capabilities built in.
isn't rack mounted, will be sitting on a wire shelfing rack in the corner of my spare bedroom office.
Suitable motherboard to support the capabilities of the case. i.e. number of drives and hot swap capabilities as well as enough memory to support HexOS and containers that I might want to run
I will start with 4 drives but want the ability to expand to at least 8 in the future. I am currently thinking that I will go with the Jonsbo N5 because of it's support for up to 12 x 3:5" drives and support for hot swappable drives for ease of future repair/replace/growth. Anybody have any real world experience with that case and accompanying feedback?
I am currently running a TrueNAS core set up in a case (Fractal Design Define R5 Case) that has support for 6 x 3.5" drives but no support for hot swappability. The current setup is just storage and one of the things that I am most excited about in the HexOS environment, is being able to easily deploy containers for Plex and other functionality (thinking about Pi-hole, Home assistant, Tailscale, OPNSense, etc.)
Other than the experience over the last couple of years running a very basic instance of TrueNAS core. I feel like I don't know what I don't know.
The TrueNAS core experience has been pretty much "set it and forget it", but it doesn't include the functionality of the container specific stuff mentioned above. I know that TrueNAS Core has container functionality, but when I looked at it previously (not extensively) I felt like it was complex and a lot of work to get Plex running natively in the TrueNAS Core environment. I have separate (old recycled pc's) systems running Pi-Hole, OPNSense, and Plex currently and want to add the home assistant and Tailscale functionality but don't want to add more old pc's to my setup. I would rather take advantage of HexOS's easily deployed container functionality to consolidate into two systems that are redundant backup's both of storage and container functionality. I am somewhat technical but don't have really deep networking or programming skills.
Thoughts? Comments? Recommendations?
Thanks in advance.
