beardedbrewer Posted January 3 Posted January 3 I first wanted to setup a Dell Optiplex 5060 SFF to be used with HexOS. I wanted to use it because it has a NVME slot, uses DDR4 memory, and an 8th gen Intel Core i5 (which is a 6 core CPU, I believe). Would have a been a great started NAS, only downside is that I can only add 1 3.5 HDD, maybe a second HDD, but it would have to be a 2.5, and I'd be removing the optical drive. While I was able to get HexOS to install without issue, after some tinkering with the BIOS, I wasn't able to create any Pools with just 1 drive. Luckily, my father-in-law had an old gaming PC he wasn't using anymore - So I took it over, the case itself has slots for as many as 6-8 3.5 in drives, which is great! This would be perfect! Biggest downside to this setup is that the hardware is using 4th gen Intel core i7... and the mb doesn't have an NVME slot 😞 Currently, it's setup with 3 4TB WD Black drives as the pool (giving approximately 8TB of storage), and 2.5 in SSD drive as the boot drive. Just need to get a couple of HBA cards, remove the 2 optical drives, and start loading it up with drives. Eventually I'd like to upgrade to some much newer hardware for the CPU/MB/RAM/GPU. I'll post some pictures later of the setup. Quote
BlueAsphalt Posted January 3 Posted January 3 You can try using pcie to SATA expansion cards to accommodate more hdds in your first build Quote
beardedbrewer Posted January 4 Author Posted January 4 1 hour ago, BlueAsphalt said: You can try using pcie to SATA expansion cards to accommodate more hdds in your first build I thought about doing that, but since it's a SFF, there wouldn't be enough physical space to put drives. I also thought about building the NAS inside an old cheese grater Mac Pro. But the power draw would be way too much to make it worth it... I would love to use my 2018 Mac Mini and use 4 thunderbolt external drives as the pool... Quote
Mobius Posted January 4 Posted January 4 Have you considered checking if Frankensteing the sff internals with the gaming pc case was feasible? Quote
DomSmith Posted January 5 Posted January 5 Do you have a free PCIe slot? This has a 5-port SATA controller and 2 x m.2 (SATA) slots on the board. The other 3 ports present to regular SATA ports. It also came with a low-profile bracket for SFF cases. This would allow you to put your first 2 drives on the card! 1 Quote
DomSmith Posted January 5 Posted January 5 Also have a look at 'modern' 2.5" SSDs as they often share similar internals to their m.2 equivalents, but packaged to fit the legacy HDD form factor. Pictured below are 2 512GB SP-A55 drives. The actual board is tiny and the plastic case is just there to make it fit a 2.5" bay The case could be cut down or removed completely. # Disclaimer: I am not recommending these specific drives. # Quote
dinecoj Posted January 5 Posted January 5 1 hour ago, DomSmith said: Do you have a free PCIe slot? This has a 5-port SATA controller and 2 x m.2 (SATA) slots on the board. I would sooner recommend a tried and tested HBA in IT mode over something like this. I'm curious what chip this uses 35 minutes ago, DomSmith said: The actual board is tiny and the plastic case is just there to make it fit a 2.5" bay Wow this is really interesting! I never really stopped to consider the actual size of the SSD hardware - crazy how dense it is! Quote
DomSmith Posted January 5 Posted January 5 2 hours ago, dinecoj said: I would sooner recommend a tried and tested HBA in IT mode over something like this. I'm curious what chip this uses Wow this is really interesting! I never really stopped to consider the actual size of the SSD hardware - crazy how dense it is! The controller on that particular card is a JMB585 from JMicron. https://www.jmicron.com/products/list/15 I mostly use this card for trouble shooting, drive cloning and data recovery. To he honest it's relatively slow but very consistent, and I've had no problems with it. I'm not reccomending this specific card, but it's worth considering that for NAS applications the NIC is likely to be the performance bottleneck. Therefore you can probably get away with using a cheaper/slower/low-power HBA. Quote
beardedbrewer Posted January 17 Author Posted January 17 On 1/3/2025 at 5:10 PM, Mobius said: Have you considered checking if Frankensteing the sff internals with the gaming pc case was feasible? You know, I haven't considered trying this... but will be definitely looking into it. Quote
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