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The Synology End Game

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452 points amacbride | 1 comments | 29 Aug 25 06:37 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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amiga386 ◴[29 Aug 25 08:19 UTC] No.45061534[source]▶
On that very topic, do HNers have any case and/or motherboard recommendations for a homebrew NAS?

I have my NAS on a shelf in a mini-ITX case, but it only fits two 3.5" HDDs internally (as well as an SSD, but full-size HDDs are what matter for bulk data storage, the more the better)

Also, it takes a normal full-size ATX PSU because I was fed up a previous case that only had room for its own custom PSU, which kept failing under load. But I note there are now standardised small sizes like TFX12V and LFX12V, are there any efficient and reliable PSUs in these form factors?

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1. alias_neo ◴[29 Aug 25 08:50 UTC] No.45061752[source]▶
I've been using a CS381 for years which sadly now is EoL, don't know if they're replaced it, but it's an excellent case. Previously I was using a Fractal Node 304 but that was cumbersome for drive maintenance.

It has 8 hot-swappable SAS bays (also SATA compatible) and I run a Ryzen 9 3900X in 65W eco mode on an AsRock Rack X470 board which has another 8-12 SATA ports (can't remember the exact number, not used because I use an HBA for the bays), so connectivity for storage is high. There's 2 spaces for SATA SSDs on top of the drive bays and you could fit more in various spots if you tried, and 2 NVMe slots on the motherboard.

Also got a single-slot nvidia GPU in there and a 4-port Gb NIC to supplement the 3 existing Gb ports on the board itself (one is dual-purpose for IPMI), some models of the AsRock rack have dual 10G ports too.

It runs most of the time at around 90W which I think is exceptionally low for the performance available, and can go to about double that when the GPU is in use, still very reasonable.