Welcome to my NAS
A DIY build-log.
Documenting and ruminating on an effort to assemble a quiet, compact, expandable, and perhaps overly-capable converged storage server.
Part Selection
Chassis
There aren't a lot of options for a compact NAS enclosure with at least eight bays which can host a microATX motherboard within, so we'll go with this U-NAS NSC-810A, which is basically the only viable one I could find. Bonus for looking pretty nice.
Options here include small cases without bays, which were ruled out immediately, or larger traditional cases with hotswap sleds. My prior NAS builds have all used enormous cases with the added bays, but I've never been able to get those to run as quiet as I wanted. We'll see how this one turns out.
System Board
We care about our data's integrity, so our server will need to be able to use ECC memory. We'll also need at least eight ports for the storage devices, plus somewhere for the OS to live. I chose to go with a board based on the recently-released Xeon D-2100 SoC series, specifically the X11SDV-8C-TP8F. I feel some guilt allocating so much of the power budget here, clocking in at 80W TDP, but the lowest viable alternatives don't go much below 60W, so I guess that's not terrible for the capabilities we get.
Undoubtedly there are other options, but they all come with compromises. For example, I would have loved to have found an AMD solution, but the Ryzen microATX boards I could locate were all limited in either SATA ports, memory capacity, or some other troubling omission, all for a TDP starting at 65W, so no compelling tradeoffs there.
OS Drive
We have two NVMe m.2 ports available, an x2 and an x4. We'll put a nice fast drive like the Samsung 970PRO in the big slot, where the OS can live without fear of ever filling it up, and all the extra space should help ensure a comfortable longevity.
A smaller, cheaper drive such as a Toshiba RC100 can fill the second slot, and serve for swap and other scratch-space.
Options abound here, from smaller SSDs and SATA DOMs to internal 2.5" drives to USB-header flash. Or just run the OS on the small SSD and use the fast one for an L2ARC or something if you need to.
Storage Drives
My previous NAS used WD Re4 drives, which have mostly worked out alright. I wanted to try the HGST He10 in this build, but they appear to be currently utterly unobtainable. So I suppose we'll just go with some of these WD Golds.
First Impressions
The U-NAS NSC-810A enclosure proves challenging to initially open, but otherwise appears solidly built and well layed-out. It came prewired with individual SATA cables run neatly from each bay, which will unfortunately all need to be replaced with the miniSAS/SATA breakout cables that fit the system board's SFF-8087 connectors. Had I realized they come pre-wired like this, I would have inquired if different termination options could have been ordered — it simply didn't occur to me at the time.
Re-wiring the SATA harness proved fairly easy, a dozen screws hold the rear plate in place, which provides ample access to the backplanes and fans.
The chassis was not as cramped to work in as I expected it to be, there seems to be plenty of room for everything, and there were no issues fitting things inside.
One minor issue is the flexATX PSU which optionally ships pre-installed in the case only provides 24+4, whereas the system board wants a 24+8. It appears the PSU might be modular, but I haven't yet wanted to tear everything apart to investigate such. However, it does seem to put up with running off the +4 well enough for now!
Another issue is cooling. There's not nearly enough (any?) airflow over the passive heatsink with the case closed up. The U-NAS runs most of it's cooling flow front-to-back through the drive sleds, via two 120mm fans. Unfortunately, that airflow is almost entirely separate from the system-board tray above it, which only gets a gentle right-to-left flow from a single shallow 70mm.
For the moment, an 80mm Noctua fan sits unsecured atop the heatsink, and seems to be keeping things cool enough under all but the most heavy of loads. Some sort of permanent solution will have to be arranged, but so far, I have yet to find any documentation of the recommended cfm through the stock heatsink, and there aren't any convenient ways to secure an auxilliary fan to such.
Up & Running
Installing an OS proved initially impossible. Any freshly installed UEFI entry on the m.2 system drive would get garbled on reboot, rendering it unusable; it will only start from a USB drive.
Time passes...
Eight months and three firmware releases later, it finally retains the UEFI entries and will launch GRUB2 off m.2!!
Our storage drives get assembled into a ZFS on Linux pool of mirrored vdevs.
10G goes into the uplink of a little switch.
Wow! Such NAS! Much serve!