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Some NUC models cannot house 2.5" SATA drives. For those that do, heat dissipation is an issue for 7200RPM drives. Plus max capacity of internal 2.5" hard drive

Some NUC models cannot house 2.5" SATA drives. For those that do, heat dissipation is an issue for 7200RPM drives. Plus max capacity of internal 2.5" hard drives is only 2TB, and depending on your use case it might or might not be sufficient. Your use case does not seem very computation-depending. Maybe a cheaper Raspberry Pi-based solution will also work.

chrisper 9y ago
If they cannot house 2.5" what size can they house then? Or did you mean 3.5"?
- dijit 9y ago
  M.2 SSDs
  - chrisper 9y ago
    Oh wow. I must keep up with the times then!
    - astrodust 9y ago
      Those are PCI-e so they're substantially faster than their S-ATA equivalent.
      - sevensor 9y ago
        Wow, chrisper isn't the only one who hasn't been paying attention. It's news to me too. These slot right into the bus, just like a hardcard! Everything old is new again.
- unixhero 9y ago
  No he meant 2.5" Those models only have the "MacBook pro" "stick ssd" aka M2 SSD, which has a smaller form factor.
NickHoff 9y ago
Thanks for the advice. Yeah, a NUC would be way overpowered most of the time. A R-Pi and NFS probably solves 90% of my use case.
- blacksmith_tb 9y ago
  The RPi, even the 3, isn't a great choice for networked storage, since the NIC is running over the USB bus. A Beaglebone Black[1] would be similar but have better hardware for the job. 1: http://beagleboard.org/black http://beagleboard.org/black
  - peatmoss 9y ago
    My understanding is that the Beaglebone Black is also... opener. Or at least it seems like the Beaglebone Black is supported by more operating systems. If, for example, you wanted to run OpenBSD or even Minix 3, BBB is the system for you.
  - nonamechicken 9y ago
    I have a Beaglebone Black with a WD USB 2 portable HDD attached to it. I get only around 5 MB/s while copying (from Beagle to PC) a ~500 MB file over 5 GHz wifi. Not sure if this is because of USB 2.0 though.
  - milcron 9y ago
    PCEngines boxes would be pretty good for this too http://pcengines.ch/apu2.htm http://pcengines.ch/apu2.htm
- pletnes 9y ago
  USB drives and ethernet share the same bus on RPi so NAS performance is not great.
- tyingq 9y ago
  A chromebox with a new seabios rom (so it can run a normal Linux distro) would be a decent compromise between those two extremes. I have an Asus chromebox doing this, very happy with it.
kogepathic 9y ago
> Plus max capacity of internal 2.5" hard drives is only 2TB That's the maximum capacity of a 2.5" 9mm tall drive. You can buy Seagate 4TB & 5TB drives in 2.5" which are 15mm tall. [0] [1] [0] https://mtekk.us/archives/reviews/hardware/seagate-4tb-expansion-and-backup-plus/ https://mtekk.us/archives/reviews/hardware/seagate-4tb-expan... [1] https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Barracuda-2-5-Inch-Internal-ST5000LM000/dp/B01M0AADIX https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Barracuda-2-5-Inch-Internal-S...
- Theodores 9y ago
  I did this with a square NUC. You need to remove the drive bracket and rely on a bit of tape instead. It will fit but I used the M2 slot to do cache for the big drive rather than have slow storage.
- riobard 9y ago
  15mm drives are not really suitable for internal installation due to limited height in most NUCs.

chrisper 9y ago

If they cannot house 2.5" what size can they house then? Or did you mean 3.5"?

dijit 9y ago
M.2 SSDs
- chrisper 9y ago
  Oh wow. I must keep up with the times then!
  - astrodust 9y ago
    Those are PCI-e so they're substantially faster than their S-ATA equivalent.
    - sevensor 9y ago
      Wow, chrisper isn't the only one who hasn't been paying attention. It's news to me too. These slot right into the bus, just like a hardcard! Everything old is new again.
unixhero 9y ago
No he meant 2.5" Those models only have the "MacBook pro" "stick ssd" aka M2 SSD, which has a smaller form factor.

NickHoff 9y ago

Thanks for the advice. Yeah, a NUC would be way overpowered most of the time. A R-Pi and NFS probably solves 90% of my use case.

blacksmith_tb 9y ago
The RPi, even the 3, isn't a great choice for networked storage, since the NIC is running over the USB bus. A Beaglebone Black[1] would be similar but have better hardware for the job. 1: http://beagleboard.org/black http://beagleboard.org/black
- peatmoss 9y ago
  My understanding is that the Beaglebone Black is also... opener. Or at least it seems like the Beaglebone Black is supported by more operating systems. If, for example, you wanted to run OpenBSD or even Minix 3, BBB is the system for you.
- nonamechicken 9y ago
  I have a Beaglebone Black with a WD USB 2 portable HDD attached to it. I get only around 5 MB/s while copying (from Beagle to PC) a ~500 MB file over 5 GHz wifi. Not sure if this is because of USB 2.0 though.
- milcron 9y ago
  PCEngines boxes would be pretty good for this too http://pcengines.ch/apu2.htm http://pcengines.ch/apu2.htm
pletnes 9y ago
USB drives and ethernet share the same bus on RPi so NAS performance is not great.
tyingq 9y ago
A chromebox with a new seabios rom (so it can run a normal Linux distro) would be a decent compromise between those two extremes. I have an Asus chromebox doing this, very happy with it.

kogepathic 9y ago

> Plus max capacity of internal 2.5" hard drives is only 2TB That's the maximum capacity of a 2.5" 9mm tall drive. You can buy Seagate 4TB & 5TB drives in 2.5" which are 15mm tall. [0] [1] [0] https://mtekk.us/archives/reviews/hardware/seagate-4tb-expansion-and-backup-plus/ https://mtekk.us/archives/reviews/hardware/seagate-4tb-expan... [1] https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Barracuda-2-5-Inch-Internal-ST5000LM000/dp/B01M0AADIX https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Barracuda-2-5-Inch-Internal-S...

Theodores 9y ago
I did this with a square NUC. You need to remove the drive bracket and rely on a bit of tape instead. It will fit but I used the M2 slot to do cache for the big drive rather than have slow storage.
riobard 9y ago
15mm drives are not really suitable for internal installation due to limited height in most NUCs.