5 ms·

I've replaced the case of my NUC with a passively cooled one from Akasa. I forgot what I paid for it, seems the one I had sold for 50 EUR (old NUC I bought arou

by bkor 7y ago

I've replaced the case of my NUC with a passively cooled one from Akasa. I forgot what I paid for it, seems the one I had sold for 50 EUR (old NUC I bought around 2015/2016). The NUC itself was 150 EUR or so. The highest temperature I can get it to is 50 Celsius or so. It was really easy to switch the case, though you did need external antenna's for that (bought them from Aliexpress). I really want to switch it over to something equivalent from AMD. Unfortunately it seems that equivalent silent boards are mostly intended for specialized businesses. Meaning, the prices are high. Even with a newer NUC I'd probably still pay something like 150 EUR for the NUC and 50 EUR for a passively cooled Akasa case. All the AMD options I've found are way more expensive than this unfortunately. Sometimes I cannot even find a seller for some of the options. Edit: I'd prefer if the case is small. NUC is already small. It could be a bit bigger than a NUC but ideally not.

vbezhenar 7y ago
What would be a proper way to attach something like 4 x 3.5" SATA HDD to NUC form-factor?
- Youden 7y ago
  I actually did just this. There are two main ways I considered: 1. Buy a 4-bay USB enclosure. 2. Put a HBA in a Thunderbolt 3 -> PCIe enclosure, put the SATA disks in a standard PC case with a SAS port expander, connect the SATA disks to the port expander with A SATA breakout cable and connect the newly created DAS to the HBA with a standard SAS cable. I ended up going the first way. I bought two of them that have USB 3.1 Gen 2 UASP interfaces and filled them with shucked 12TB disks. They're attached to the NUC using regular A->C USB 3.1 Gen 2 cables while the Thunderbolt port is connected to a Thunderbolt -> 10GbE adapter. It works surprisingly well as the backup server it's intended to be, the main issue being that under very high I/O loads, the USB interfaces completely die for some reason I've been unable to ascertain and can't be recovered without rebooting. I believe the second option would have been much more stable but also bulkier and more expensive. There's also a third option: install an M2 to PCIe riser in the NUC and connect a HBA to the NUC directly. using a process like this [0]. This is a bit too frankenstein for me. However I want to emphasise very strongly that I don't recommend doing this. There are tons of much better options around. HP's MicroServer line in particular is definitely worth thinking about but also you can stack ODROID HC2s if you're interested in Ceph or GlusterFS and there are plenty of small PC cases that can hold 4 3.5" drives and a motherboard. [0]: https://ganon.club/index.php/2019/04/04/getting-10gbps-on-a-skull-canyon-nuc-without-thunderbolt-3-ngff-to-pcie-x4-riser/ https://ganon.club/index.php/2019/04/04/getting-10gbps-on-a-...
  - vbezhenar 7y ago
    Thanks! I'm using HP Microserver right now, but for various reasons I'm thinking to get something else. They released 10 Plus version, so I'm comparing alternatives. Your second variant definitely sounds very interesting as it should be possible to upgrade NUC independently. I wonder if USB or Thunderbolt connections are considered reliable for 24/7 use.
    - Youden 7y ago
      > I wonder if USB or Thunderbolt connections are considered reliable for 24/7 use. I think Thunderbolt should be fine since it's essentially PCIe. USB so far has been okay as long as you don't push it too hard. When the throughput gets too high it dies.
  - scottlamb 7y ago
    > there are plenty of small PC cases that can hold 4 3.5" drives and a motherboard. Can you recommend one? In a quick newegg search [1], I see the Fractal Design Node 304 for $90 + whatever a PSU costs. Anything cheaper? I also see a 3-bay COOLER MASTER Elite 110 for $50. I've been writing NVR software [2] and am trying to put together hardware recommendations for a small, inexpensive machine. * The ultra low budget option is a Raspberry Pi + a 2-bay USB SATA dock. It works surprisingly well most of the time, but cheap USB-attached storage is a little sketchy. I've had corruption a couple times and suspect the dock. * I'd like something a step or two up that has the drives in the main case. The Helios64 looks attractive but I'd like to see what comparable x86_64-based options there are. The MicroServer you mentioned looks interesting also - not as pretty as the Helios64, not hot-swappable, a little pricier, but a lot more powerful. edit: this page [3] lists some nice cases also. More bays than I'm looking for but nice anyway. [1] https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?N=100007583%20600030561%20600030562%20600545970%20600030563&Order=PRICE https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?N=100007583%20600030561%20600030... [2] https://github.com/scottlamb/moonfire-nvr https://github.com/scottlamb/moonfire-nvr [3] https://butterwhat.com/2019/06/16/brians-top-three-diy-nas-cases-as-of-2019.html https://butterwhat.com/2019/06/16/brians-top-three-diy-nas-c...
    - 7y ago

by bkor 7y ago

vbezhenar 7y ago

What would be a proper way to attach something like 4 x 3.5" SATA HDD to NUC form-factor?

Youden 7y ago
I actually did just this. There are two main ways I considered: 1. Buy a 4-bay USB enclosure. 2. Put a HBA in a Thunderbolt 3 -> PCIe enclosure, put the SATA disks in a standard PC case with a SAS port expander, connect the SATA disks to the port expander with A SATA breakout cable and connect the newly created DAS to the HBA with a standard SAS cable. I ended up going the first way. I bought two of them that have USB 3.1 Gen 2 UASP interfaces and filled them with shucked 12TB disks. They're attached to the NUC using regular A->C USB 3.1 Gen 2 cables while the Thunderbolt port is connected to a Thunderbolt -> 10GbE adapter. It works surprisingly well as the backup server it's intended to be, the main issue being that under very high I/O loads, the USB interfaces completely die for some reason I've been unable to ascertain and can't be recovered without rebooting. I believe the second option would have been much more stable but also bulkier and more expensive. There's also a third option: install an M2 to PCIe riser in the NUC and connect a HBA to the NUC directly. using a process like this [0]. This is a bit too frankenstein for me. However I want to emphasise very strongly that I don't recommend doing this. There are tons of much better options around. HP's MicroServer line in particular is definitely worth thinking about but also you can stack ODROID HC2s if you're interested in Ceph or GlusterFS and there are plenty of small PC cases that can hold 4 3.5" drives and a motherboard. [0]: https://ganon.club/index.php/2019/04/04/getting-10gbps-on-a-skull-canyon-nuc-without-thunderbolt-3-ngff-to-pcie-x4-riser/ https://ganon.club/index.php/2019/04/04/getting-10gbps-on-a-...
- vbezhenar 7y ago
  Thanks! I'm using HP Microserver right now, but for various reasons I'm thinking to get something else. They released 10 Plus version, so I'm comparing alternatives. Your second variant definitely sounds very interesting as it should be possible to upgrade NUC independently. I wonder if USB or Thunderbolt connections are considered reliable for 24/7 use.
  - Youden 7y ago
    > I wonder if USB or Thunderbolt connections are considered reliable for 24/7 use. I think Thunderbolt should be fine since it's essentially PCIe. USB so far has been okay as long as you don't push it too hard. When the throughput gets too high it dies.
- scottlamb 7y ago
  > there are plenty of small PC cases that can hold 4 3.5" drives and a motherboard. Can you recommend one? In a quick newegg search [1], I see the Fractal Design Node 304 for $90 + whatever a PSU costs. Anything cheaper? I also see a 3-bay COOLER MASTER Elite 110 for $50. I've been writing NVR software [2] and am trying to put together hardware recommendations for a small, inexpensive machine. * The ultra low budget option is a Raspberry Pi + a 2-bay USB SATA dock. It works surprisingly well most of the time, but cheap USB-attached storage is a little sketchy. I've had corruption a couple times and suspect the dock. * I'd like something a step or two up that has the drives in the main case. The Helios64 looks attractive but I'd like to see what comparable x86_64-based options there are. The MicroServer you mentioned looks interesting also - not as pretty as the Helios64, not hot-swappable, a little pricier, but a lot more powerful. edit: this page [3] lists some nice cases also. More bays than I'm looking for but nice anyway. [1] https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?N=100007583%20600030561%20600030562%20600545970%20600030563&Order=PRICE https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?N=100007583%20600030561%20600030... [2] https://github.com/scottlamb/moonfire-nvr https://github.com/scottlamb/moonfire-nvr [3] https://butterwhat.com/2019/06/16/brians-top-three-diy-nas-cases-as-of-2019.html https://butterwhat.com/2019/06/16/brians-top-three-diy-nas-c...
  - 7y ago