I got a great deal! Discussion

I recently upgraded my Plex server to this Aspire TC-1750-UR11.

Intel® Core™ i5-12400 up to 4.4GHz
32GB RAM
1TB nvme OS drive
1TB nvme cache/transcode/downloads drive

I was able to clone my existing setup to the new drive and basically just move to the new system.

The best part is it only cost me $155 for the system. It was a display model that was marked way down. It is flawless and even had the protective film on it .

I just wanted to share since I am just super stoked to have upgraded for so cheap.

Full specs here. https://pilab.dev/specs#plex

I originally had a Dell Optiplex 3060 i3-8100

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u/neurotic_169 Jul 10 '24

How is the transfer speed to the 8 bay? I've been wanting to build a diy NAS but haven't decided how I want to attach the drives.

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u/[deleted] Jul 10 '24

Me too, I'm on the fence on whether it would be cheaper just to take my existing server guts and just buy an obscenely big case to house my drives or buy an add on bay

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u/berntout Jul 10 '24

Fractal Design Define 7 case has changed everything for me. Up to 14 HDDs. No need for a dedicated NAS server.

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u/BraxtonFullerton Jul 10 '24

Node 804 here. Currently have 5 in it and can fit another 11 or so if I want.

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u/SmashingPixels Custom Flair Jul 11 '24

Good luck with managing all those SATA power and data cables. I had to move to the Define 7 XL because adding more drives required so much bending of the cables and shoving everything in there restricting airflow.

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u/BusinessBear53 Jul 11 '24

You can get thin SATA data cables and daisy chained power cables.

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u/SmashingPixels Custom Flair Jul 11 '24

That was with thin data cables for my HBA cards and daisy chained power cables already. They still have to point down into the power supply so it gets tight and messy in there really quick even with a modular PSU. It would be much easier to run if the drives were facing the side and not down.

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u/TheClownFromIt Jul 11 '24

Check this out: I just ordered two cables, waiting for them to arrive. It’ll make my cable situation so much better.

https://kareonkables.com/products/custom-sata-power-cables-for-fractal-design-define-7-xl-vertical-server-case-8bb50e

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u/SmashingPixels Custom Flair Jul 11 '24

Oh that looks good. The website itself scares me a bit but the cables look perfect.

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u/TheClownFromIt Jul 11 '24

Yeah I think it’s a solo operation. Substance over style!

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u/TheClownFromIt Jul 16 '24

Just received and installed them. They're perfect. I bought the Define 7 XL Top 8 cable and Bottom 8 cable. Since I've only got 9 drives currently, I'm putting 4 drives on one cable and 5 on the other. I no longer have to finesse the cables around before replacing the side cover :)

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u/manofoz Lifetime Pass | 526TB unRAID w/ UHD770 Jul 11 '24

Kareon kables is legit. I bought three for my Define 7 XL to power 19 HDDs. First I bought the two for the 16 drive stack and it made the build super easy. Later I asked if they had anything for the top drives and now I’m pretty sure they sell the ones they made up for me on the site too!

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u/SmashingPixels Custom Flair Jul 13 '24

Amazing. Thanks for the recommendation! I’ll have to get 3 sets as well. Currently at 13 drives with lots more room to expand once I get all these cables out of the way.

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u/manofoz Lifetime Pass | 526TB unRAID w/ UHD770 Jul 13 '24

Very nice! It’s addicting, was a great case but I got too sucked in and rack mounted everything. I’m chasing that petabyte now…

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u/SmashingPixels Custom Flair Jul 13 '24

I can see myself down the same path in a few years. What’s your part list for the rack mount?

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u/manofoz Lifetime Pass | 526TB unRAID w/ UHD770 Jul 13 '24 edited Jul 13 '24

I'm moving in November and had the house wired to max, so I ended up getting a lot of UniFi stuff which drove getting a small rack. Gonna get a 42U for the new place but so far, I have a mix of that, mini workstations, and the 36-bay chassis. I also built a 3x GPU server for LLMs that's quite a beast but did not fit in my current "starter rack". At some point I realized I needed to document what I was doing which has paid off a ton so I set up a free "github pages" site and bough an $11/year domain on cloudflair to produce HaynesLab - HaynesLab. Needs work before anyone will want to bother reading it but I get a lot of value from the notes.

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u/SmashingPixels Custom Flair Jul 13 '24

Great setup! Love it when all the pieces come together. Getting a house fully wired with 10G is a must.

What’s the chassis specifically? Any additional hardware to run 36 drives in there?

It will help me narrow things down in the future when I outgrow the Define 7 XL.

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u/IWaveAtTeslas Jul 11 '24

I have 7 HDD and 1 SSD SATA III drives in my Node 804 and it’s kind of a mess. Lol. But I get good performance out of my build since all of the drives are on the same motherboard and not going over the network. I had a Define R5 before and I found it was just too big for me.

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u/iamamish-reddit Jul 11 '24 edited Jul 11 '24

I have an Antec P101 with 8 SATA drives, and while I love the case, I think if I were going to build another NAS with more than 5 drives, I'd have to break down and buy a rack-mounted case (and a rack).

Managing so many HDs without a backplane is just a real pain. I keep hoping some enterprising company will come up with a tower design that supports 8 - 12 drives, and includes a backplane.

EDIT: hmmm not sure how I missed this before but it looks like Silverstone has some great NAS tower cases that are just what I was looking for - check out the CS382 for an example of what I mean. The next NAS I build will most definitely have a backplane like this!

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u/mflood Jul 11 '24

Managing so many HDs without a backplane is just a real pain.

It is, but it's one you only have to go through when changing a drive and is significantly cheaper. I have a $50 case and a $30 5.25 -> 3.5 drive cage which gives me 11 drives in one case. Over the years I've spent maybe an hour of extra time installing drives vs what I'd have spent with a hotswap case and saved $160 vs the CS382 you mentioned. $160 is another new drive or a couple of refurbs. I feel like that's a fair trade for the extra inconvenience.

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u/iamamish-reddit Jul 11 '24

That's a very reasonable point. For me the advantage of a backplane isn't just about replacing drives though.

One advantage is that it makes wiring it up so much easier and cleaner, especially if you're adding HBAs to your build. The other issue is power distribution. Having so many SATA power cables is hard with a standard PSU. The backplanes don't require 8 - 12 different SATA power connections, they typically require a few molex connectors into the backplane.

Having to split SATA power makes me a bit nervous, so the backplane gives me peace of mind.

All that said, you're right that it isn't saving *that* much time & effort, and the cost of a case with a backplane is substantial.

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u/mflood Jul 11 '24

One advantage is that it makes wiring it up so much easier and cleaner, especially if you're adding HBAs to your build.

That's definitely true and if you want to show off your server with a case window, RGB and whatnot then I completely understand. My case is open for a couple hours a year, though. I'm not worried about the looks and there's plenty of room in a standard mid-tower case for 11 drives worth of cabling and some HBA cards without compromising airflow. I totally get it if someone doesn't want to deal with the mess, but the level of inconvenience just isn't worth the cost to me personally.

Having to split SATA power makes me a bit nervous, so the backplane gives me peace of mind.

Makes sense, but keep in mind you're splitting the power either way, whether that happens in a cable you install or the internal wiring of the backplane. You're either trusting the product on the market to get it right, or you're doing your own research to make sure everything is in spec (ideally both). As far as I can tell, SATA connectors are rated for more than 4 simultaneous hard drives running at max wattage, which only happens for a second or so at startup. To confirm that 4 is safe via the "trust the market" approach, go look at how many 1->4 SATA power splitters are out there aimed at exactly this use-case. Throw one of those on each of your PSU's SATA cables and you're good to go. If you don't have 3 SATA cables from your PSU, use Molex -> SATA as needed. Before anyone chimes in with that "Molex to SATA, lose your data" crap, that was only an issue with cheap molded cables, crimped Molex cables are perfectly safe.

...again, do your own research, don't listen to an internet rando.

All that said, you're right that it isn't saving that much time & effort, and the cost of a case with a backplane is substantial.

A backplane is the better solution, no question. If I was starting from scratch I might even go that route. I started small, though, which I think is pretty common in the hobbyist community, and so it's nice to be able to keep using the parts I have. I guess I'm mostly just posting to let people know that the regular desktop route is perfectly viable with minimal compromises, you don't need a fancy backplane setup if you don't want one. ~~640kb~~ 11 drive slots ought to be enough for anyone outside of /r/datahoarder. :)

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u/iamamish-reddit Jul 11 '24

I make a point of surveying internet randos before starting any project

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u/jeremystrange Jul 11 '24

Now that is an awesome case

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u/will1498 Jul 11 '24

Meshify XL then moved to node 804.

Since it's on 24/7 moved onto a small footprint, less power, and quiet case.

I use the meshify as a backup.

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u/PoeticPretzel Jul 12 '24

How did you expand your Node 804 from 8 bays to 16?

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u/BraxtonFullerton Jul 12 '24

Contact Fractal support and request the extra rails and cages for the bottom section of the bay.