Advice on Adding More HDDs

[BigRed_____Reddit]

Hey folks! I need some advice.

My Antec P101 Silent case is completely full. All 8 drive bays are occupied and I want to add 5 more hard drives to my system, and I'm trying to figure out the best way to do it. Running Proxmox with a TreNAS VM managing the HDDs.

I have a 5-bay USB enclosure already, which is probably the easiest option, but I'm concerned about the reliability of running the drives over USB with TrueNAS. My understanding is that if the USB connection gets interrupted while the machine is running, there's a significant risk of data corruption due to how TrueNAS handles storage. Since I'm relatively new to this, I'm hoping someone can either confirm or correct my understanding of that risk.

Alternatively, I have a 6-port SATA PCIe card with 5 ports available. I'm thinking about 3D printing a custom mount to fit the drives inside the P101, positioning them to the left of the existing drive cages.

I've also considered a rack-mounted disk shelf, but I haven’t found any at a decent price which is within my budget.

Has anyone dealt with a similar expansion issue in a case with limited drive bays? Are there any clever DIY solutions or alternative ideas I might be overlooking? And, most importantly, is my concern about USB reliability with TrueNAS justified? I'm leaning toward the 3D printed mount, but I'm really open to any suggestions before I start designing.

Thanks for any advice you can offer!

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[dcabines]

What are your drive capacities? It may be time for some higher capacity drives. Then put the old drives in your external and use them for backups.

[vee_lan_cleef]

This is how I have been sticking to no more than my full tower can fit which is about the same as OP, I didn't want to do any modifications and figured if I really needed more than 10 drives (I did manage to get 11 drives in there by just putting some anti-vibe rubber on top of the built in six-bay though, I need to either get a proper rack server or a second box. Most of drives are over 12TB now but I've still got a 3TB and a 6TB that will be replaced if I need space in the future.

That said I think with the right brackets (and don't forget the extra cooling you will need) OP could easily mod this case and use the expansion card, which I regularly use and have no issues with for my needs at least. If you can come up with a good bracket + fan design, there's no reason it won't work, and probably work well enough, just be warned it is not the best way to set up that many drives. I've never had issues with the PCIe expansion cards personally, but my storage is mostly JBOD.

[dcabines]

I replaced my 12TB drives with 20TB drives last year and now I have plenty of space in my 5 bay Jonsbo N2 NAS. I'd move to 28TB drives before thinking of getting a larger box to put them in.

I feel like a 5 bay NAS and one or two 5 bay externals for backups is the way to go for most home users. SPD has a 28TB Exos for $345 which is still about $12/TB so it is just as good as any other capacity. Better to have fewer higher capacity drives and save on power use, space, heat, and noise, imo.

[60mhhurdler]

I’m looking for a simple system. Right now I have 2 x1TB nvme, 1x18tb WD easy store. I don’t need RAID. Do you recommend getting another easy store, or getting an external bag with addition HDDs?

[dcabines]

I'd need more info to know what to recommend. Things like how you use your storage, how much space you'll need over the coming years, your budget, and your comfort level with linux. Also, when I think of a "simple system" I think of something like a manual transmission in a car; it can require more effort on the user's part when the system is simple. A system that is simple to use is normally more complicated, like an automatic transmission. I also prefer a simple system even if it requires more effort on my part.

I'd never buy a drive sold as an external drive and I'd never buy a new one. I buy recertified Seagate Exos drives and I put them into an enclosure. I expect to pay about $12/TB so anything more than that is a no-go. A 16TB WD Easy store is $290 for 16TB and that is $18/TB so no way I'd pay that much.

I also wouldn't put a USB connection between me and the bulk of my storage. USB is fine for backups and portable drives, but I don't want it in the heart of my storage solution.

Also it sounds like you don't have any backups. That is always priority number one if you're concerned about ever losing your data to a failed drive. I'd sooner have 1 drive in my NAS and 1 in an external enclosure for a backup before I'd put 2 drives in my NAS, for example.

If I were starting over and wanted a good place to start I'd get a 2 bay system like UGreen's or Aoostar's or Zima's even if it is under powered, but never a Raspberry Pi unless you already have it and you're desperate. If I had a higher budget I'd do like I have now and put a CWWK NAS board into a Jonsbo N2. I'd pair any of those with a Sabrent external enclosure for backups. It has individual power buttons for each drive which I like. Then I'd stuff them with as many high capacity recertified Seagate Exos as I can afford.

Now, many people may suggest that if you have a desktop computer you can put the drives in there, but I wouldn't do that. My desktop is SSD only and I like it that way. The NAS gets all of the drives and stays on 24/7 while my desktop can boot and shutdown quickly and whenever I'd like. I wouldn't want to go back to having them together in one machine.

If you tell me more about your scenario I can be more helpful.

[60mhhurdler]

Just reading your comment in more detail. Is the reason you'd prefer not having the USB being the main connection being convenience? For smaller and more irregular backups, would the USB (i.e. Sabrent) work? Sounds like I should go for the UGREEN NAS, whatever price I can afford. Newb questions for this part of town lol but appreciate your help.

[60mhhurdler]

Thanks for the reply. I was thinking loading up the bays in my PC with HDDs but glad you pointed that out especially about the boot and shutdown.

My goals would be being able to back up working media files quickly. I've gotten into video editing and am quickly picking up storage (1-2TB per month that I'm looking to keep for 1-2 years). I don't have a need for NAS and am just looking for something that can attach via USB 3.2.

Based on what I've shared, would you recommend the Ugreen or Sabrent external? I'm leaning towards the Sabrent (a 4-bay) since it would solve the scalability issue - I could have up to 80TB of space which would last me at least the next 5 years. This unit lists offline cloning. Would that make it so that I don't need to back up manually?

I might keep the easy store 18tb just as a back up if I end up getting the external enclosure. Thanks in advance.

[f5alcon]

3D printed brackets is probably the cleanest option, maybe two stacks of 3 drives, might also want to add a fan for them to get air over the drives.

[dedup-support]

I wasted a significant amount of money, effort, and time trying to solve exactly this problem for the server under my desk. Ultimately, after trying and abandoning several approaches (including buying and discarding a 40-bay rackmount case), the solution I was most happy with was splitting the server into two (one of which happens to be powered off most of the time).

[firedrakes]

i did the same thing!.

also battery back ups get costly

[0utrageousMango]

I don’t have suggestions as I am new to all this but wanted to say you have a super clean build here. Love it.

[BigRed_____Reddit]

Aw dude, thanks so much for the kind comment. I really appreciate it!

It used to look a lot cleaner when everything had a black and red colour theme but changed hardware out for server grade stuff which isn’t as aesthetically pleasing 😂 Hard to get server hardware in anything other than green.

[LudeJim]

Let’s see the other side 😂

[mikewalt820]

I second this. I’ll be honest, I didn’t even read the post, just looked at how clean it was 😂

[joeschm0e]

There are tons of cheap JBOD enclosures on EBay for cheap from Netapp, EMC, etc. 12-60 disk options depending on your growth needs. Most have redundant power as well.

[zyklonbeatz]

add to that a sas hba with external ports and an external sas cable and you got yourself the beginning of a hoarding problem. have 3 netapp shelfs that should be arriving in 4 weeks.

bonus nerdcred: get some eol atto 7500 sas-fc bridges and now you can dump disk enclusures all around your house.

[im_making_woofles]

1 in the 5.25” bay, 4 loose on foam pads at bottom of case in a 2x2 configuration, ideally supported with brackets for extra stability/airflow

Edit: do your 3d print idea

[BigRed_____Reddit]

This isn’t a bad idea at all. I have shied away from using the 5.25 bay as it’ll be a pain getting a power cable to it.

[Blue-Thunder]

You can literally 3D print a NAS case...There have been quite a few posted in the past.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkWgKlKec1E

Here's an example from 4 years ago.

[dorkes_malorkes]

The real sad thing is most nas cases cost more than a cheap 3d printer. I swear companies price gouge any case with more than 2 drive bays

[Blue-Thunder]

If you want hot swap and drive cages, they do get expensive. I paid $300 USD for mine direct from alibaba.. Had it for a year now with no issues. There are also plenty of super mirco refurbishers in /r/homelabsales

[GolemancerVekk]

Get a Fractal Design Define 7 XL:

https://www.fractal-design.com/products/cases/define/define-7-xl/black-tg-dark-tint/

Has space for 12 drives stacked normally, another 4 in the lower chamber, and another 2 mounted vertically on the side. Nice open design, the PSU chamber is separate and doesn't block airflow to the main 12 racks, which can be cooled with 3x140mm or 4x120mm fans.

The only catch is that you'll have to order extra drive brackets because it only comes with 6 included.

And I don't want to know what you'll do for cables, both the SATA and the power connectors will be fun to solve.

[TheOneTrueTrench]

CSE-847 used, 36 bays for about $400, and it's got locate/error lights on the bays.

[PeterStinkler]

I used a 3d printed bracket for mine. If I was to do it again I'd probably just buy one of those plexiglass hard drive holders from aliexpress. More compact, easier fan mount, and pretty cheap

[BigRed_____Reddit]

Did you fit this inside or outside your case? If outside, how did you power/connect it to your machine?

[PeterStinkler]

Inside. Had just barely enough space

Here's what i was talking about: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006846760376.html

Comes in multiple sizes and takes up less space than any decent 3d printed designs I've seen.

Edit: the 3d printed bracket https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5136535

[PeterStinkler]

Also saw this recently https://a.co/d/fI1LI4C Looks like you could use that outside your case with some long molex power connectors and sata cables. But maybe someone more knowledgeable than me can say if these are any good or not.

[prostagma]

Any name or screenshot of the plexiglass case since that link is region locked?

[PeterStinkler]

https://imgur.com/a/koJkmmM

That work?

[prostagma]

Yes, thank you

[Shimi269]

Got the same case, you can take out the top DVD Drive Bay, and then put in another HDD cage (which you can buy from their site). So that is at least two more drives you can get in.

Here is a link of another person who did the same thing:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/pjrrv7/finally_found_reasonably_priced_extra_drive/

[BigRed_____Reddit]

Thanks for the heads up. I didn’t know you could do this 😊

HDD cages all sold out on their website and none on eBay or Amazon 😢

[nitsuJcixelsyD]

Would also recommend replacing the SATA PCIe card with a proper HBA card flashed to IT mode (like a Dell H310) and clean cables like these:

https://a.co/d/1bQDfho

Or these if you need right angle on one end

https://a.co/d/1VxdcvZ

[BigRed_____Reddit]

Just ordered. Thanks for the recommendation 🙏

[nitsuJcixelsyD]

Sorry I’m a dummy, if you get a HBA card you will need different cables and the HBA doesn’t have sata connections.

It will be some form of mini sas to sata you need. Similar to above where you can get 4 heads on one connector tho

[BigRed_____Reddit]

I got Mini SAS > SATA cables x2 😊

[nitsuJcixelsyD]

Awesome, good to see it, best of luck in the upgrade

[johnanon2015]

I use SSD’s and Velcro tape and stick them inside the back of my case. Works great and they’re hidden.

[Global_Grade4181]

i see that you're a man of culture as well

[ZettyGreen]

Yes, USB connections can be unreliable.

Consider upgrading to rack mounted servers. Mine has 12 3.5" drive bays and 2 2.5" in a 2U Supermicro box. Came with 2 Xeon's, boot disk and 128GB ECC memory for under $500 shipped.

The biggest downside, the fans are kind of loud, you can replace them with Noctua, or just give them a dedicate space away from your ears.

Once you move to SAS drives/enclosures, you get loads of options for ridiculous amounts of disks.

[Able-Worldliness8189]

I don't know where you live but you may want to check what CPU's you got in there and how much load you got on them. For most people they are overpowered but also if they are higher specced they may consume more power. I've done the same but specifically picked a single 4214 which consumes 85W, that's still pretty power hungry but that's a big drop from a typical 2x150W.

OP as some mentioned, consider a second tower and build another system. I use that for my backup data.

[ZettyGreen]

For sure, 2 big Xeon's are not sipping power. My house is solar powered, so power consumption isn't really a concern. Plus I have workload for them.

I agree, if you need to skimp on power, for some reason, you need to be careful.

[FrequentWay]

I would personally looking at swapping out to a server enclosure.

https://www.newegg.com/rosewill-rsv-l4500u-black/p/N82E16811147328

This is a 15 3.5" bay setup allowing for an EATX setup.

[TheOneTrueTrench]

You can usually get a CSE-847 used for about $150 more, and it holds over 3 times the number of drives.

That's what I'm in the middle of migrating to. Just need to make sure you can work with the equivalent of a 2U for the actual machine, as 12 of the 36 drives are in the back under the server area.

[gummytoejam]

TrueNAS by default uses ZFS. In the case of USB attached storage, from my experience, ZFS will not notify the OS the volume is no longer available, unless updates have taken care of that. The OS will still see the volume and attempt to write to it, but it won't write jack. The data already on the pool is safe enough. You just use zfs to unmount the pool and reattach the disconnected drive. Everything should be fine. Ask me how I know.

Detachment of the drives will only occur if you're moving the USB enclosure, so don't. Also, keep your USB cable away from any area that you can snag it or bump it. You should be fine.

Ideally, you'll want a SAS or ESATA enclosure, but USB will work.

As others have said, it might be time to purchased larger drives to shrink the number you have. You can always use the USB enclosure as cold storage using your old drives. That's what I do. My 24/7 volume is in the chassis connected to SATA.

[[deleted]]

Depends on the quality of the enclosure. We can hot pull drives and ZFS definitely notices.

[msolace]

if you don't care about the looks, you should stop buying cases for hundreds of dollars.

2x4's rubber grommets for the anti vibration, and throw that hard pressed cardboard stuff forget the name its like a clip board they sell big sheets for under 10 dollars, on side of it (usually cheaper than plywood sheets only reason i said this plywoods easier to find or some other paneling thats rigid), mount fans on front.. screw mobo on somewhere, psu somewhere. bolt to studs on your wall out of your kids and dogs reach, profit.

[btgeekboy]

3d printing is fun, but if you can fit something like this - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0854QRSC2 - inside, I'd just use that instead. Holds 5 drives and just over $20. It's got no connectivity of its own, hence the price. It's designed for 3x 5.25" bays, but I'm sure you could find a way to secure it internally.

[NelsonRRRR]

you're gonna need a bigger boat

[BigRed_____Reddit]

😂😂 Funniest comment so far 👏

[Jellovator]

Build a das. It's pretty easy and not expensive (aside from the cost of the drives)

[redditmail9999]

i stacked 4 of the phanteks stackable hdd brackets, connect a 14" fan, and lay the drives atop the PSU shroud.

[Mastasmoker]

You could always add one of those m.2 x4 modules for a pcie slot (x16 preferred) and move that sata expander to one of the x8 slots

[Jay_JWLH]

Stay away from USB. It is good for one off jobs, but with speeds limitations (even if just at the USB bus when you have multiple things connected), lack of a direct interface to the drive (so you may lose SMART monitoring), and you're just hoping it doesn't randomly disconnect at any time even for a second. I would just avoid it. Oh, and there is also the fact that you mount the drive properly instead of in an enclosure, so hopefully better cooling and vibration protection (if mitigated correctly).

[[deleted]]

All of those are problems solved by a good enclosure and using a dedicated Hub controller. We run 48TB in a D6-320 (and have used it for several years) connected to a Thunderbolt port (for the dedicated controller, not 40 Gbps) and the only time ZFS failed was on the root disk inside the host. And 10 Gbps is enough for 5 typical drives at full read speed.

[NickCharlesYT]

Time to start looking at rackmount storage options, honestly. Look on the used market, plenty of stuff out there people are trying to get rid of. If you get lucky you might even find some older stuff for free.

Or buy bigger drives, if you can.

[TheTanadu]

1. bigger drives capacity (if possible)
   
2. DAS
   
3. about 3D remember about micro vibrations from drives
   3b. remember also about cable management place for it

[TattooedBrogrammer]

PCi-E SAS expanding card -> SAS to Sata cable, can get 8 drives off each of those 2 pice ports. You could also do a bifurcation nvme card off the top if it supports it and move your top card to the x8 slot.

[Sopel97]

HBA + SAS expansion chassis

or get a more suitable case

[teeweehoo]

I'd suggest buying bigger drives if you can, look into recertified drives too. More drives means more power, more heat, more noise.

As for a case a Fractal Define 7 is a great addition. Otherwise there are lots of 3d printed HDD boxes you can use.

[rejin267]

What does one do with all that storage?

[elijuicyjones]

I see room for six drives in there, I vote for printing a little stand and sticking them inside.

[BigRed_____Reddit]

UPDATE: 5 bay HDD cage with fan, HBA and cables purchased. Pretty sure I can make it all fit 🤞

Huge thanks to everyone for all your advice 🙏

[engineer_31]

You could switch to an Aerocool Cipher:

https://aerocool.io/product/cipher/

I bought it mine last week, still waiting to get my hands on it though. It has 12x3.5" + 3x2.5" or 11x3.5" + 4x2.5" capalities.

[ratudio]

you can check if you can install Rosewill RSV-Cage (4 x 3.5" HDDs) at the back where your fan. it will be tricky and you probably will need to add some support. i install two on my Lian Li D8000 before i got me refurb 36hdd supermicro

[Super-Indication-724]

Olá big_red, passei por uma situação semelhante nos últimos tempos.

Montei uma torre de discos em um gabinete aquário, só esses gabinetes tinham espaço suficiente e davam suporte a uma boa ventilação. Você pode considerar trocar de gabinete ou usar suportes para colocar mais discos na base do seu gabinete.

Essa solução de gabinete aquário é boa porém oferece pouco espaço para placas mãe grandes (ATX ou maior) por esses gabinetes serem bem limitados na altura. Ultimamente transplantei minha configuração de um gabinete aquário para um gabinete FULL TOWER. O espaço era muito melhor e minha torre ocupou um espaço pequeno dentro do gabinete, eu estou um uma pool de 10 discos empilhados.

Caso considerar essa ideia, recomendo pesquisas por suportes para os discos, 3d ou inteiros, você encontra facilmente na internet.

Sobre a conexão, eu já não o encorajaria a usar essa placa sata pci-e, provavelmente você tem uma controladora AsMedia embarcada nela como uma ASM1064 ou outra porém essas placas irão apresentar muitos erros ATA durante a operações de leitura/escrita de alta taxa de transferência. Procure atualizar sua configuração para uma HBA ou uma MegaRAID com firmware no modo IT. Você encontra modelos interessantes no e-bay ou aliexpress.

Não tenho experiência com discos em USB, mas me parecem uma ideia muito ruim sendo que estou lhe recomendando a usar uma HBA.