I am currently running a FreeBSD system on an old Dell Optiplex 790 (i3 2100) that has been upgraded a bit.
It has 16G of ram, and 5 hard drives: 1TiB SATA SSD, where the OS itself is installed, using UFS+/FFS filesystem.
The other 4 are 3TiB SAS drives, connected to an LSI 9300 HBA, and are in a ZFS raidz1 configuration.
I would prefer to stick with FreeBSD, but would also consider TrueNAS Core (also FreeBSD based).
Here's the problem. The 5 hard drives don't quite fit into the case. The side panel won't close completely due to the SAS connectors being slightly larger than the original SATA connectors the case was designed for.
My budget is sub $300.
I've seen a few 2U and 4U servers on eBay that seem to fit the bill. My concern is that energy usage would be significantly higher than it is now.
Any suggestions for alternative ideas that keep my existing storage would be much appreciated.
There are also smaller cages, such as https://www.amazon.com/dp/B019LS5UVU?psc=1, if that helps. :)
It really doesn't, honestly. I currently have two of the hard drives mounted in 5.25 to 3.5 adapters where that cage would go, and two of the others are the ones that won't quite fit, so I'd have to move both of them to make it close properly.
It really does look like I need a different case to put it all in.
The maybe something like Fractal Design Define 7, if your Dell parts fit in a standard case.
They aren't cheap but I really enjoy working in them and how dust free and quiet they stay. Just beware; they're huge and heavy.
ATX (Motherboard compatibility E-ATX (max 285 mm) / ATX / mATX / mITX):
https://www.newegg.com/black-fractal-design-define-7-atx-mid-tower/p/N82E16811352109
E-ATX (Motherboard compatibility E-ATX / ATX / mATX / mITX / EE-ATX / SSI-CEB / SSI-EEB):
https://www.newegg.com/black-fractal-design-define-7-xl-atx-full-tower/p/N82E16811352118
Yeah, I've been looking at those as well.
I was also considering something more like this, and moving the drives out of the server and I to just an enclosure.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/196524846940?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=vnd-wzNtQhm&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=inwhn8kcste&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY
I'm just not sure how energy hungry it would be if I only filled 4 out of 24 bays.
Here's some non-official stats regarding the DS2246 24 bay system, I imagine you can use them as ballpark figures for the DS212C:
https://old.reddit.com/r/netapp/comments/czpbw1/ds2246_idle_power_consumption/ez0kbh2/
That's actually a lot better than I was expecting. Thanks for the info!