Server & NAS Cases for those who need HDDs

There are plenty of NAS & Server cases out there. Since I have changed my case 3 times now, I have done some research for myself and just put it out there for others.

My personal case study 😜 (pun intended):

1. Fractal Design Node 804
2. SilverStone DS380B
3. Fractal Design Define 7

My general advice for building a NAS with some HDD storage: If you have the space, do not go into small form-factor builds.

• They tend to be more expensive
• They are generally louder
• They are generally warmer
• Building in them can be a pain

And as a reminder for motherboard sizing:

Anyway, here is the list of cases I had a look into.

Smal Form Factor (SFF) NAS cases

SilverStone DS380 / DS380B

The DS380B is a newer revision and has smaller capacitors on the backplane for the SATA/SAS ports. They were pretty big and could be knocked off easily. You can still manage that; just be a bit careful. That is about the difference, as far as I can tell.

• Drive Bay:
  • 8 x 3.5" SAS/ SATA hot-swap (2.5” compatible)
    • These are external and easy to swap!
  • 4 x 2.5"
• Motherboard: Mini-DTX, Mini-ITX
• Power Supply: SFX PSU
• Dimension:
  • 211mm (W)
  • 285mm (H)
  • 360mm (D)
  • 21.6 liters
• Price: ~175 Euros (06.04.2025)

I owned this case at some point. It is okay. Back then, I needed the small form factor, and it was great for that. However, building in here is not fun at all! especially when you think of populating all 4 SSDs in the small SSD cage. Getting them out there is also a major pain.

Mods

• If you want to use a full-size PCIe card for an HBA, then you need to mod the case slightly. I have written about it here: Silverstone DS380B mod - How To Fit a Normal Size PCI Card into the SilverStone DS380 without losing a HDD slot
• If you populate all the disk bays, the disks can get pretty toasty. Brian Moses created a 3D printed cooling duct, which I highly recommend:
  • DIY NAS: 2017 Edition
  • Cooling Duct for SilverStone D380