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exmadscientisttoday at 4:38 AM3 repliesview on HN

Are there any NAS solutions for 3.5" drives, homebrew or purchased, that are slim enough to stash away in a wall enclosure? (This sort of thing: https://www.legrand.us/audio-visual/racks-and-enclosures/in-... , though not that particular model or height.) I'd like to really stash something away and forget about it. Height is the major constraint, you can only be ~3.5" tall. And before anyone says anything about 19" rack stuff, don't bother. It's close but just doesn't go, especially if it's not the only thing in the enclosure.


Replies

jmb99today at 4:54 AM

> And before anyone says anything about 19" rack stuff, don't bother. It's close but just doesn't go, especially if it's not the only thing in the enclosure.

Do you have to use that particular wall enclosure thing? A 1U chassis at 1.7” of height fits 4 drives (and a 2U at ~3.45” fits 12), and something like a QNAP is low-enough power to not need to worry about cooling too much. If you’re willing to DIY it would not be hard at all to rig up a mounting mechanism to a stud, and then it’s just a matter of designing some kind of nice-looking cover panel (wood? glass in a laser-cut metal door? lots of possibilities).

I guess my main question is, what/who is this for? I can’t picture any environment that you have literally 0 available space to put a NAS other than inside a wall. A 2-bay synology/qnap/etc is small enough to sit underneath a router/AP combo for instance.

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butvacuumtoday at 4:50 AM

1 liter PC's (tiny/mini/micro), or some N100 type build + external bay is likely your best bet. If it's really that small, you might have heat issues.

cyberaxtoday at 7:02 PM

Check if your enclosure has an extension bracket, like this one: https://www.legrand.us/audio-visual/structured-wiring-enclos...

It adds enough depth to fit plenty of regular-sized components.