DIY NAS / Router in 3-bay hot swap enclosure

A 2-bay, low power, ARM-based NAS and router. The project repository is here.

The enclosure is an Athena Power BP-SAC2131B 3.5” HDD Hot-Swap Backplane Module. This is a a 3-bay hot swap backplane intended to go into two 5.25” bays of a server. This is not a trayless backplane, the hard disks must be mounted using four included screws.

This is a 3-bay case, but I only need the top two bays for hard drives. In the bottom bay I will put the computer that runs the NAS. Something like a Pico-ITX or 3.5” SBC computer will fit within the footprint of a hard dive.

The main problem with using an internal enclosure as a case is that all the SATA connections ago out the back of the case, not internal for connections to a computer.

Luckily there is a slot on the back of the case. Using something like these very thin blue SATA cables, I can connect an internal computer to the back of the case

• Cost less than a cheap commercial 2-bay NAS (~$200)
• Low power
• NAS for local file sharing
• A limited router to segregate scary “smart” devices on the LAN
• Maybe run some IoT things

DIY NAS / Router in 3-bay hot swap enclosure – [Link]

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