Cube Style Case & Mobo Recommendation?

[Enquiries]

Trying to find a suitable (not classic style tower) case that can hold 4x 3.5 HDDs now, and have room to grow 4 more HDDs. CPU will be I5-13500 due to the 65W TDP and Intel 770 iGPU for six 4k to 1080p Jellyfin transcodes.

I do network engineering and consulting so this will also house several containers and VMs as well using TrueNAS.

My original intention was to go UGREEN 8800 but I really need this to last 10 years (not accounting for HDD fails)

Appreciate the advice and your content is great!

Tom in Vermont, USA.

[ed]

Thanks for the detailed outline. With the workload you described, you are already thinking along the right lines, but I will add one important point. The Ugreen DXP8800 in the i5 or Pro version will comfortably last ten years for the use case you have. The hardware platform is strong enough for Jellyfin, containers, VMs, and long term storage growth, and the chassis is designed around exactly the eight bay layout you want. If your goal is low maintenance over a decade, the 8800 is one of the easier options to live with.

A DIY build using something like the Jonsbo N3 and a B760M board is absolutely fine, and it gives you more flexibility. The tradeoff is that you will need to handle more of the updates, tuning, ZFS tweaks, and general maintenance yourself. It is a great choice if you enjoy that side of things, but for set and forget operation the DXP8800 i5 or Pro is the simpler long term solution.