12 bay homelab NAS – JMCD 12S4. Upgrading my Truenas Scale server. Optionally rack mountable

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jmcd 12S4 12 bay nas case

High density compact 12 bay nas server for homelab, (optionally rackmountable, but probably best for no-rack setups) – JMCD 12S4 seems to be a great case for those looking to expand their existing homelab NAS server capacity or setup a new high-capacity NAS server/ disk array for either standalone or rackmountable situations.

Hello there my homelabber friends!

I had somewhat of a hard time finding this case and ordering through Taobao – I decided to write this post with many many images.

UPDATE Sept 14th 2024: JMCD 12S4 case popped up on alibaba – I think shipping might be a lot more reasonable than taobao now, I see it for about 210$ (~185$ for case and ~25$ for shipping) + tax to US now which is ~130$ less than I paid in January 2024 (I didn’t personally test this – let me know if this is real). Also- u/LouieVbbp recorded a kick-ass informative video review of this thing.

UPDATE Sept 18th 2024. Since a lot of you been asking if it’s possible to replace the backplane – I contacted the seller on taobao about that. Seller says you can order backplane from them whenever. You would have to contact seller directly and order. Additionally – seller confirmed that they opened a store on alibaba (by ali they mean alibaba) where you can order with more reasonable shipping to US, it turned out to be the same store I referenced in the previous paragraph (Shenzhen Lingxia Yidu Technology Co., Ltd.).

Table of Contents

I have been on a quest recently to find a replacement to my trusty Lian Li PC-Q25 nas case that I was using for my Truenas Scale server. It worked fine, but I needed to add at least 6 more drives and existing case just won’t support that many with it’s mini-itx form-factor, so I had to go and look for a new one.

My requirenments list was:

  • easily hot-swappable drives with nice caddies
  • more than 10 x 3.5 drives (for typical spinning rust pools – for backups and “other”)
  • support for additional 2.5 drives (for faster ssd pool(s) – postgres, redis, various other databases and nextcloud)
  • support for full height PCI express cards, -for nvme pools, HBA card, and whatever else
  • horizontal drive positioning (maybe it is an urban legend – but allegedly it’s a bad idea to change the drive orientation if they were running in one orientation for some time. Since my old nas was horizontal – I wanted my new nas to be horizontal as well)
  • atx, matx and mini-itx support (as I wasn’t looking to upgrade my mini-itx mobo at this time). NO CEB and NO EATX form factor
  • relative inexpensive
  • relatively compact (there are many tall and bulky ATX cases with mostly empty space inside – I didnt want those)

I’ve looked around on amazon, walmart, ebay but didn’t find anything I liked that would have more than 10 drives and would also support more 2.5 ssd drives without using up the hot swap bays.

After many days filled with cathartic rants I decided to try the places less traveled: Aliexpress and Taobao. While Aliexpress is actually quite common these days as it’s often covered on various youtube channels and is specifically targeting international market – that one is easy to peruse.

Taobao is another story – as it’s Chinese only and has no english app or site, but has a lot more products (and it still delivers to US if you manage to place the order (!)).

After some digging accompanied by more cathartic rants – I found exactly the 12-bay compact NAS case I really liked on Taobao that was a perfect fit for my homelab, and since I didn’t see any similar Nas cases on North American marketplaces, – I wanted to share this quick post with all of you and tons of suppporting images.

Why and how TaoBao? and when not to

Why Taobao? Probably price is a big factor. This Case with airmail shipping to Connecticut ended up to be $345.30 USD and only took 2 weeks or less to arrive, whereas aliexpress listing for the same product was around 600$+. And I was not able to find similar case on North American marketplaces at all.

It’s just seems to have a better product selection compared to aliexpress or amazon (or other US marketplaces). Also – as it targets primarily China and Asia buyers, as in -> “for internal market” – I believe this leads to overall lower prices. It appears to be – a lot of these merchants are direct from the factory which is kind of cool. This is just my 2 cents purely based on my anecdotal evidence and is not supported by any “serious research”.

How reliable is TaoBao? who knows – I figured I would just do charge-back on my Discover if I don’t receive the package in 1 month (but I got it in just 2 weeks, less actually).

When you shouldn’t order from TaoBao: I would not order from TaoBao if I was afraid to lose the money I spent on the purchase or expected any after purchase support. You likely won’t be able to do the return if any issues with the case happens either (there is just no point shipping back to China, shipping cost is likely going to be more than the item. I’ve tried it once and failed, – but happy to be wrong about that).

How to order on TaoBao? You need to use a translator app to navigate the TaoBao website or app, I was just using automatic google translate in the browser and “screenshot” -> “share with translator app” method on my phone. You need to figure out how to add the shipping address there. It took 200 screenshots but I was able to do it. My US discover card worked just fine.

Better TaoBao translate: I was told that there is a better way of translating the TaoBao on mobile, If you are using Android – “Hi Dictionary” & “Instant Translate” android apps are both free and can translate the whole screen on the spot. This is likely way way faster.

I am unable to offer any support with TaoBao order. The content in this blog post is for general informational purposes only, this is not a professional advice. While it worked out for me – your results may vary. You assume all the associated risks.

Android app I was using (straight from google play store) :

it goes something like this:

1. Packaging, NAS dimensions and view out of the box

Very happy with the packaging – double boxed, heavy duty cardboard with lots of tape. Actual case held by some poly blocks on the inside and wrapped in plastic. No complaints.

NAS Dimensions:

  • width: 432mm (width with siderails = 482mm)
  • depth: 295mm
  • height: 272mm (or 6.11U )
  • package weight: 12kg

^ costco kirkland water bottle for scale

2. JMCD 12S4 12 bay nas – Front view

Added Water bottle for scale. 12 hot swappable bays, two USB 3.0 ports and a power button.

3. JMCD 12S4 12 bay nas – Siderails for the rackmount (siderails are removable)

Siderails to mount in the rack. I’m not gonna use them as I don’t own a rack, so I just took them off, – but it’s good to have this option I guess.

This case is probably best for no-rack setups as it would take 6.11U space in the rack.

4. JMCD 12S4 12 bay nas – Bottom View

Not much going on here. 6 sticky feet come as accessories – you don’t need to attach them if you install in the rack. I put them on as I don’t have a server rack.

5. JMCD 12S4 12 bay nas – Side View

Not much – just the intake holes.

6. JMCD 12S4 12 bay nas – rear view

As you can see – JMCD 12S4 takes ATX power supply and supports 8 full height pci-express cards.

Interestingly – the power supply I used is an SFX -(evga supernova 450GM) – but it fit right in. I’m guessing it just had some ATX adapter preinstalled.

Costco water bottle for scale.

7. Hotswap bays

Drive caddies accept either 3.5 or 2.5 drives. They feel sturdy and airflow seems adequate.

Definitely a nice upgrade from having to take the side panel (or entire back) from the PC – in order to plug new drives.

Box of kirkland tissues for scale.

8. Backplane for 12 drives

12 drives backplane. Each of the 4 drive backplanes needs SFF-8643 cable to the HBA card. I got the HBA card specifically for this – LSI 9300-8i from ebay – it was less than 20$, but only supports up to 8 drives, so I was only able to connect 2 backplane rows. Which is fine and enough for me for now – I figured I can just upgrade the HBA card when I need more drives. Surely LSI 9500-16i is going be more approachable 3 years down the line.

With storage arrays/ large capacity NAS servers – you don’t use sata cables as that would get super messy, but rather these SAS cables that connect multiple drives at once (4 in my example). In this case – backplane uses SFF-8643 sas connection and my HBA card also uses SFF-8643 sas connection. So I got couple SFF-8643 to SFF-8643 cables. They are like 10$ from ebay, I got 0.8m length and they turned out to be somewhat long, should have just gotten 0.5 meter.

9. Motherboard view

It supports mini-itx, matx and atx. (no CEB and no EATX).

From manufacturer on Sept 19th 2024:

“the CEB motherboard won’t fit. We are currently designing an extended version with 12 drive bays that will support EATX motherboards”.

Yes – it supports mini-itx, I wasn’t sure about that when I was ordering the case, as product listing didn’t mention mini-itx – but it supports it, see the tape measure – case has holes at 6.7 inches and I was able to transfer in my SuperMicro X10SDV-4C-TLN2F mini itx no problems.

Well – one slight problem specific to me – the HBA card is restricting access to the 4 pin fan headers on the motherboard. This is super annoying and I’m still figuring out what I can do – perhaps there is 90 degree adapters? or just get sata to 4 pin adapter, not sure yet. But this mobo is not a huge heat producer so I’m not going to lose sleep over it.

Another cool thing about this case- there is a dedicated internal 2.5 drives area. You can of course just put 2.5 drives into hot-swappable bays, but I would rather not waste hot swappable bays for 2.5 drives. Internal mount supports up to 4 x 2.5 inch ssd drives there. You can actually sticky more ssd drives to the sides if you need more.

^ My mini-itx SuperMicro X10SDV-4C-TLN2F leaves tons of space. It’s OK – as long as I can upgrade mobo to atx size later.

10. Accessories.

Box comes with couple bags of screws, sticky feet, zipties, numerical stickies for caddies and white gloves.

Taobao order page had several options:

  • include fans
  • include sas to sata cables

I’ve got both those options (in retrospect I shouldn’t have gotten SAS to sata cables).

I got it with fans included – as I couldn’t be bothered to order 8 fans separately, figure out the airflow direction and put it together. Some say these fans are too noisy, but I don think I care about the noise levels personally, YMMV.

I dont know why the white gloves were included.

11. Fans

You can order this from Taobao with or without fans.

However 8 fans included and assembled from manufacturer were only 20$ extra, so I figured it’s kinda a great deal so I opted in for that.

included fans are JMCD branded and quite generic:

  • JMCD-A12 x 3 fans (120x120x25mm, 4 pin pwm, 1850rpm +-10%, <= 30.56dBa)
  • JMCD-A9 x 5 fans (92x92x25mm, 4 pin pwm, 2500rpm +-10%, <= 30.8dBa)

Airflow: 4 x 92mm fans in the back are exhaust fans. Outside air immediately hits the drives entering via the special holes in the caddies, and then those 4 exhaust fans push it out.

Some people say these fans are too loud, but personally I just don’t care about the noise levels.

You can of course get 8 Noctua fans and assemble yourself, allegedly those have lower noise levels.

12. Finished setup

Raspberry Pi 4 and the tissue box for scale.

I kinda like that drive activity lights are blue, same as the nas secondary colors (blue). it’s good to have consistency.

13. Potential issues

Some users reported an issue with drives not being visible with LSI-9400-16i HBA card in Trimode. It was reported that In that case – flashing LSI-9400-16i into SAS/SATA mode resolved that issue for them. Fyi.

14. TrueNAS scale upgrade

Realistically there hasn’t been any hardware changes besides me adding the LSI HBA card (and as it turned out PWM fans).

TrueNas detected my pools without issues – I didn’t have to do anything.

One slight issue I encountered was with the fans.

My motherboard ipmi had a warning configured if RPM is below 500. However these fans were running at 400 – so I got these alarms: 

Sensor: 'FAN1' had an 'Assertion Event' (Lower Critical - going low ; Sensor Reading = 400.00 RPM ; Threshold = 500.00 RPM)

I just had to adjust the threshold alarms using ipmi tool: 

ipmitool sensor thresh "FAN1" lower 200 300 370

Wrapping Thoughts

This is a great inexpensive heavy duty NAS case for homelabbers with 12 hot-swappable 3.5 bays and 4 more internal 2.5 bays (you can probably fit more even 2.5 drives by sticking them to the sides).

JMCD 12S4 Form factor is rather unique, I was not able to find similar cases. JMCD 12S4 is an inexpensive alternative to Asustor Lockerstor 10 Pro (not exactly, but comparable enough). This is likely going to be the largest standalone NAS I will own before moving to the rack servers (if ever).

IMO this case is best for those without a rack, that perhaps plan on moving to a rack some time down the line. While JMCD 12S4 is optionally rackmountable, – it will take 6.11U height in the rack which is a tad much. So if you are buying a new NAS case purely for the rack -> there are likely better options available. It’s probably best for those that don’t have the rack, but still want large number of drives. This fits nicely in my little cubbie as pictured above.

I am unable to offer any support with TaoBao order. The content in this blog post is for general informational purposes only, this is not a professional advice. While it worked out for me – your results may vary. You assume all the associated risks.

Great NAS case for the money. Thanks for reading.

64 thoughts on “12 bay homelab NAS – JMCD 12S4. Upgrading my Truenas Scale server. Optionally rack mountable”

  1. Hello, thank you very much for this review. You said you’ve gotten it from TaoBao, did you get it directly it via an agent (pandabuy or wegobuy)? Also, could you give me the exact dimensions of the packaging you received it in? I’d like to calculate the estimated shipping cost to get it shipped to Slovenia, Europe. Because if it is less than 60x50x40 cm, then it seems promising on first look.

    Thank you very much.

    Reply

  2. I went ahead and ordered one thanks to your review. Total cost was $331.56 to Texas with just the add-on fans. Hopefully my experience is good like yours.

    Reply

    • no issues so far. I only have 4 drives hooked up at the moment (2 separate backplane rails), didn’t get a chance to order more.
      If they are running 24/7? – I don’t ever turn off my NAS and I never configured the StandBy mode so I can only assume drives are as active as they can be.

      Reply

    • Thank you! Unfortunately your link doesn’t open for me.
      Oh – when i change my VPN to Singapour – your link works. Yes – I saw that one i believe, maybe not that seller specifically.
      shipping is going to be different based on country, i’m in US so not sure.

      Reply

        • Thanks – when i change my VPN to Singapore – your link worked. I think aliexpress (or sellers on Ali) might be restricting some countries.
          But Yes – I saw that one i believe, maybe not that seller specifically. https://www.dhgate.com/product/12-bay-nas-chassis-atx-large-power-supply/916230273.html- I see it on dhgate.
          i think I wanted something with hot swap and black color, also internal 2.5 bay compartment for 4 x 2.5 drives is a difference.
          I think I also felt that the case you refer to is thin metal, I can’t confirm it ofc – could be totally wrong.
          But it seems nice case if that’s what you looking for – write a review for us if you end up getting it 🙂

          Reply

          • Thank you for replying 🙂

            You are right. It’s 0.8mm vs 1.0mm thickness for your case. I also prefer black TBH but I like the 120mm fans more.

            What worries me more regarding both cases is the backplane blowing up for whatever reason and not being able to get a replacement.

            I am not yet sure what to get but I will make sure to write a review if I get the other case.

        • couple people have hypothetical concerns about backplane rails quality – so I checked with the seller. Seller said they would sell them direct, you just have to contact them. See updated post with screenshots of my convo with seller. Also they now opened an alibaba store so US delivery should be cheaper

          Reply

  9. Finally received mine after waiting a month. No issues with damage. It was delivered by FedEx and didn’t have to pay any import fees.

    Reply

      • Built a small NAS and it’s been working great. Only concern is the backplane rails, not sure what I’d do if one fails. Maybe the seller has some replacements, but I don’t speak Chinese.

        Reply

        • since couple people were concerned about backplane rails – I checked with seller. Seller said they would sell replacement backplane rails, you just have to contact them. See updated post with screenshots of my convo with seller

          Reply

  10. Hey, great setup!

    I’m planning to acquire this case soon. I noticed in one of your pictures that you’re utilizing the PSU-included 1 to 4 molex cables to supply power the 3 molexes on the backplanes. Have you encountered any issues with this configuration so far?

    I came across advice suggesting it’s better to connect using individual molex cables rather than using a splitter to avoid potential overload, especially when all the drives are spinning up.

    Reply

    • Thank you. Yeah I think it’s a valid concern depending on how many drives you have.
      math here would be based on how many Amps your 12V rail supports and how many amps your drives need.

      Mine 12V rail was rated for 37.5A on according to EVGA SuperNOVA 450 GM spec.
      https://www.evga.com/products/product.aspx?pn=123-GM-0450-Y1

      I only have 6 drives hooked up at the moment, which works with above psu (drives are always on):
      2x Seagate Exos X22 ST20000NM004E – hard drive – 20 TB 7200
      2x WDC WD140EDGZ 7200
      2x WDC WD100EMAZ 5400

      ^ have not encountered issues so far… All drives are used for something, but I admit – I’ve not necessarily load tested with all drives spinning at once.

      you are right though – if you have multiple 12V rails – use individual rail for each backplane socket.

      Reply

      • Thanks for the info. I can see that you are using a white label HDD – WDC WD140EDGZ.

        Did you have to tap/seal the power disable pin for this backplane?

        I contacted the seller on taobao and they replied that HDDs with power disable pin should work on this backplane as it’s powered by molex (5v & 12v), but they can’t confirm since they never test this configuration before.

        Can you confirm?

        Reply

        • oh oh yes. The PSU is mounted right above the hole that leads to the backplane power connector – so cable doesn’t need to be long.
          I just checked my PSU specs – and the peripheral 4pin cable I use is daisy-chained at 300mm, 410mm, 520mm, 630mm. so -even 300mm cable would reach to the top backplane.
          You are advised to not use daisy chained 4 pin cables – or at least check your PSU rated power. Its best to put each 4 drive backplane on a separate 12V rail.

          Reply

  13. Hi there. Is it possible if you could tell me the measurement where the PSU fits in from the outer side of the case (where external power lead plugs in) to the internal drive trays. I am looking at some PSU’s and they looks like they won’t fit unless the internal drive trays are removed.

    Great write up though and thanks for spending time to share the info!

    Thanks,

    Hal

    Reply

    • srry I’m not fully following which dimension you are asking about.

      internal drive trays are removed

      you mean 4×2.5 inch internal trays? Are you concerned that your PSU will be that long that it will hit the 2.5 inch drives rail?

      Reply

      • Hi there and thanks for the reply. I am on about the drive bays that are directly behind the PSU; the 2.5″ drive cage. Looks like there are 4 drive bays there. I’m looking to get a Seasonic Focus PSU fitted that is 140mm long.

        Also, Do you think I would have room for a Noctua NH-D15 CPU cooler that stands 16.5CM high from the CPU?

        I have one on order and just trying to get all of my components together before it arrives.

        Thanks again for the awesome write up.

        Hal 🙂

        Reply

        • Also, Do you think I would have room for a Noctua NH-D15 CPU cooler that stands 16.5CM high from the CPU?

          I don’t think so. the NAS case top compartment is sized to support ATX PSU as a largest component, and ATX PSU max height is 15cm.
          So I think 16.5 cooler is gonna be about 1.5-2cm too tall.
          see if you can get better TDP CPU, then you wont need this tall of a cooler.

          Reply

  14. Thanks again for the info about the PSU. It will deffo fit the Seasonic Focus GX-1000 so I am happy about that!

    My Mainboard in this is going to be the Asus Pro WS W680-ACE IPMI and for the time being, going to run a Slim-SAS to 8643 for x4 of the drives and 8643 to x4 SATA for another 4 of the drives. I will be running 18TB drives in this and just expanding as I need; hence the size of the case and will look at an LSI 9305-i16 HBA controller card in the future if I grow to that size!

    With regards the CPU I have decided to go with, the (i7 13700), I have given myself a right task of finding a cooler for it that will fit from the info you have supplied. I might end up with an Arctic Liquid Freezer III 360 AIO that will also help a bit with the chipset cooling. It would be a great help if you had a photo of the top 3 front fans looking from the rear of the case looking towards the front fans as from what I can work out from the photos you have helpfully provided in the review, It looks like they have a strange, bespoke spacing and might not play well with a rad mounted to the back with the fans right next to each other as it looks like the only ventilation out is where the fans are currently mounted. The rest of the front panel internally looks to be solid metal.

    I will also probably end up 3D printing a small mount for the vent on the top, left hand side of the case to fit another small fan bringing in cool air to help with thermals.

    I bought my Case from Ali express with just the fan’s option so I will let you know what my experience has been like but at present, my last shipping update was, after asking what the status of it is, was, and I quote: – “Is this cargo case still oxidizing or will it take three days?”. Whatever that means, I have no idea, but I will wait and see what happens.

    Reply

  15. So, I have received my case after a bit of a wait 27 days to be precise and also went for it’s smaller brother and love the form factor and case. Both cases provide ample cooling for mainboard and drives and some large scale coolers do fit with some slight modification. This is a welcome update from my 2 Synology’s but I must say, is a heavy best as expected when fully ladened.

    Reply

  16. Is there a model/serial number on the backplane(s) at all? My only concern with this case is that if there are issues with a backplane down the road the only option would be buying a new case, I haven’t found a way to potentially purchase just the backplane for this case.

    Reply

    • i just pinged the seller about this (on taobao) – they said they dont have a separate link but you can contact them if you want a replacement backplane rail.
      they also said they’ve opened an alibaba store – so shipping should be a lot cheaper and you can probably order rail through alibaba. Seller appears to speak english.
      I’ve updated the post with links to alibaba and screenshots of my convo with the seller

      Reply

  17. Looking to fit a 10.5 inch motherboard.
    How much margin is there after the last set of screws before the fans ?
    Do you think it would fit depth wise ?

    Reply

    • CEB form factor? 12 x 10.5 inches? I was wondering about that myself – I’ll ping the manufacturer.

      edit: from manufacturer: Hello, the CEB motherboard won’t fit. We are currently designing an extended version with 12 drive bays that will support EATX motherboards.

      Reply

  18. Hello, I am the Chinese manufacturer of this 12bay NAS chassis, I am very glad to see the article you shared here, the introduction is very detailed, really great, thank you for your recognition and support of our products, as you said, we have recently opened Alibaba store, people who need chassis can directly buy, do not need to download Taobao

    Reply

  21. Great article! Mine is in the mail and I’ll be using micro ATX. Do you think the case could fit 4 additional 3.5 inch HDDs in the back of it, so 16 drives total? I know those wouldn’t be as accessible, but I keep seeing that for TrueNAS with ZFS, zraid3 is best at 11 drives, not 12 and is too slow when resilvering for 18TB+ drives anyway, but 2×6 vdevs at zraid 2 loses a lot of capacity. So I’m tempted to just do one 8-drive zraid2 and add a second 8-drive in the future when needed, pushing the last 4 drives to the back. But not sure if that’s smart.

    Reply

    • > . Do you think the case could fit 4 additional 3.5 inch HDDs in the back of it,

      hmm. not sure about additional 4×3.5. TThere is already an internal shelf for 4×2.5 (so you can already have 12×3.5 and 4×2.5, so 16 total).
      I don’t think I’ve seen people sticking 3.5 drives to the sides, only 2.5 ssd ones – because of the weigh probably and then probably too much vibration for spinning drives.
      Certainly can add even more 2.5 ssd by sticking to the sides, probably at least 4 more.

      Also think about power – your PSU should have at least 3 12V rails for regular 12×3.5 bays. Do you even have more 12V rails for extra 3.5? seems like most PSU won’t have that and 3.5 drives – you can’t really daisy chain them typically, they draw too much power.

      you can also add NVME pci-e card and add more nvme drives.
      https://www.amazon.com/Adapter-4x32Gbps-Individual-Indicator-Support/dp/B09BJ163KY

      Reply

  22. I just ordered it yesterday from alibaba thanks to your review!

    Now I have to find an efficient CPU cooler under 135mm for my 12600k.

    Have a great day!

    Reply

  23. Do you think there’d be enough space for a 3d printed bracket for mounting a 240 or even a 360mm AIO in place of the individual 120mm fans?

    Reply

  24. i just got mine set up and am noticing it seems like the 4 exhaust fans attached to the backplane are ramping up and down at random when disk activity is idle. any idea if the jumpers on the backplane factor into fan speed at all? i haven’t seen any documentation about the jumpers.

    Reply

    • disregard! there are photos on the alibaba listing that show the jumper pin layouts for manually setting fan speeds (though by default they poll temperature probes on the backplane — it’s just the fan curve is rather jumpy, 37%, 42%, 59%, 100%).

      Reply

  25. I got the case and I am very excited. Great review. Simple question, I hope: I have a sata mobo controller and an m.2 with 6 sata on the MB. I think I need 3 (SF8643 min SAS to 4 sata) (reverse ). Is that correct?

    Reply

  26. are the hard drive activity LEDs lighting for you? on mine with a broadcom 9500-16i i’m only getting the blue indicator LEDs during operation. not sure whether that’s to do with the backplane or HBA firmware.

    Reply

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