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x88x
10-04-2009, 01:31 AM
Well, it's been a while, but I finally got the hardware together for my fileserver. SO now comes the case :D

Now, if anyone saw my other mod thread, you'll know I had been planning on using this case, and going with the "let's see how much storage I can shove into a tiny space" route.
http://i428.photobucket.com/albums/qq3/x13931x/mobiServ_004.jpg


Now, that's all well and good, but after mightyMite, I decided that I'm sick of working with SFF systems for a while, and honestly there's no real reason that this system would need to be tiny. I also realized that there was no way I was gonna be able to fit more than probably about 10-12 drives in that case and still maintain and semblance of good airflow, which is a bit less than I am planning to be in this system by the end of its life. So, with those two points in in mind, I'm gonna be putting this:
http://i428.photobucket.com/albums/qq3/x13931x/faust_05.jpg
.
.
in here:
http://i428.photobucket.com/albums/qq3/x13931x/faust_00.jpg

This was originally a dual-PII server, so there's plenty of space, plus it's an interesting form-factor. It takes a full ATX MBB, but it's a good bit shorter and wider than normal ATX cases. Wide enough, in fact, that I'll be fitting two columns of hard drives going up the front of the case, so I should be able to pull off at least about 20-24 drives if I drop the 5.25" bays.

Here's the stock case with the panels taken off. This is a rather interesting case in that the top panel is actually supposed to come off, and the frame is actually stable without it.
http://i428.photobucket.com/albums/qq3/x13931x/faust_01.jpg

Now, unfortunately this case had been sitting in storage with varying degrees of humidity so it had a bunch of cruftified dust on it. I considered trying to clean this off by hand, but after thinking about it for a while, decided to try taking it apart and running it through my dishwasher...which worked remarkably well.

This isn't gonna be nearly as..extensive..a mod as my last one, but I'm starting with something a lot closer to my end goal. This is also gonna be a pretty low-budget mod, so no watercooling :( I'm also not planning on doing any painting, though that might change. I haven't decided what I'll be doing about the front panel yet either. Basically this is gonna go back to my normal ideals of function over form ad infinum.

Zephik
10-04-2009, 01:39 AM
Oh yea baby! Check out that sexy frame! You naughty little case you! Yea, you like having your covers off, don't you? [starts throwing $5's and $20's]

Well, I've officially weirdified this thread. lol

No seriously though, there is just something wonderful about seeing a computer frame in all its stripped down glory. Maybe I just spend too much time on this website...

Well anyways, good luck with this project!

Is there anything a dishwasher can't clean? haha

Bopher
10-04-2009, 07:06 PM
I did the same thing for my file server. It had black sides and top and silver trim so I painted everything flat black so people wouldn't notice it just sitting there. We had to get a new tv and I hooked the server into the flat screen and now I can watch all my videos and internet tv from there.


Is there anything a dishwasher can't clean? haha

Yeah, mine won't clean the dishes half the time :D I'd put a computer in and it probably would make the case dirtier.

slaveofconvention
10-04-2009, 07:12 PM
Holy crap!!! That top IBM is the same case as my second ever mod - I gave it a really bad matt black paintjob, cut a horribly irregular window in the side, a vaguely round air intake in the front panel and filled it with red cathodes and red cables (which glowed pink lol) - Last I heard the PC in it died after about 3 years use by my ex's mother in Australia. I remember every time I took the case off, I thought the window was going to pop free because I had to bend the metal so far - the edges of the window were too close to the edges of the metal so when putting the wrapover panel back on, it had to be sooo close to perfect heh!

My current fileserver - well there's a little more space in that....

http://www.slaveofconvention.com/imagestore/forums/lianliserver.jpg

Yup, thats 18, count 'em, EIGHTEEN 5.25" bays...

x88x
10-04-2009, 09:49 PM
Heheh, nice. Ever since Lian Li came out with that case I've kinda wanted to play with one, but haven't been able to justify the cost...or the space... What do you have inside that monster?

On the subject of Faust, it turns out that having two columns of HDDs was fine as long as the MBB tray wasn't in there...with it in, not so much. So, I'm gonna be turning the drives on their side, which will give me 5 drives per level, by 4 levels. So, I should be able to fit in at least 20 drives before bothering with different mounting techniques.

slaveofconvention
10-05-2009, 06:33 AM
It's still about half empty - but the point was that my old server case, a Yeong Yang 0221-b was getting full and wiring was becoming a nightmare. I paid about £250 which at the time was about $450 which is why it isn't modded - I'm scared to take power tools to that much money lol - I will - and sooner than later, but not quite yet heh

At the moment, the case holds a 754pin Sempron 2800+, 1.5GB Ram, Nvidia 6200 PCIe card - cheapest card I could get - it IS a server lol and it's all mounted on a Asus K8N4-E Deluxe motherboard (the only motherboard I could find at the time with 8 sata ports - nothing today but this is getting on a bit now) with 7 SATA ports used - there's also a 2 port PCI sata card in there so I have a little space left (3 ports) but I really need some more sata ports - I'd kill for an 8 port card or something like that but they're fortunes to buy!
One IDE DVD Burner (totally unused since install lol)
Hard disks - 1x 1TB Samsung, 2x 750GB Samsung, 2x 500GB Samsung, 1x 500GB Maxtor, 1x 300GB Samsung & 1x 300GB Seagate with another 750 going in very soon. Until recently it also had a 400GB in there somewhere but I stole it for another PC lol. Cooled by 6x120mm and 2x80mm fans, all undervolted so it's nice n quiet

According to Windows Home Server, that gives me a storage pool of 4303GB with 336GB free so it really needs that extra drive ASAP - fortunately, that 750 will be coming my way free of charge in about a week - although I may buy another drive at the same time. According to the manufacturers I should have 4600gb but the old 1,000,000,000 bytes thing takes a BIG chunk when you get into the 4TB area. Basically, the entire right stack is full of hard disks - one per 5.25 bay, with one gap, and the left is all but empty but thats where the mobo etc live.

Now I'm going to stop hijacking this thread lol - sorry man

x88x
10-05-2009, 11:54 AM
Heheh, that's ok; I asked :D (Besides, I'm not gonna be able to get much done the next couple days anyway..stupid job and school, what was I thinking...oh right, money..damn... :P )

Right now the hardware that's going into the case is:
Asus P5K-VM
Celeron E1500 (basically a low-end C2D with less cache)
2GB (2x1GB) PNY DDR2-800
D-Link 1GigE PCI card
4-port PCI SIIG SATA controller
16GB CF card (connected through: CF-->CF>mini-IDE-->mini-IDE>IDE-->IDE>SATA)
2x 1.5TB WD Green
2x 1.5TB Samsung F2
running Debian Lenny, with storage drives set in a software RAID-5 array using mdadm.

In my old fileserver (which went out of commission almost 2 years ago), I had:
300GB Maxtor
300GB Seagate
320GB Seagate
5x 500GB Seagate

Unfortunately, a lot of those drives were going, plus I had more freedom in my finances for a while, so I decided to start over. And with prices like they are now, I can get the F2 for $110 at Micro Center ($100 if I can catch the sales right). So, right now I have 4.1TiB total, with 1.3TiB free...with more to be added as needed.

I gotta say though, I don't look forward the the expansion times for additional drives; when I added the fourth drive to the array, between growing the array and growing the partition, it took about 48 hours :P

slaveofconvention
10-05-2009, 05:29 PM
That's one of the things I really like about Windows Home Server - adding a drive takes about 20 seconds after physical installation. It then load-balances when it's idle so it ACTUALLY takes days and days to fully integrate it, but like 20 seconds for the space to be available and usable

x88x
10-05-2009, 05:44 PM
Ah, but that's the thing I don't like about Windows :D ; it lies to you. If you went and tried to dump a bunch more data on there, that wouldn't have fit without the new drive, it would crap out because it doesn't actually know how to use the new disk yet (assuming an actual RAID configuration, not JBOD or appended). Ah well, to each their own, right? :D