MiniITX NAS

I've been wanting to build a small NAS for a few years now. Then a couple weeks ago my main computer had a hard drive start to make a clicking sound. So I figured now would be better than ever before that drive let go.

So I ordered up some components and started fabbing up an aluminum case. Parts list is below:
-Intel D150MO miniITX mainboard
-Serener 120W power supply
-Sabrent SATA PCI card SBT-SRD4
-4x 1.5TB WD Green Drives
-320 GB WD Scorpio Blue Drive
-PNY 2x1GB DDR2 667mhz ram chips
-CoolerMaster 120mm fan
-22mm/16mm vandal switch for power/reset

And from there it was all fabrication. I cut and bent the entire case from 1/16" aluminum.

This is the base with hard drive tray mounted and the outside of case.

Now with outside panel laid overtop to check fit (from the back)

From the front

With front and back fitted to enclose the whole thing.

Next step cutting it all up and fitting windows.

And now for the rest of the photos.

This is all the windows/holes rough cut with a jigsaw.

The after alot of file work

And now with paintwork finished up

And now on to the building and adding all the internals.

This is the hard drive rails with the power supply mounted on the inside. I can't take credit for the design of this part. I used the style from the BlackDwarf NAS that was floating around the web lately, and made it fit this box.

and the piggy back 320GB WD Scorpio Blue drive for the OS to run from. Mounted up with a little plexiglass.

Hard drive rack mounted to the base.

Mainboard installed

Now on to some wiring.
I didn't want all the Sata and power connectors floating all over the inside so I cut them all down and made custom length cables. First one was for the 320GB drive.

Then on the the remaining 4 sata cables for the NAS array.

This shows an original cable next to one cut down so you can see how much shorter they are now.

And a pic of the power connector wiring. I have since then redone this and remade it with all black wiring.

I was originally using a Highpoint RAID card that had a provision for activity/failure LEDs for each drive so I soldering up a piece of circuit board to hold all the resistors and leds. here is a front and back picture of it.

I then had to much trouble trying to get the OS to work with that rocketraid card, so I have since ditched it for a standard sata pci card. You'll see it in a later picture.

This is the final set of pictures to show everything put together

And up and running.

This is the sabrent sata card i ended up with.

I started with Windows Home Server, but had lots of trouble with setup and just couldn't get it to run smoothly. So then tried FreeNAS, but also had trouble getting everything to work right. Finally ended up with Ubuntu 10.04, and it's running great. Now just have to figure out what to do with 8 LED holes i drilled in the front panel. Might just make a new panel without them.

nice work! it looks great!

That HD bay looks so sick, nice job!

Thanks guys!

Welcome to TBCS!

Looks great! Definite shades of BlackDwarf in there, but you made it your own. :up:

Do you have a link to a tutorial on doing custom SATA cables (or would you be willing to do one)? I looked for a long time for information on that a while ago but couldn't find anything on it.

I used the tutorial that most people keep linking (http://metku.net/index.html?path=mod...sata/index_eng), but didn't like it. His steps make it very easy to screw up a cable. If there is enough interest I would be willing to create a better tutorial on it. I just went for it and cut them down. First one took about an hour and a half to get right, but by the time I was on the 5th or 6th it was only taking about 15 minutes to do them.

Huh, ok...I might have to try that.

if you follow that tutorial, ignore the part about pulling the pins out of the connector. just pull both sides of the housing off leaving them hanging out of the connector. you can melt the glue of with your soldering iron, then just tin your wires and the pins, and reconnect. I then just used hot glue to put the housing sides back on.

I would just heat the glue up with my hot air gun and gently scrape it off. That way I don't ruin a tip on my soldering iron.

that looks sick! I love the HDD placement. Very cool.

EDIT: Oh yeah, awesome fab skills as well I should mention :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by billygoat333

that looks sick! I love the HDD placement. Very cool.

EDIT: Oh yeah, awesome fab skills as well I should mention :D

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Thanks, appreciate it.

Very nice, the NAS looks great for what most people consider as just a utilitarian piece of equipment.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by creamedpossum

If there is enough interest I would be willing to create a better tutorial on it.

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Please do, I'd be very interested in such a tutorial. There is a section on this site for user contributed tutorials if you feel like posting it up there.

I'll start working on a tutorial to put up on this site. It'll take me a little bit to get it done though because I'm currently rewiring and entire car. But getting close to finished on it. After it my next project will start, a quick photo of the design is below.