Project : 5th gen - 20TB gaming rigs

[grevaeg]

Project : 5th GeN
Building a 29TB monster rig

Well... the time has come to yet again start on a new project, the old one just didnt fit my needs anymore, so decided to give it my all to build a awesome dual pc case, with a additional atom rig to run the upcoming touch screen =)

Anyways, have set some personal goals for this build


* 2 Mainboard spots
* Watercooled
* Removable harddrive rack
* Enough space for atleast 40 disks
* Good radiator
* Only use 250mm fans where its possible
* double PSU area
* Aluminium frame, welded
* Plexiglass exterior
* Silver and black finish, go for style
* Buildt in 2 sections, 1 for main pcs, 1 for radiator and atom PC

Sponsors!

Huge thanks to EK for awesome products and great prices =)

Stuff are still being planned, but have some decent ideas on what i want, and how i want it executed

Might as well start with the hardware list

PC1 :
Asus p5q Premium x48
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550
4 GB OCZ Flex, pc 9200
Radeon 4870x2
1200w Thoughpower PSU


PC2 :
Asus P5K Premium - p35
Inte Core 2 Quad Q9550
4GB OCZ Flex, pc9200
Radeon 4870 - 1GB
1200w Thoughpower PSU

PC3 :
Intel Atom 1.6 ghz
Intel mITX d945gclf2
2GB OCZ, pc 5400
300w Chieftech PSU


Harddrives :
6 x : WD500GB, 7200rpm, IDE
16 x : WD500GB, 7200rpm, SATA
4 x : WD750GB, 7200rpm, SATA
4 x : WD1000GB, 7200rpm, SATA
2 x : WD1000GB, 7200rpm, E-SATA
4 x : SG80gb, 15000rpm, SAS

Får vel håpe å ha runda 20 TB før TG 09 =)


Watercooling :
Apogee GT cpu blocks
undecided on the rest (ideas?)


Concept - frame

Afraid i havent made a concept for the exterior of the case yet, but atleast have some plans for the looks on the frame itself, have allready been working on the case for a few days, so it didnt really turn out the way i though it would... a sudden burst of creativity came in the way for that part

- Christer Grevæg

[grevaeg]

The water tank
Concept

Would really love to have a watertank that can fill most of the front space of my upcoming rack, and create a nice waterfall effect, guess the total height would end up around 95x5x30cm some place

The main idea behind this one would be to cut out 40mm holes times 4 in a thick piece of plexiglass, get some rubber rings down there, mill out some space for em, and hopefully get it watertight. The water would travel trough drilled paths and enter / exit in the middle of the block on top and bottom. Plexi with that thickness can easily be mounted to the case too...

Allready found a suitable block of plexi 50mm thick -.- god its heavy....
anyways, found a circular saw, and cut it into usefull pieces

[grevaeg]

The weld

Had the chance to do some welding the previous days, using a mig welder for aluminium, at high voltage, welding corners is a pain, the alu tend to melt in ways you dont want it to

4 x 25x25x5000mm square profiles... a total of over 20 meters alu, this would be the base of the case

After running them over the cutter, we got some decent cut pieces, in the lenghts required

The amount of time this will take is probably endless....

Had to get a few pics of the rig doing some of the work too =)

The alu lined up and ready for welding

Welding in action

One part of the top part of the case done, NEXT!

Second part all done and god to go

First part of the welding done now, would need to get some sandpaper out , and some paint at some point

At the current state, will the top box be housing the radiator, the mITX, the touchscreen and some fans

Will also have to make some new "feet" between the top and bottom box

Also got some perforated alu for the disk rack, more on this later

CPU block, mainboard holders and 10 250mm fans have arrived

[grevaeg]

The radiator and the frame

Was able to get some fibersparkle(?) (stuff that gets hard after application)

Lotsa open ends in the alu, had to fill all of those up

Stashed in the "foam thingy" and sanded it proper to get a good surface for the upcoming paintjob

Decided to get a used radiator from some bike or something, partly for the looks, and partly for the killer performance these beasts can give compared to standard computer sized ones. Ended up with a radiator from a 94' mod GPZ 600, though, it needs some love to look good again...

So thought i should make a new shell for it, and spray paint it so it can look somewhat fresh again

Perfect! this plate looked to be great regards to what i was looking for

Cut it in proper lenght, found a steel tube, and bended it

And there we go... a somewhat better looking radiator

The fans

After alot of thinking did i decide to go for 250mm fans for the radiator, these are low noise, push lotsa air, and looks awesome =)

Would also need to pair em up, to ensure that one pair is allways on when one of the computers is shut down... so each comp will be fitted with 2x 250mm for the radiator

Had some 10x10x1mm alu around in the shop that i used for the framework

2 fans tightened up

First pair done

Second pair done

And finally, mounted up on the radiator and into the pc frame

[grevaeg]

The harddrive rack and progress pics

The rack will be build up with steel plates as place holders, self drilling steel bolts, perforated alu for holders, and rubber feet thats isolating vibration. This should ensure a stable , flexible and silent foundation for the disks

Bought in a steel plate with 3mm thickness for the base of my harddrive rack, steel can take ALOT more weight then alu, so its proper for this kind of use. Cut it up in the size needed and measured up the holes for the harddrive "slides"

Cut up some square alu to fit my needs

Attached them to the plate

And added a plate in front to keep the upcoming sideplates in place

Mounted up with vibration isolating feets

Top and bottom holder all ready to use, they are using 6mm bolts to keep them in place

Cut out the plates for the drives, and fit em in the sliders, these should ensure decent air flow, and enough possibilities to get some disks in there


--progress pics--

This is the current progress pics

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Next update will come on thursday if everything goes by the plans, have 6 square meters of plexi coming in the shop about then =) thx for reading

[grevaeg]

Small update =)

The mITX system has just arrived for the touchscreen, this one will be mounted in the top box and will only be used on the touch. Gonna be sweet to run torrents, remote playlists and media server on, gonna stash in 2gb ddr2 in it too, and install vista or something


Have also ordered another 6 250mm fans for the case, totalling out on 10 250mm fans in the case

speccs :

* Mini-ITX form factor 12cmx12cm
* Dual Core Intel Atom processor 1.6ghz
* one 240 pin DIMM socket supporting 533/667MHz single channel DDR2 up to 2GB in size
* Intel 945GC chipset: 82945GC Northbridge with integrated graphics
* GMA 950 integrated graphics
* S-Video output via Chrontel CH7021A SDTV/HDTV encoder
* RealTek ALC662 codec with HDA and 6 channel audio
* SPDIFF header on motherboard
* one PCI slot
* 8 USB2.0 ports (4 on back panel, 4 on two headers)
* one IDE interface
* two SATA2 interfaces
* one VGA connector
* one S-Video port
* one parallel port
* one serial port
* PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports
* Intel BIOS with SMBIOS support, Rapid BIOS boot, Express BIOS Update
* Gigabit Ethernet
* ACPI support, Wake on USB, PCI, PS/2, Lan
* supports Windows Vista Home Basic, Windows XP Home and Pro, 32 bit and 64 bit

CHIEFTEC PSU 300W SFX m-ATX12V 2.0 for P4 with active PFC

Did also find a 300w power supply to power it up, its not using more then 60ish watt though, so its somewhat overkill... sizes up to 12x15x6cm



The plexiglass has arrived too... =)

Over 6 square meters in total, god its gonna be a large build ^^

started cutting out the plates with my air dremel and circular saw...

Allmost done plating the top box now, the screen is also in place, more about that one later

The current windows will be fine cut later on, and get a clear coat of plexi inside, with spacers between, just to get some air in there

--the touch screen--

All plated up, and taped to the plexi to measure where to put the screen holders and mount

images...

cut up a few alu profiles to make the mount, tightened up with self drilling screws

--HTPC, miniITX--

Well... as i said earlier, the mITX is in the house ^^

More perforated alu, cut out, ready for mobo mount

The psu was in standard greyish metallic finnish, brushed it down and painted it in a more suitable colour

The mobo mounted up with rubber rings and m6 bolts, should ensure that it wont get in touch with the rest of the mobo plate

the backside

And the PSU mounted up in the bottom

Havent been able to get my cable sleeves yet, so taped it up for now, just to see how it would fit in there, and to be honest... its a perfect fit ^^ gonna need to make some external USB ports for it though....since the pc will be total enclosed in the top box, invisible behind the black plexi plates


--status images--

That should be it for this time, the case is now ribbed down, all plates taken off, all holes needed drilled, and off to the car paint shop for a final touch of paint to make it look sweet

[grevaeg]

New update guys ^^

Dont have time for the writeup right now though, anyways, heres some progress images

[grevaeg]

[grevaeg]

[grevaeg]

Guess its time for a update again ^^

Been working the past couple of days with the exterior of the case, guess we will let the images speak for themselves ^^.

Looking forward to getting all the hardware in there and get it fired up, and its all closing in really fast now, just a couple of days work left, and this project can be concluded

Whats been done :

* Sanded down the edges of the window cuts
* Added rubber seals under all the plates
* Sanded down the bottom alu plate
* Removed safety foil on the plexi
* Finished the front of the comp

What's left :

* hardware
* watertank
* cable management
* decals
* watercooling

Rubber bands for vibration isolation on the sideplates and plexi in general, used well over 10 meters in total on the case

Also got ahold of some vibration dampening pads to make sure the pump got as much isolation as possible

Have to do something about these... they look like ****... -.-

Replaced em with coned bolts

Cut up a 2 cm plexi plate sanded it and glued it over the other plate, to conceal the bolt holes, turned out quite nice imo ^^