Custom Built NAS Server

[vertices]

I have the same cage in my main rig. I love it.

[James]

So right before closing on Wednesday, I went ahead and ordered this stuff:

A 16mm switch for a power switch

1mm thick Black anodized aluminum sheet for the outer shell (500mm x 500mm, it should be more than large enough).

And the afore-mentioned Lian-Li bay cover with built in filter.

[James]

Well, still waiting on the motherboard.

In the meantime, the Fan has arrived, and I've brought my PCIe card in just to check that it will work. As of right now, everything seems like it will be working perfectly. The PCIe card should fit exactly where I imagined it to without any clearance issues using the solid PCIe riser I've got now.

Here's the 140mm fan. It's a Yate Loon from FrozenCPU. It's exactly the size I imagined it to be. It will work perfectly to move a lot of air, without a lot of noise.


Here's a quick shot of the grill as well. What's going to end up happening is that the back of the NAS will mostly be this fan grill. Below it will be the ports from the motherboard.


A couple of shots of the RAID card's box, and the card itself.

The ARC-1210 is outdated, but it will still work to provide high-performance throughput from 4 drives. The card won't be the bottleneck, which is the goal.




Here's the overall view of the PCIe riser and the card as it will mount. You can see that there will only be about 5-10mm of clearance between the motherboard components and the card, which is fine because the case will act as a shroud to force air through this area.


This is the connection for the activity LED's on the enclosure. I'm debating whether or not it's worth bending those pins 90º to get them out of the way when the card is mounted. Suggestions are always welcome.

[James]

A few more parts arrived. Sadly, the 1.0mm thick Black anodized aluminum panel for the shell of the enclosure ended up being mis-shipped. I received a 2.0mm Silver panel. Not exactly the look I was going for. So it's being RMA'd and the correct panel will arrive next week.

The good news is that I received the filter section and power button that I ordered, and they were correct!
The filter grill will be directly below the drive bays, and allow fresh to be pulled into the enclosure, over the motherboard and RAID card, and finally exhausted out the back via the 140mm fan.

[James]

Got some schematics finally. Looks like I'll be able to make the enclosure slightly shorter than I originally planned. The single height ports on the back will make this a truly clean design. I'm thinking I'll need some kind of vanity plate to cover them when not in use though. Thoughts?

[TAZTG]

can't wait to see it all come together. That fan is huge and should move alot of air. Bending the pins, if they are in the way do you have a choice? Hopefully they don't break, is there a pin bending tool you can use??

[James]

can't wait to see it all come together. That fan is huge and should move alot of air. Bending the pins, if they are in the way do you have a choice? Hopefully they don't break, is there a pin bending tool you can use??

Fire and some gentle persuasion? lol, no at the moment I don't have a pin bending tool of any kind.

I've done a quick sketch of the unibody piece. Well, sketch is stretching it. I created a quick rough draft in Excel. I should be able to get away with the ACRyan Alupanel for the body as well. I've got a calculation of 434mmx449mm overall size required, and the panels are 500mmx500mm.


You are looking at it from a top down, front is "up" perspective. There will be a fold up flap in front, the backplate will fold up in the back, and the sides will fold up so there is a lip for the shell to connect to, as well as support arms to screw the drive cage into. Basic, but it should work, and hopefully if done right, it should look clean.

[James]

The motherboard has arrived. With it, a few wrinkle's that it introduces to the plan. An additional choice I've made is that I am going to keep the misshipped 2mm thick Aluminum panel from Performance PC's. I will use it for the body, instead of ordering a 1mm thick panel and waiting for it to arrive.

1. It has a 10-pin ATX power connector. This is a functional subset of a normal 20-pin. My assumption about an adapter being included was apparently incorrect, meaning I will have to hunt one down, or create one of my own.

2. I will need to get a flexible PCIe riser instead of the fixed one. It is approx 10mm to short. On top of that, to keep the height down I want to offset the PCIe card back by about an inch. (I want the bottom of the fan and the top of the I/O ports to be almost touching.)

*Edit: Pics will have to wait until tomorrow, forgot the camera at home. (Knew I should have never taken it home.)

*Update: researching it, I think that as long as I can get my hands on a 10-pin molex that is keyed properly, I can make my own adapter.

20pin	10pin	CON
----------------------
14	1	PS_ON#
15	2	GND
16	3	GND
10	4	+12v
18	5	NC
9	6	+5VSB
19	7	+5V
20	8	+5V
12	9	-12V
17	10	GND

**Update Again: Just got off the phone with Nexcom. Seems the board was meant to be shipped with a power adapter, but they forgot to include it somehow. It is being sent to me now. It will arrive tomorrow. Yay for good customer service.

[James]

New, more detailed and accurate image of the case body is up. You'll notice that the arms that will be the supports for the drive cage are shorter. I needed to adjust the length to ensure that they would fit on one of the A.C.Ryan 500mm x 500mm panels. I will still be able to bolt 2 sets of the drive cage holes to the supports on each side, but it will be the bottom two, instead of the top and bottom ones. Not quite as stable, but it should still be rock solid. I'm over-engineering this for a reason.


(be warned, it's ~ 2400x2400 dimensions)

I'm also working on a detailed back panel image. Combined I will send them to the metal shop to see what the damage will be.

*Update: New image with the backplate integrated into the whole.

[James]

Pics of the motherboard. The great thing is it's literally the same dimensions as the hot swap enclosure. I couldn't have created a board better suited for this. (Well maybe I could have.... nope. Not a chance. )

Shots of the motherboard from a few angles



With the CF card installed. (I was worried about the lack of labels, but the rails on the sides ensure you can only insert it one way.)


And the memory. Got to love the low profile DIMM's. They are lower than the white tabs that are holding them in place!


And finally the little heatsink. It's all copper, and a decent quality build. Sadly the finish on the bottom isn't all that great, but for the amount of heat it has to deal with, it really doesn't need to be. As soon as it becomes installation time, that TIM that came with it will be removed and replaced with Ceramique.

[James]

And the PSU adapter arrived today. After which I couldn't find my PicoPSU!

Turns out the guys at work were hiding it to see how I would react. (Hint: Not well.)

Quick shots of the adapter.

First up, this is (mostly) how it arrived. You'll notice I've already started trimming the unwanted connections.


Here are the leftovers. 2 supplemental 12v inputs. Since I'm running a PicoPSU, I don't even have these to plug in. Thinking about it, why would you need supplemental 12v inputs on a device that draws less than 50w of power at full load?


Just a quick "down the barrel" shot. The darker colored "pins" are the ones missing a pin, I.e. not used. The bright ones are the ones with a silver pin in them.


And finally a quick shot to show that yes, this plud does indeed go with the motherboard. I'm glad they sent it (and normally include it.) Without this, the whole project would have been rethought and/or scrapped.

[James]

CPU has arrived. Will upload pics of it (and hopefully initial boot screens) shortly.

Some quick unwrap shots:




Here it is in the board. As a side note, those mobile CPU sockets with the little screw are a bit ... different when it comes to inserting the CPU. It's a bit more worrisome when you are cranking on a screw instead of just dropping a little lever. Definitely changes the definition of "ZIF" socket.

With some AS5.

Close up shot.


*Edit: First boot up is 100% successful.
And here's the frankenstein job that I used to do it. Forgive the mess, I was simply in a rush to make sure that the CPU wasn't a dud.








*Edit Again: Turns out the 945GM chipset has a hardware limitation at the 4GB limit. Thus this system will end up with around 3GB usable for RAM. Which isn't bad, but I want my 4GB!

[James]

Pic showing the 3GB limitation.


So that's it for now! I will probably take the time to install the OS onto the flash card, and maybe plug in and initialize the array on the RAID card. Other than that, there really isn't anything I can do until I hear back from the metal shop on the quote for the bottom plate.

While they are working on that, I'm working on the design for the shell that will cover all the ugliness inside the case.

*Edit: I need suggestions on the CPU HSF unit. It's LOUD. Much louder than I anticipated. Do you think a modded Zalman ZM-NB47J would work well enough with the airflow from the casefan to cool the CPU?

[Colossus]

Very nice!

I am quite impressed my friend.

[James]

Finally finished the backplate diagram, here is a cleaned up version in jpg format.