Hey guys,
Ever since RJK posted that the new Lian Li PC-Q35B was coming to OcUK I have wanted to change my Prodigy case to one that I see as better suited to a server/NAS needs.
So after much deliberation, and I mean much, I do really like the prodigy case I decided to bite the bullet and get the case and update my old RAID card from a Dell PERC 5i to a LSI MegaRAID 9240-8i.
The specs for the server is as follows:
Akasa AK-CC7118HP01 K25 Low Profile CPU Cooler
Intel Core i5 (3550) 3.4GHz Processor
Gigabyte H77N-WIFI Motherboard
Corsair XMS3 Low Profile 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3
LSI MegaRAID 9240-8i
Corsair HX620
Lian Li PC-Q35B
ICY DOCK MB996SP-6SB 6x 2.5" HDD in 1x 5.25"
IcyBox IB-555SSK 5-Bay SATA/SAS Hard Drive Backplane
4 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache
2 x Crucial M500 120GB SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive
1 x Western Digital VelociRaptor 1TB 10000RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache
So they are all the components that I'm going to be using in this build, some parts are from older build, others are not.
So the case arrived at work and as you imagine I could not wait to get home to get started
Then the RAID card arrived... 2 days late, Parcelforce suck bad, but at least I got the postage back from the guys that sold me the card
Right... fast forward around 4 hours and I'm at home with the case out and look just how lovely it is...
Here is the CPU and board in all its nakedness
The added the cpu cooler, nothing fantastic but it will do the job as I'm not overclocking this chip as it going to be a NAS and my dev environment so nothing too taxing
Out comes the drive converter that I dont need any more, and in goes the IcyBox IB-555SSK 5-Bay SATA/SAS Hard Drive Backplane for the 5 x 3.5 inch drives that I have (these will all but one attach to the RAID card)
In goes the motherboard and its all attached, nice to see a bit of space between the motherboard and drive bay!
The I put in the ICY DOCK MB996SP-6SB 6x 2.5" HDD in 1x 5.25" which is going to be for my 2 x SSDs and future expansion on the RAID card... I'm looking at some more 2Tb 2.5inch HDDs but at the moment I cannot afford them (a little pricey)
I think that I have enough HDD bays now
a little worried about heat when I have them all in but since what I do is not that HDD intensive I should really be okay.
In goes the RAID card which slots in nicely! and then to cable the drive bays and attach them to the mini SAS slots on the RAID card.
Lastly in goes the power supply, shes a little old but will definitely do the job for now... which is great
On she goes, and look at all those shiny shiny lights I'm really liking the easy access the the hard drives if needed and also being able to see if there are any issues as well fantastic!
Lessons learnt
I have caching switched on with the RAID card but the card does not have a BBU which I'm a little worried about as if I lose power to the unit I could end up losing all my data because of a corrupt volume, so I'm now looking at investing in a UPS just for the server.
Dont presume that a card will work with a motherboard. I had to contact Gigabyte that supplied my with a custom BIOS ROM for the card, I cannot boot uEFI either as it will take up too many system resources and the RAID card will not working again... I'm not too bothered as I dont really need to EFI boot.
Thats about it peeps, thought that I would share my build and I'm really loving the case
Stelly
Ever since RJK posted that the new Lian Li PC-Q35B was coming to OcUK I have wanted to change my Prodigy case to one that I see as better suited to a server/NAS needs.
So after much deliberation, and I mean much, I do really like the prodigy case I decided to bite the bullet and get the case and update my old RAID card from a Dell PERC 5i to a LSI MegaRAID 9240-8i.
The specs for the server is as follows:
Akasa AK-CC7118HP01 K25 Low Profile CPU Cooler
Intel Core i5 (3550) 3.4GHz Processor
Gigabyte H77N-WIFI Motherboard
Corsair XMS3 Low Profile 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3
LSI MegaRAID 9240-8i
Corsair HX620
Lian Li PC-Q35B
ICY DOCK MB996SP-6SB 6x 2.5" HDD in 1x 5.25"
IcyBox IB-555SSK 5-Bay SATA/SAS Hard Drive Backplane
4 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache
2 x Crucial M500 120GB SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive
1 x Western Digital VelociRaptor 1TB 10000RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache
So they are all the components that I'm going to be using in this build, some parts are from older build, others are not.
So the case arrived at work and as you imagine I could not wait to get home to get started
Then the RAID card arrived... 2 days late, Parcelforce suck bad, but at least I got the postage back from the guys that sold me the card
Right... fast forward around 4 hours and I'm at home with the case out and look just how lovely it is...
Here is the CPU and board in all its nakedness
The added the cpu cooler, nothing fantastic but it will do the job as I'm not overclocking this chip as it going to be a NAS and my dev environment so nothing too taxing
Out comes the drive converter that I dont need any more, and in goes the IcyBox IB-555SSK 5-Bay SATA/SAS Hard Drive Backplane for the 5 x 3.5 inch drives that I have (these will all but one attach to the RAID card)
In goes the motherboard and its all attached, nice to see a bit of space between the motherboard and drive bay!
The I put in the ICY DOCK MB996SP-6SB 6x 2.5" HDD in 1x 5.25" which is going to be for my 2 x SSDs and future expansion on the RAID card... I'm looking at some more 2Tb 2.5inch HDDs but at the moment I cannot afford them (a little pricey)
I think that I have enough HDD bays now
a little worried about heat when I have them all in but since what I do is not that HDD intensive I should really be okay.In goes the RAID card which slots in nicely! and then to cable the drive bays and attach them to the mini SAS slots on the RAID card.
Lastly in goes the power supply, shes a little old but will definitely do the job for now... which is great
On she goes, and look at all those shiny shiny lights
I'm really liking the easy access the the hard drives if needed and also being able to see if there are any issues as well fantastic!
Lessons learnt
I have caching switched on with the RAID card but the card does not have a BBU which I'm a little worried about as if I lose power to the unit I could end up losing all my data because of a corrupt volume, so I'm now looking at investing in a UPS just for the server.
Dont presume that a card will work with a motherboard. I had to contact Gigabyte that supplied my with a custom BIOS ROM for the card, I cannot boot uEFI either as it will take up too many system resources and the RAID card will not working again... I'm not too bothered as I dont really need to EFI boot.
Thats about it peeps, thought that I would share my build and I'm really loving the case
Stelly
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