20 bay nas drive

c_owl

c_owl

c_owl

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Joined
25 Apr 2009
Posts
25
last year i was thinking a a large nas storage box but could not find anything so meet my needs so i designed this.
it took around 8 month of planning and help from sites like this one
(pictures will be reposted - New Size for better viewing)
(pictures will be reposted - New Size for better viewing)

a 21 drive storage system running server 2008, all everything stripped out so only running the os and my basic need for backing up, networking and monitoring.

what you think
i have more pictures of how i built the system if anyone is interested.
 
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im now planning another system build with a view to use it as a ftp, file server. this one will have 6 drives
 
Nice little bit of engineering there pal, good work!

how many drives do you have in as of currently? maximum 42Tb of storage with 2tb drives :eek:

lol
 
Very nice work. How do you get to the drives? I guess they aren't hot swappable.

And what on earth do you need that much storage for?
 
I only see one pci card with four sata cables coming off it, what am I missing here?

edit: Tapping the perspex directly was brave, I don't think I'd have attempted that. Too club fisted, threads wouldn't have survived assembly. Cleanly built :)
 
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all the drives apart from the system are hot swappable
as you can see below, there are to front panels that cover the drives that can be unscrewed for upgrading/adding drives..
(pictures will be reposted - New Size for better viewing)
costing was not to bad, if i was to fill it with drives now about £2200 total costing
i used a atom botherboard atom330 with 2gb ram. thinking of upgrading that.
i used a raid card with port forwarding to enable 20 drives on a 4 port card..
i used a 650 watts power supply
harddrives are green drives. normal drives use about 9watts and green drives only use about 4.5watts.
the case was designed by me and plans was sens to a company that cut it all aout for me. cost £160, not bad as i seen as case i was thinking of for £250
i currently have 6 drives in it at the moment only pulling 130watts. .
the main reason for doing this was to see if it could be done and i was sick of trying to find somthing to meet my need for storage:p:p
the raid card allows for each drive and controller to have a led so i know if the drive dies
the best thing about the system is i dont need a monitor, mouse or keyboard. completely remote
(pictures will be reposted - New Size for better viewing)
 
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somone asked about pci card.
the raid card was a pci 32bit 150 raid card with port forwarding so i could expand to 20 drives.. i dont need speed just storage.
even doing the system this way i can stream hd video of the system with no probs
picture below is just after adding port expanders.. took 2hrs to clean it all up for air flow
(pictures will be reposted - New Size for better viewing)
 
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Man those pics are HUGE! 4K3K!

Hmmm, very interesting for sure. Those wires could do with a lot more organising and bundling together, but not bad at all. I doubt I could live with such exposure myself. Plexi/Acrylic just isn't my choice. But I do like the overall design, and technological design. Makes me think about something like this as a download/media box.

The one downside is, would a few standard multi-drive NAS boxes not be cheaper on the whole? And smaller? And just as convenient? Would use more plugs though... But still, not really the point, eh?

Got any pics from further a field, like next to soemthing else, for size comparison? Looks absolutely huge.
 
dillingerdan said:
The one downside is, would a few standard multi-drive NAS boxes not be cheaper on the whole? And smaller? And just as convenient? Would use more plugs though... But still, not really the point, eh?
Click to expand...

standard NAS drives (decent ones anyway) can cost about £100 per bay, and what this guy has done can do so much more than just a standard nas.

like the idea wouldnt mind knowing which raid card you used and where you bought the repeater boxes (port forwarding)

email in trust.

Thanks
StevenG
 
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hi all
a little sesearch can do wonders when planning
the size of the case is 610mm.
bay1.JPG

bay2.JPG

nas drives are ok but when you start adding to them ie more than one nas system. your power use starts to go sky ward. affter looking at nas drive i found a lot of them ran at about 60watts with 4 drives. thats can start tobe a lot on the wallet in power bills..
by using green drives, total power use is around 170watts and that with 21drives plugged in.:p:p
as the system is running on server 2008 i can do just about anythin with the system..
i have tryed the system on xp pro and linux with no problems..
i also have the holes system 3 servers, router and switches plugged in to ups system. were i live i have problems with spikes.

thanks everyone for your comments, i was wondering if i was mad doing this project. least the wife thinks i am
 
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realy nice i like it ... not sure about the standered sata cable then branching out on to the 6 gud sata cables .......wont u lose some speed there ???

bt that s realy cool .. bet it was a ball ace lining them sata and power connectors up

u shud make more cases and sell them ;)
 
c_owl looks very impressive. Please change the picture sizes as they are a struggle to view and you better remove those competitor links pretty sharpish :D

I have to wonder though what on earth you are going to do with that much storage. Even downloading a couple 1000 films shouldn't require a possible 42TB!!!!
 
very nice

remove those competitor links though mate, it's against the forum rules

are those fans loud?

I suggest replacing them with xilence red wing fans
 
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