Associate
*Disclaimer* - I've never done a build log before and the photos are far from professional but hopefully it gives everyone an idea of the journey on this project as I'm pretty stoked on how this may (or may not) go.
I've always wanted a central storage area for all my media and a machine that just ticks over in the background serving up and sorting out media through any connected device on the network. There's drop in solutions like the HP Microservers, Synology and QNAP NAS systems but they didn't tick the boxes my requirements had and when asking for more features on these solutions you stump up the cash.
My main priorities are:
Initially I was going to go with the Lian Li or Silverstone NAS offerings (PC-25B & DS380); which are both great little boxes however having a spare PC-25B the most drives I could fit in would be 11 which wouldn't leave either any room for expansion and it made the box crowded with a lack of air circulation. I started looking at full U server units at this point in order to over spec; most out the box racks didn't meet the requirements until I stumbled across an old 3u SuperMicro case that could hold a massive 16 HDD's; I snapped it up and all it's internals from the bay for the princely sum of £77 + £15 postage: bargain.
This is what I received:
The guts of which were a SuperMicro LGA771 motherboard, 2GB of RAM, a SAS/SATA controller card to the front panel, Intel NIC and an Intel Xeon E5420 all of which somehow still kept going; however upon firing it up it made a hoover sound muted by comparison. It didn't sound healthy; still the test signals were good and the front panel was clearly looking for drives. It bode well.
The initial plan has always to put my own hardware in but these components have seen better days as I began to discover upon dismantling:
The cause of which can probably be put down to the dust filled, chard, corroded mess in the redundant PSU adapter
Still after stripping it all the way back of every electrical component, vaccuming and then followed down by a thorough hose down outside it started to look like it was getting the TLC it needed. Awww.
So that's my first post on this build done so far before starting to mod the case and list what exciting hardware will be going in. Will update as soon as the chassis has dried thoroughly and work resumes.
I've always wanted a central storage area for all my media and a machine that just ticks over in the background serving up and sorting out media through any connected device on the network. There's drop in solutions like the HP Microservers, Synology and QNAP NAS systems but they didn't tick the boxes my requirements had and when asking for more features on these solutions you stump up the cash.
My main priorities are:
- Storage in a closet / attic / under stair cupboard
- Reasonably low power usage whilst idle
- Low cost (against retail products)
- Ability for large future expansion when required without rebuilding the entire system.
- Reasonable low amount of noise
Initially I was going to go with the Lian Li or Silverstone NAS offerings (PC-25B & DS380); which are both great little boxes however having a spare PC-25B the most drives I could fit in would be 11 which wouldn't leave either any room for expansion and it made the box crowded with a lack of air circulation. I started looking at full U server units at this point in order to over spec; most out the box racks didn't meet the requirements until I stumbled across an old 3u SuperMicro case that could hold a massive 16 HDD's; I snapped it up and all it's internals from the bay for the princely sum of £77 + £15 postage: bargain.
This is what I received:
The guts of which were a SuperMicro LGA771 motherboard, 2GB of RAM, a SAS/SATA controller card to the front panel, Intel NIC and an Intel Xeon E5420 all of which somehow still kept going; however upon firing it up it made a hoover sound muted by comparison. It didn't sound healthy; still the test signals were good and the front panel was clearly looking for drives. It bode well.
The initial plan has always to put my own hardware in but these components have seen better days as I began to discover upon dismantling:
The cause of which can probably be put down to the dust filled, chard, corroded mess in the redundant PSU adapter
Still after stripping it all the way back of every electrical component, vaccuming and then followed down by a thorough hose down outside it started to look like it was getting the TLC it needed. Awww.
So that's my first post on this build done so far before starting to mod the case and list what exciting hardware will be going in. Will update as soon as the chassis has dried thoroughly and work resumes.
Last edited:
