Byggeprojekt lukket/starter forfra: mITX stoejsvag NAS

Still building...

Or more precise, still waiting till I can finish the build!

The guys in Germany I ordered my IBM controller from seem to have been a little fast sending out an email saying it was shipped, because today I received a tracking number that shows the package have not been touched until today... So sometime later this week I should get it.

That's not all, I need cables! I have not measured in real because nothing is really assembled yet, but I measured on my drawing and am pretty sure I got the right length.
I just ordered 6x 12" latching SATA III 90' cables and 1x 19" SFF8087 to 4x SATA III, both in the brand Startech ordered over Amazon in the UK

The last piece I need when those things arrive is my unRAID license code

Citat fra PsyCho

Personligt venter min nye Unraid server på at V5 kommer i final release inden den bliver samlet =)

Samme her, regner ikke med at starte og bruge den foer v5 er officielt ude af RC/beta.

Update:
Regner med at modtage min IBM controller imorgen, fik ihvertfald seddel fra UPS idag om at de havde forsoegt. Derefter er det kun kabler jeg venter paa, skulle gerne ankomme inden der er gaaet en uge.

I have now decided that as soon as the whole thing is assembled and I can get my GUID, then I will buy a unRAID Pro key... Rest of the system is already pretty much Pro so why the hell not :p

In other news:

German retailer ALB computer made a mayor error and forgot to send my IBM ServeRAID card!
They only send a bunch of smaller thing's I needed for other reasons
I am currently trying to get them to understand that I am not cheating them and the card was for real not in the package, but they are German and Germans apparently are not good at taking critic... I hope it will end well...

You see here, no IBM PCI-express card:

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So now when I am again just waiting I better do some real work... Today I smoothed out the little bracket I cut recently.

Before:

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After:

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Molded my chemical metal, that had become a little overdue so it dried up way much quicker than normally (normally it takes around 10 minutes so you can shape it) wich ment it looks not so nice... But who cares, it will not be easily visible.

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Looks like I measured correct, because with just a little squeeze the front PCB board fit nicely in place. Even tested the USB and is still easily accesible.

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Later in the day yet another brown borring package from the UK arrived:

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Inside it was my 50cm SAS cable and my 8 SATA cables:

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But why 8? I just like to have a few spares...
Because as they say on the package, good quality is hard-to-find

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I hope I can get a few hours to assemble more tomorrow... I want to hopefully finish this build before this month have passed (but with my luck it might not be possible...)

Stay tuned

A bunch of pics!!!

I installed rubber grommets on all screws in the cabinet

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Ready to assemble:

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Installed the fan in my Lian Li mount:

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Sucking in, blowing down:

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Installed:

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Feet:

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Antivibration thick rubber:

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My IBM RAID card:

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Installed:

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Prepared USB for my boot drive:

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First HDD installed, 2TB Hitachi:

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Mounted with rubber:

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Secured cables:

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Put rubber list on all sharp edges:

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Securing cables:

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Installing boot drive SD card reader:

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SATA cables:

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Naming them:

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Ready to install:

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Plugged in:

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Assembled front view:

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Only missing the front and the top:

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Front installed (have to do something about the open 5.25" hole)

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Everything assembled:

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Turned on for the very first time:

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Now I reached the part were it's all about software, I am not a software guy so this is the absolute tricky part for me

Stay tuned to see the final pics whenever I finish it up

1)
It seems as the motherboard is faulty somehow, no matter what I do it refuses to boot from USB (but I will though have to test with a boot cd and a drive one of the coming days).

2)
My wife got very sick and had to give birth to our daughter 5 weeks before time, so ever since the previous post I have been taking care of my two girls. Both are fine by now.

3)
Because of 2) we have moved the living room furniture around and it's no longer ideal to have a server below the couch, so I need to find another case to contain it in.

4)
Because of 2) I now have many pictures and video I would never be able to recover if anything happened to my storage media, so backup is utterly important now! I need to backup to the cloud for off site solution and peace of mind. (unRAID can not do that, so I am going the Linux route now).

5)
My primary Mac Mini have now moved from a desk to the sofa area and are therefor now a HTPC solution, therefor I need a server capable of running Plex (transcoding not important).

6)
Want something easy, plug and play without major surgery - a Hackintosh Lion Server would have been top nice, but no mITX seems to be supported. My eyes caught the Lian Li PC-Q11A case and that's what Im going for with my current 5 TB drives (will add a few 2.5" drives in the near future for somewhere between 1-2TB more storage).

To be honest I had first seen the PC-Q07 because it is absolute cheap!
But I would have to do some very strange things to it:

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Cut out and make rom for the MB in the bottom, plus cut some mesh sheet to cover up all the extra holes in the back.

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Barely fit one of my Lian Li drive cages inside for up to 3x3.5" drives but no PSU (would have to be externally or pico PSU).

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The box to the side is the normal ATX PSU I am using, tiny tiny case!

...but after drawing it I realized it's not worth the trouble.

THIS is much more doable:

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(trick photos, not actual pictures)

Cherry on top - I can even fit my DVD-burner in the case! Have an old Lacie D2 laying around not really using it because it's not primary connected and too much trouble to do so whenever I need a DVD/CD...

Stay tuned, this time it will not take forever before things happen (I hope)