AT0MACs mITX low-noise unRAID build log


AT0MAC

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Before I close up for today and go to bed I better live up to a promise I made some time ago: Pictures!

 

 

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First package

 

 

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It's a Seasonic X400 fanless 400Watt power supply!

 

 

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Unboxing

 

 

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The beautiful box in all it's black and gold

 

 

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First look inside

 

 

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Fully modular :D

 

 

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Indeed my NAS will be Powered by Seasonic ;)

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Second package, this time from Germany

 

 

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I have fans! ...and a few other tidbits

 

 

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My two SLC SD cards for OS, one 4GB and got the other 4GB upgraded to a 8GB with a preinstalled Linux distro for the same price (am not going to use this Linux, but it was the last card they had)

 

 

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Apparently they are made by Toshiba, worlds biggest MLC maker :P

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Next package came from Netherlands, and I tell you it is HUGE! ...and heavy

 

 

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Compared to a regular sized soda can (if you can call my wife's Vanilla Cola soda?)

 

 

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Inside the big box there was a slightly smaller box...

 

 

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...and some styrofoam

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And finally, a Norco RPC-430 old model! :)

 

 

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Big & mean and really looks like it means business!

 

 

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HUGE...! and they even call it short-depth...

 

 

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Nice details like flush push rubber buttons that clicks firmly when pressed + dual NIC LEDs to show network activity on the front

 

 

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I really like the front pattern... Have a plan about doing a little mod here, more about that later

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Inside there is a good deal of space, and a good deal of work to do before I am done...

 

 

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Have to remove the two default fans and switch them out to some much better and seriously low noise Noise Blockers

 

 

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Unscrew all the unused MB stand offs

 

 

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Will do a little mod on the drive cage, more about it later...

 

 

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By the way, this case is build like a tank! There is SO many screws......

 

 

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Let's end with a question: Is this how the HDD mounts should be fitted?

Will of course make more sense when I have a drive, but they should start arriving tomorrow so have to wait...

 

 

I am going to bed now, see ya all later :)

 

 

One last thing... The pictures are all taken with a phone, a thing made to call other people - so if you think the quality is a little sketchy thats why (if you as me think the quality is extremely good taken into consideration it's a phone camera, then thank you)

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It is like server porn.. it gets undressed... to expose its parts...

 

 

Hahaha, nice - haven't thought of that one  :P

 

 

 

 

 

Anyway, more parts is on it's way as I have decided I will mount parity disc and cache disc in the 5.25 room via a Raidon iS1010-2S-S2B. Just to be sure about noise levels I will swap out the 40x40 fan on the back with a NoiseBlocker BlackSilent XM2.

 

 

Funny fact is that there apparently is two different companies that mak pretty much the same stuff, but with little bit different features. Here is another similar brand with a similar product, but wich have JBOD support - I don't want that, I want them to be two separate drives so if this is the case I get then I hope the JBOD is optional.

The thing I like about their model is the name: InTank! Because mine will definitely be mounted in something very familiar to a tank....

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Am currently thinking what I should do with the 3TB drive, keep it 3TB on a version 5 install or re-scale it to 2.2TB in the more stable version 4.7?

 

 

What would be the most stable solution, also in terms of future proofing the build?

 

 

 

 

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Updates:

 

 

The 3TB drive have now been shipped via DHL, expected delivery monday.

The Raidon box is on it's way too via normal post delivery, expected monday too.

The 2TB drive was received yesterday via Royal Mail from UK.

The rest of the HW should also arrive monday via my 24hour package station from Danish Post (only for shipments within Denmark sadly enough)

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Well as I said a few days ago I now have the first Hitachi drive:

 

 

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5K3000 2TB

 

 

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Bought off eBay in original sealed box so never used, but just for good measures I checked if there was warranty:

 

 

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I have told you guys I want to cool the drives a little extra, because a cooler drive is a quieter and more reliable drive, what I have in mind is to place two of my 120mm fans in Lian Li fan adapters blowing cold air in through the front and up under the drives.

But to do that I have to cut two holes in the drive cage to let the air pass and that ment disassembling it:

 

 

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Everything in this case is assembled with a LOT of screws, this is from the drive cage alone:

 

 

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The end result is going to look something like this:

 

 

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X-Ray from behind, the green square is the motherboard:

 

 

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From the front (and yes I have cut out all the holes in the front to make it look more real):

 

 

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The fan placement from inside the case:

 

 

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And here are the holes I am talking about, going to make them monday with a friend who have an enormous amount of tools for this kind of job:

 

 

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Measurements are not totally accurate as the case is stuffed away in the basement until assembly begins, my wife don't like the look of it so she asked me nicely if I could move it out of sight until I really need it, of course my dear :)

 

 

 

 

More updates will come during the week as a lot of exiting things will happen monday and beyond :D

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Wow, and I thought I went a bit overboard when using Google sketchup to lay out my testing lab!  Great work, both virtually and in real life!

 

 

Believe me I am actually trying to restrain myself - I could make this so much more mental... At least it will be inviromental and "green".

I have thought of putting Dynamat Extreme inside the whole case to make it even more soundproof, but dynamat is shinny silver and I don't want to se my server - so if I do that I will paint it matt black inside. Also thinking if I should duct the two 80mm PWM fans towards the Atom processor directly via something like this.

Then there is of course the whole issue of using RAID controller or just sticking to the build in version, would love to have maybe a Promise FastTrack4660 or something similar...

For speed someone told me you can boot from a SSD, that could be very interesting too... Or what about building in more drive cages so I can extend it far beyond the 6 drive capacity it's going to have now, SilverStone or Lian Li make some great internal cages I have looked at...

 

 

A lot of things that could be done, but I am seriously trying not to - but Sketchup, that I could not resist ;)

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...Is this how the HDD mounts should be fitted?

 

Will of course make more sense when I have a drive, but they should start arriving tomorrow so have to wait...

 

Most cases which come with rails like that; the black plastic rails you mount to the drive (no screws required) with the tab at the end where the SATA connectors are, then slide the drive into the rails just as you have done in the above picture. Also, there's no point in booting from an SSD as once unRAID is running the boot drive is completely useless. Even a 20+ drive array should be up and running in a couple of minutes so an SSD as a boot drive would be a waste. As a cache drive however, an SSD can be very beneficial as it will likely saturate your network and increase your "percieved" write speeds.

 

Your photos are fantastic (what sort of phone do you have?) and the SketchUp images are even more impressive. How do you load images into SketchUp like you have there? I've played around with it a bit but nothing like what you have shown in this thread - great work!

 

Sorry if it feels like you don't get enough of a response on these forums, I can assure you it is a very active site; there is likely a lot more focus on the release of 5.0-Final which is currently in RC status so we're all on our toes at the moment. I've been using unRAID for about a year and a half now, and I can gladly tell you that these forums have been fantastic. There are some very intelligent people on this forum, not to mention Tom who I have no doubt works very hard on this project. If I was wearing a hat, I would tilt it in respect of the mods and Tom for their support with unRAID  8)

 

Your build is looking great btw! Have you put it together yet? More pics plox  ;D

 

Edit: The other thing I noticed was your airflow looked a little funny but I may be wrong; usually you want to pull cold air in the front/bottom of the case, over the drives etc. (intake) and then out through the back/top and PSU (exhaust). This helps to avoid hot spots and stale warm air sitting in the case for too long. What is likely to happen with your exhaust setup the way it is, is that the fan closest to the PSU will be pulling air into the case; but then your PSU will pull a lot of the the "unused" air straight back out.

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Most cases which come with rails like that; the black plastic rails you mount to the drive (no screws required) with the tab at the end where the SATA connectors are, then slide the drive into the rails just as you have done in the above picture.

 

 

When I last build a PC it was with screws, the past 5-6 years were these rail designs have been coming up I have had a Mac.

 

 

 

 

Also, there's no point in booting from an SSD as once unRAID is running the boot drive is completely useless. Even a 20+ drive array should be up and running in a couple of minutes so an SSD as a boot drive would be a waste. As a cache drive however, an SSD can be very beneficial as it will likely saturate your network and increase your "percieved" write speeds.

 

 

That only means I would then have two SSDs if I wanted to go extra Chuck Norris :P

Just like I did when I recently upgraded my Mac Mini, doubled it's price with a pair (2!) of Intel 240GB 520 series SSDs and some sticks of HyperX memory :D I tell you this tiny machine is fast!

 

 

Your photos are fantastic (what sort of phone do you have?) and the SketchUp images are even more impressive. How do you load images into SketchUp like you have there? I've played around with it a bit but nothing like what you have shown in this thread - great work!

 

 

First of all, thank you :) Second, a Nokia N8-00 but last night I noticed the settings was only set to 9megapixel, the future photos will be shot in their full 12mp glory.

Third, I have had a lot of practice in drawing on a computer, for some years ago I was for a while a freelance cartoonist and have always enjoyed programs like Photoshop for my photo retouches, some time back I even worked with AutoCAD in a internship I was in. So my learning curve for Sketchup was pretty short...

The load images into Sketcup is actually fairly simple, just import from the menu File, then select the type of file you want, place it in the model with the moving tool and make it as big as you can. If it does not fit the use the scale tool from the menu tools to fit the picture (just don't unclick the picture before you scale it, it will else stick to the surface you have put it on) and voila you are done.

 

 

Sorry if it feels like you don't get enough of a response on these forums, I can assure you it is a very active site;

 

 

I actually think the exactly oposite, I get a huge amount of feedback here, all the questions I have scattered around the forums already have all been answered fairly quickly and very precise :D

I have a similar thread running on a Danish site and a UK site, none of them comes even close to the response I get here

 

 

 

 

Your build is looking great btw! Have you put it together yet? More pics plox  ;D

 

 

Thank you, thats why I keep updating the headline for this thread every time a mayor update have been done, currently it is called "everything is bought, just waiting for assembly" so you can guess what stage I am at ;)

I can imagine you have not read the whole thing trough, but I will receive the final parts most likely monday.

 

 

 

 

Edit: The other thing I noticed was your airflow looked a little funny but I may be wrong; usually you want to pull cold air in the front/bottom of the case, over the drives etc. (intake) and then out through the back/top and PSU (exhaust). This helps to avoid hot spots and stale warm air sitting in the case for too long. What is likely to happen with your exhaust setup the way it is, is that the fan closest to the PSU will be pulling air into the case; but then your PSU will pull a lot of the the "unused" air straight back out.

 

 

I know but thank you for the input :)

Let me explain: First of all the PSU I am using is passive (Seasonic X400, I know it's not the one pictured as I got lazy and imported a larger model someone have already made in Sketchup), so there is no exhaust there, secondly the only way I can get air in is as you say from the front or the back, because there is already a lot of holes in this case. If I wanted the air to move over the drives I would have to mount my Lian Li BS03s in the top panel and cut some little holes for them to draw cold air in. But it would make the top panel pretty heavy, the fan mounts are quite long so I am pretty sure I would hit the motherboard or some cables and to take off the top panel would be a nightmare...

I have the smaller 80mm fans at the back also drawing air in, so the air in the case will not stand still at least, all the fans are extremely low noise so they dont actually cool it's just to give some airflow.

I will stick with this solution until I maybe one day either add more harddisks (in the beginning it will only have one data drive so no worries) or the ultimate solution cut up the harddrive cage and mod in my own were I can place fans in better places.

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I am thinking if I should send back one of the BS03 brackets for a refund and instead buy two Lian Li EX-332N drive cages I can mount in the front like this:

 

 

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Would look the same from the front but air intake would be much more precise and the mounts are more vibration dampened than the plastic things the Norco came with:

 

 

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They just fit if I cut a little of the HDD bracket away:

 

 

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Enough room for ports:

 

 

 

 

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I am really tempted to do it... It would expand the space from 4 drives to 6 - wich eventually would meen I should get a SATA PCI card when I reach that level of drives, as the motherboard only have 6 SATA ports and two of them will be occupied by cache and parity.

 

 

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Measured to see if the two Lian Li EX332NA would fit:

 

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About 26cm, one EX332NA is 14.5cm wide so if I can slim them down 0.75cm on each side of both drive cage I would loose the extra 3cm - it sounds possible to me so I just ordered the Lian Li's :D

 

 

 

 

I will keep a small line of steel all the way down to the side and keeping one of the mounting holes were it connects to the side of the case.

The only thing it's actually going to hold up is the LEDs and buttons on the front, rest is attached to the upper sheet of metal wich I will not modify at all so should still be sturdy.

 

 

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The Lian Li cages will be mounted to the upper sheet with some small hex bolt I had laying around. No idea what I originally bought them for, but they will com in handy now :)

Thinking if I need to stick it even better than that? Have some Locktite super epoxy glue I could wip up and fix the upper sheet to the cages, but would that be smart? Woud never ever get them off...

 

 

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The red scratched out part is the piece I will cut out:

 

 

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After the surgery with my fake Dremel (been all over town but seems none of the tool shops that are open here on a Sunday sell Dremel :( so had to buy a fake)

To be honest only the tricky corner part form three pictures earlier was cut with the "Dremel", rest was a usual hack saw:

 

 

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The "Dremel" corner:

 

 

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Hack saw hack job:

 

 

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Saved the rest for tomorrow, this hacking and slashing made a hell of noise and it was getting cold/late outside so wanted to get inside

 

 

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I know I said earlier that this would not be an actual mod, but here you go - I am modding!

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As usual I got an idea just before going to bed...

 

 

Look at the cables on this picture from earlier in the thread:

 

 

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Every other cable in the case, like the fans and the power, will be sleeved in black - so why not these?

 

 

 

 

Thats were Performance-PCs come into play:

 

 

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The grommet edging is for the cutting I did today, those edges are pretty sharp and sorry to say not completely straight, so I will clean them up with some self adhesive rubber :)

 

 

So now this project have parts from all over the world: Denmark, UK, Germany, Netherlands and now US of A, not to mention were the things have been manufactured from, wich is mostly Asia.

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Looks very slick.  I like the NB fans - I had not studied those before (I use Noctua myself) but for the same reasons (effective but quiet).  I've also looked at fanless PSUs but have not used one myself yet.  Since you've clearly considered the airflow I suspect it will be fine though.

 

Since you mentioned NB Cooling I figured I had to share this;

 

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My desktop rig built a couple years ago, the NB cooler is a water cooled copper block with heat pipes to distribute the heat to the MOSFETS/SB and a PCI card style copper heatsink that has fins which stick out the back of the case (about 1cm). The motherboard is an EP45-Extreme in an Armor LCS case built back when P45 NB's used to get hot when OC'd.

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Since you mentioned NB Cooling I figured I had to share this;

 

My desktop rig built a couple years ago, the NB cooler is a water cooled copper block with heat pipes to distribute the heat to the MOSFETS/SB and a PCI card style copper heatsink that has fins which stick out the back of the case (about 1cm). The motherboard is an EP45-Extreme in an Armor LCS case built back when P45 NB's used to get hot when OC'd.

 

 

Sorry but I think we have two different NB in play here, I am using NoiseBlocker fans, wich are also known as ((NB)) (the (()) is sound waves in their logo), not North Bridge  :-X

My North Bridge will just be stock passively cooled as the SuperMicro is from the factory. It is only an Atom so no need.

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