Pimp Your Rig

[Rajahal]

Looks great Kizer!  I'm glad to see so many people benefiting from the Budget Box design.  At first I was surprised that you were able to route the 4 pin mobo power cable behind the mobo tray, but then I realized that you installed the PSU with the fan facing down.  It is generally recommended that you install the PSU with the fan facing up so that it can suck hot air out of the case and blow it out the back.  The downside of this is that the 4 pin mobo power cable will then be too short to route behind the mobo tray.  See the pic in my post up further on this page for an example.  However, as long as you don't have any problems with heat in your server, then it probably isn't worth the trouble to flip the PSU around.

[kizer]

Yeah the reason I went with the way it was supposed to be installed I noticed that when I only had the lower fan on and running air would enter the case and be sucked right out the back. There wasn't a chance for air to flow in and rise up so the upper fan could pull it out.

 

I'm sure when I throw in my drives or install a few more front fans the upper fan that is pulling air out would either need another top fan to exhaust.

 

Right now my CPU is running 20-21C and my drives average 23-30C.

 

Yeah those budget builds are an awesome guide to building a machine. I knew that I would be limited by the Board and the additional break out cards, but honestly I don't plan on having14+ drives. I think right now I'm good at the 6 drive limit and I'll keep an eye out for a good deal on the break out cards. Since I'm not in a rush or anything.

[Rajahal]

I noticed that when I only had the lower fan on and running air would enter the case and be sucked right out the back. There wasn't a chance for air to flow in and rise up so the upper fan could pull it out.

 

Why would you want that to happen?  You want hot air to exit your case as soon as possible.  Your temps are perfectly fine, though, so again no need to change anything at the moment.

[barrygordon]

Sorry Rajahal, I have to disgaree (Partially), although the use of "hot Air" makes you technically correct.

 

The following is general in nature and offered as a guideline, not a design. Assuming that the room ambient is cooler than the air in the case you want that air to flow across componets heating up thereby removing thermal energy from the components (cooling them) before exiting the case. Ideally you want it (the air) to exit the case when the temperature of the flowing air is the same as the components it is cooling. Heat transfer always flows from the warmer body to the cooler body, and the efficiency of the transfer is related to the temperature difference between the two bodies. What you do not want is a "Short circuit" flow where air sucked into the case immediatly exits the case before being allowed to remove heat from the components.  Not knowing the specific case design, it is hard to comment further.

[kizer]

I completely agree with "Both" of you. In my case the air is of decent temperature and I wanted the air entering the case to stay so it could be used across the components opposed to a negative pressure and rely solely on the rear exhaust to cool everything.

 

I'm sure if my case was full of drives it would be different, but for now I'm completely happy and Right/Wrong/In different Rajahal was spot on piecing my machine together in the Budget build. It works great and you can't even here it when its there or when a drive spins up with those WD Green drives.

[Rajahal]

I see your point, barry.  In terms of general computer design in which the CPU and graphics card are the hottest components, then your advice is spot on.  However, look at kizer's server - there are pictures of it on the previous page of this thread.  I believe the stock fan that comes with the Sempron 140 is more than adequate to keep it cool with no other help from the system fans.  There are also vents immediately above and behind the CPU.  Add to that the case fan located behind the CPU, and I think you'll agree that it has no chance of overheating.  The onboard video card is also underutilized, and doesn't get hot.  Therefore, the only concern (in my mind) is the hard drives.  In kizer's current configuration, all the hard drives are in the lower bays of the case with no dedicated fan.  Therefore, the closest fan is the one found in the PSU.  The case fan near the CPU most likely isn't powerful enough to pull air all the way from the opposite corner of the case (especially since there are so many other vents and places for air to be pulled).  This is why I was advising kizer to flip the PSU around so that it's fan could help pull air across the hard drives.  Air would then enter from the lower drive bays across the hard drives and be sucked out the back by the PSU fan.  Once kizer fills all the hard drive bays, he may need to add a fan or two to the case's top vents to help cool the drives (unless he uses hot swap cages or drive cages with dedicated fans).

 

I'm having to recall kizer's setup from memory since my work's firewalls block the image host he used.  I hope I'm remembering it correctly.  Now that I think about it, the CM 590's internal drive cage does come with a dedicated fan, so maybe he's using that.  I wish I could see those pictures (care to rehost them on imgur or imageshack, kizer?).

[kizer]

Yeah I'm running the Cooler Master 590 that has a dedicated fan to blow air across the Hard Drives. It forces air into the case. I do monitor the drives and cpu now and then just to trend it some. So far so good. I do plan on picking up another cage sometime so I could move that top drive that is sitting in the 3.5 adapter and of course that will add another fan and add additional air into the case. Will I eventually need another fan up top not sure as of yet, but as I add more I'm sure I'll continue to trend and see if flipping the PSU is needed, but for now I'm doing ok.

 

I think the only thing I ever hear from this machine is the CPU fan. I thought about installing a passive cooler so its silent, then I thought nah its not that loud, but if I did want a quiter fan I would, but its in my office and my rack makes more noise than this thing ever will.  

 

Heres the photos hosting via Image Shack. I'm trying not to well take over this thread so I made them small and clickable.

 

--|-- --|--

[barrygordon]

What works - Works!!  As Rajahal recognized, I was only commenting on the general case of cooling design as related to heat flow.

[kizer]

Honestly the only real reasoning behind the way I did is the box showed blue arrow in and a red arrow out up top. So I figured hey that makes complete since to me. LOL

[chanders]

Here's my Mini ITX box

 

 

Can someone tell me what 5 in 3 bay is this?

[Rajahal]

This looks like a match:

 

YMI Aluminum 5-in-3 SATA II /SAS HDD Enclosure

[funbubba]

Hey guys, first post!

 

So I recently built my rig after trolling around the Lime-Tech forums/wiki for the past couple of months and decided to make the jump for it.  The box I built was mainly to complement my HTPC running XBMC.  Prior to unRAID, my HTPC consisted of a ~1 year old Mac Mini with two 1.5tb external drives connected via USB, shared via SMB so that 4 other possible XBMC clients (2 PC, 1 other OSX, and 1 Ubuntu) can watch from the same library.  With my growing HD obsession collection, it's no surprise that I've quickly outgrown my ghetto storage solution.  I needed something expandable!  So here's my rig.

 

 

Specs..

 

Case:  Cooler Master Centurion 590

Mobo:  Asus M4A78L-M

CPU:  AMD Sempron 140 2.7GHz

Mem:  OCZ Gold 2x1GB

PSU:  Corsair CMPSU-550VX

HDD:  2 x WD20EARS + 4 x Seagate 1.5

Backplanes:  SNT-SAC3051TL 5 in 3

+ Koutech "jeezus-is-that-little-thing-really-worth-$10?" USB Header-Pin to Dual Type-A adapter

 

So I originally ordered everything without the backplanes, and I only had 6 drives.  Once the parts arrived, it didn't take me long to figure out that I couldn't install #6 without looking like it was built by Leeroy Jenkins.  So I decided to order the three 5in3's on the cheap.  Hell, the electricity was out at the house anyway, I can wait (no, no I couldn't).  I don't have any SATA controllers though, but I figure I'll get some and wire the last backplane when I outgrow my storage in about 6 months 3 months 3 weeks tomorrow.

...

<adds to cart>

 

Overall I'm a happy, geeky, and slightly OCD-ish camper.

[Rajahal]

Your cable management is simply beautiful.  Well done.

[gfjardim]

It's a shame that those gorgeous 5-in-3 trayless backplanes only have two 60mm fans, instead of a single 80mm or 92mm fan.

 

It's a deal breaker to me, since the medium temperature here where I live in Brazil is 22ºC with some peaks of 38~40ºC at the end of the year (summer in south hemisphere).

 

:'(

[WeeboTech]

It's a shame that those gorgeous 5-in-3 trayless backplanes only have two 60mm fans, instead of a single 80mm or 92mm fan.

 

It's a deal breaker to me, since the medium temperature here where I live in Brazil is 22ºC with some peaks of 38~40ºC at the end of the year (summer in south hemisphere).

 

:'(

 

What's nice about those is the fans are removable. You can replace them or take them off, then use multiple exhaust fans in the case with negative pressure to pull air in. This was how I designed my other unit without bay fans. it worked well. Only a few degrees above ambient in the heat of the summer.

 

Also check out the reviews on newegg

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817994077

 

Says the fans keep them cool. Louder then expected, but keep them cool.

[Blofeld]

Hey guys, first post!

 

So I recently built my rig after trolling around the Lime-Tech forums/wiki for the past couple of months and decided to make the jump for it.  The box I built was mainly to complement my HTPC running XBMC.  Prior to unRAID, my HTPC consisted of a ~1 year old Mac Mini with two 1.5tb external drives connected via USB, shared via SMB so that 4 other possible XBMC clients (2 PC, 1 other OSX, and 1 Ubuntu) can watch from the same library.  With my growing HD obsession collection, it's no surprise that I've quickly outgrown my ghetto storage solution.  I needed something expandable!  So here's my rig.

Specs..

 

Case:  Cooler Master Centurion 590

Mobo:  Asus M4A78L-M

CPU:  AMD Sempron 140 2.7GHz

Mem:  OCZ Gold 2x1GB

PSU:  Corsair CMPSU-550VX

HDD:  2 x WD20EARS + 4 x Seagate 1.5

Backplanes:  SNT-SAC3051TL 5 in 3

+ Koutech "jeezus-is-that-little-thing-really-worth-$10?" USB Header-Pin to Dual Type-A adapter

 

So I originally ordered everything without the backplanes, and I only had 6 drives.  Once the parts arrived, it didn't take me long to figure out that I couldn't install #6 without looking like it was built by Leeroy Jenkins.  So I decided to order the three 5in3's on the cheap.  Hell, the electricity was out at the house anyway, I can wait (no, no I couldn't).  I don't have any SATA controllers though, but I figure I'll get some and wire the last backplane when I outgrow my storage in about 6 months 3 months 3 weeks tomorrow.

...

<adds to cart>

 

Overall I'm a happy, geeky, and slightly OCD-ish camper.

 

hey funbubba,

 

nice rig (and good writing I might add, an entertaining read!)...I'm slightly jealous, too. I'm in the process of building mine, I've got almost the same mobo as you do (except for "evo" at the end of the name, for what it's worth), but unfortunately, the graphics seems screwed, I can't get into the bios, so it's in the shop for now..and those sweet, empty hard drives are just sitting there in the rig, for now...

[unraided]

Hi funbubba, great looking rig you have there, awesome cabling. Just out of interest, what unRAID OS version are you running? I have the same mobo as you and was thinking of upgrading from v4.5.1 to v4.5.6, but wanted feedback from others who have my board running unRAID > v4.5.1, whether they had any problems. Cheers.

 

Hey guys, first post!

 

So I recently built my rig after trolling around the Lime-Tech forums/wiki for the past couple of months and decided to make the jump for it.  The box I built was mainly to complement my HTPC running XBMC.  Prior to unRAID, my HTPC consisted of a ~1 year old Mac Mini with two 1.5tb external drives connected via USB, shared via SMB so that 4 other possible XBMC clients (2 PC, 1 other OSX, and 1 Ubuntu) can watch from the same library.  With my growing HD obsession collection, it's no surprise that I've quickly outgrown my ghetto storage solution.  I needed something expandable!  So here's my rig.

 

 

Specs..

 

Case:  Cooler Master Centurion 590

Mobo:  Asus M4A78L-M

CPU:  AMD Sempron 140 2.7GHz

Mem:  OCZ Gold 2x1GB

PSU:  Corsair CMPSU-550VX

HDD:  2 x WD20EARS + 4 x Seagate 1.5

Backplanes:  SNT-SAC3051TL 5 in 3

+ Koutech "jeezus-is-that-little-thing-really-worth-$10?" USB Header-Pin to Dual Type-A adapter

 

So I originally ordered everything without the backplanes, and I only had 6 drives.  Once the parts arrived, it didn't take me long to figure out that I couldn't install #6 without looking like it was built by Leeroy Jenkins.  So I decided to order the three 5in3's on the cheap.  Hell, the electricity was out at the house anyway, I can wait (no, no I couldn't).  I don't have any SATA controllers though, but I figure I'll get some and wire the last backplane when I outgrow my storage in about 6 months 3 months 3 weeks tomorrow.

...

<adds to cart>

 

Overall I'm a happy, geeky, and slightly OCD-ish camper.

[funbubba]

Your cable management is simply beautiful.  Well done.

 

Hey, thanks!  Though I have to give tons of credit to the backplane ports' logical positioning and orientation.  Without those, the cables probably wouldn't look as tasty as they do now. 

 

It's a shame that those gorgeous 5-in-3 trayless backplanes only have two 60mm fans, instead of a single 80mm or 92mm fan.

 

It's a deal breaker to me, since the medium temperature here where I live in Brazil is 22ºC with some peaks of 38~40ºC at the end of the year (summer in south hemisphere).

 

:'(

 

Yeah, these suckers are LOUD too but for me the box stays in the basement so I don't hear it.  Also, the tray doors are a little plastic-y to me but they do their job.  One gripe I have was the middle backplane.  By design the left and right tray doors are different from the center three.  But my leftmost tray door is actually a center door (arrrghhh OCDHULKSMASH!!!).  Ah well, I mentioned I got them on the cheap so I'm still very happy with the rig.

 

hey funbubba,

 

nice rig (and good writing I might add, an entertaining read!)...I'm slightly jealous, too. I'm in the process of building mine, I've got almost the same mobo as you do (except for "evo" at the end of the name, for what it's worth), but unfortunately, the graphics seems screwed, I can't get into the bios, so it's in the shop for now..and those sweet, empty hard drives are just sitting there in the rig, for now...

 

I feel your pain man.  During the build it felt like the whole world objected to it.  I ordered two 2TB drives from Dell's 1-day sale.  I got the drives and although the packing slip was correct, what I got instead were two 160GB drives.  THEN a couple of days after I received the parts, I was preclearing 4 spare drives and at the last step, mother nature decided to be a see-u-next-time and called forth a 15-minute storm that managed to take out the power to half the county in the DC area for days.  Finally I lol'd at myself when I noticed I can't install HDD #6 without backplanes or equivalent.  Soooo worth it though!  Just hang in there, nerdvana awaits!

 

Hi funbubba, great looking rig you have there, awesome cabling. Just out of interest, what unRAID OS version are you running? I have the same mobo as you and was thinking of upgrading from v4.5.1 to v4.5.6, but wanted feedback from others who have my board running unRAID > v4.5.1, whether they had any problems. Cheers.

 

Hey thanks!  I'm running 4.5.6 at the moment.  So far everything seems to be working.  I don't know how much help I can be to you though, since I have exactly 1 week experience with unRAID.  But if you have something specific you'd like me to try or look at, please let me know.

[unraided]

Hi funbubba. Thanks for the reply. Do you use WOL? If so, does it work OK with v4.5.6? Cheers.

[funbubba]

Hi funbubba. Thanks for the reply. Do you use WOL? If so, does it work OK with v4.5.6? Cheers.

 

Why yes, WOL does work.  I just tested it moments ago.  It also looks like you can schedule a power up although I haven't tried it.  I'm really wishing it had some sort of KVM over IP feature right about now.

[unraided]

Cheers for the testing funbubba, I'm going to roll out v4.5.6 on both my unRAID boxes soon. As for the IP KVM, yuo could eBay a second hand one for a reasonable price if you tried, and some SuperMicro mobo's have an additional IP module which gives you, even BIOS control, but this topic should be directed/posted to another section of the forum . Thanks again for you're efforts.

 

[neilt0]

Very useful! 

 

This Monoprice power cable works great in this setup - just use one per Scythe assembly.  You can get the fan and all four drives connected with the power connector fed through to the other (hidden) side of the case.  Make it nice and clean.

http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10226&cs_id=1022604&p_id=5188&seq=1&format=2

 

I had a nice mess with all 18 inch cables but didn't really want to buy all new cables.  I'm glad i did thouhg -with the 10 inch ones it cleans up really nice.

 

 

I finally found Molex to 4 SATA power cables in the UK. I think this is a new listing for Scan. They are more expensive than the monoprice ones, but look nice as they are braided. I'll probably order some tomorrow (they're on a Today Only offer until midday tomorrow) along with an interesting case that is cheap, yet may hold a lot of drives.

http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?ProductId=36286

[neilt0]

I've just started to rebuild my second server based on the Sharkoon Rebel 12 case.

 

After reviewing just about every case on the market, I came across the Rebel 12. I wanted a case that could hold lots of drives, but wouldn't cost a ton, because it's only being used for my older, smaller drives.

 

I specifically chose the Economy version, not the Value, as I didn't want the huge fan on the side and also knew I was going to re-use the 120mm fans from my P180. The Rebel 12 Economy is £68 at Scan.

Sharkoon are a German company, so I don't know if this case is available outside of Europe.

 

What's interesting about this case is that it has 11 5.25" bays up front, but also has 6 3.5" internal drive bays. These bays are tool-less.

The 11 front bays are fully meshed and filtered.

The top bay is for 3.5" (floppy) devices only, it's not removable.

 

With 1:1 usage of the 5.25" bays, you can fit 17 drives. With 3x 4-in-3s + 2x SATA racks, you can fit 20 drives. There's not a lot of point in using 5-in-3s -- you might as well get a Norco.

 

 

 

I've re-used the three unused 3-in-3 cages from my Antec Twelve Hundred to mount 9 drives in the front 5.25" bays:

 

 

The case comes with one 140mm fan bracket for the front bays:

 

And, I bought 2 more frames (£3.50 each) to add more fans. The frame covers 4 bays, so the third won't fit without some Dremel work.

 

The 6 internal 3.5" drives are mounted sideways, and the case has a mount for 2x 80mm fans to blow air sideways through the case. I thought I had a couple of 80mm fans lying around, but can't find them, so may have buy a couple. In the meantime, I've stuck a 120mm fan between the front of the case and the internal cage.

 

I'm still putting everything together, so will post pics later. Assuming it doesn't all explode.

[WeeboTech]

WOW. That sharcoon rebel 12 is really nice. I like it allot. Huge potential for drives.

Even with my 20 drive CM Stacker beast, I want to put 3 drives internal for my RAID0 parity and an SSD for nfs mounting of /home, so I could see a need in my plans.

I would want to mod it to get rid of that top 3.5" bay so 4 5in3's would fit.

Other then that it's perfect for my needs.  Does it come with castors?

[neilt0]

WOW. That sharcoon rebel 12 is really nice. I like it allot. Huge potential for drives.

Even with my 20 drive CM Stacker beast, I want to put 3 drives internal for my RAID0 parity and an SSD for nfs mounting of /home, so I could see a need in my plans.

I would want to mod it to get rid of that top 3.5" bay so 4 5in3's would fit.

Other then that it's perfect for my needs.  Does it come with castors?

 

Yeah, it's a nice case for the money. If I end up filling it, I'll look at removing the top 3.5" section, but for now, I've kept the two bottom bays empty as well, so it's not a problem.

 

It doesn't have castors, but it's pretty light -- it's a fairly cheap case, so the steel is fairly thin.