The Tesseract - Scratch Build, Wooden Cube Case

[ironicbadger]

Hello everyone! I'm just embarking on a very exciting project which I'm going to call 'The Tesseract'. I'm going to build a server cube from wood in my spare time over the next few weeks. The plan is to house as many drives as possible (but at least 10, my initial plans suggest 16 will fit) in a near silent enclosure, with drive temps in the critical 30-40C range.

 

I've done some very rough mocking up in sketchup to help visualise my concept and settle on a good size for the build. The sketchup models are missing crucial details about how to drives are going to be mounted as I couldn't figure out how to draw string! Each drive is going to be suspended on elastic bungee cord to minimise noise transference. Each fan has to be rated at 25dB or less, going for larger whereever possible and will be mounted against the wood with foam for cushioning. I'm going to go to as much effort as possible to minimise noise.

 

My current setup is a Fractal Define XL. In short, I don't like it. Too big, too heavy (my back hates it too!) and my drive temps regularly hit 40C even with aftermarket Noctua's in there. It's not that quiet either with a lot of vibration transference even though the drives are already in the trays with rubber grommets. Dissapointed doesn't even cover it - this case was supposed to be my Nirvana! Anyway, after hours of searching online I'm giving up trying to find a premade case for my needs and am going to make my own. I stumbled across a fantastic build on youtube for a wooden cube case with a patchwork exterior and knew my search was over. It's just beautiful.

 

 

With this in mind I set about making it smaller, and more to my tastes. I have no need for an optical drive or usb ports to be accessible, even the power switch will be around the back out of sight. Here are my pathetic sketchup attempts... The case is going to be around 350mm square. I'm toying with the idea of making the case a little larger to accomodate cabling requirements but would REALLY prefer to keep it at it's minimalistic 350mm cube size.

 

 

The hard drives are in two stacks of 8 drives each, cooled by 4 140mm 700rpm fans. I have 4 differents makes on order including Scythe and Thermaltake to test and then will choose the quietest. The drives will lift out almost like a honeycomb from a beehive, in a slotted wooden frame I'll knock up. Doesn't have to be pretty anywhere except on the outside!! The mobo will have stock CPU cooler so not much clearance required.

 

Hardware

 

I already own and use all existing hardware. Eventually will upgrade this to a Supermicro Xeon setup for ESXi, that's next on the WAF list. This thread is, for me, about the build of the case. Hope you enjoy it's slow (and most likely) painful birth!

 

unRAID Server Pro v5 (latest RC)

 

Asus P8H77-V LE, BIOS 0237

Intel i3 2120 3.3ghz

8GB RAM

TX750W Corsair PSU

1x Supermicro SAS-AOC-SASLP-MV8

4GB USB Boot Drive

4x 3TB Drives (3x Hitachi and 1x WD Red)

1x 1.5TB Seagate

2x 1TB Seagate

1x 500GB Samsung (cache)

 

[prostuff1]

running cables is going to be a complete pain in the arse.  Perhaps arranging it so the back of the HDD's face the motherboard would make it easier.

[ironicbadger]

in terms of cooling, what's the best orientation for the air to flow over the drives? cabling won't be toooo bad. i have lots of heatshrink and braiding to aid there.

 

why would rotating the drives make cabling any easier??

[sureguy]

in terms of cooling, what's the best orientation for the air to flow over the drives? cabling won't be toooo bad. i have lots of heatshrink and braiding to aid there.

 

why would rotating the drives make cabling any easier??

 

You want the air to come in and run over the drives, then exhaust out the other side of the case.  The reason that having the cabling on the side of the drives that is facing the motherboard would make things easier is that you'd have access to the cabling (at least most of it).  You could easily check that the plugs were all snug that way (it doesn't look like that would be possible with the cables on the sides facing the fan).

 

The other advantage is the cables won't create a dead zone preventing some air from flowing over the drive, having that dead zone is better at the exhaust point of the air over the drive, rather than the intake.

[ironicbadger]

cables would be practically in the middle of the case. i didn't put them in sketch up, but they would not be by the fans. another issue with rotating the drives is they'd then be too wide for 350mm.

 

does anyone know of a good way to produce some smoke (or something like incense burning) to get a visualisation of airflow?

[marcusone]

cables would be practically in the middle of the case. i didn't put them in sketch up, but they would not be by the fans. another issue with rotating the drives is they'd then be too wide for 350mm.

 

does anyone know of a good way to produce some smoke (or something like incense burning) to get a visualisation of airflow?

Hardware stores usually have something for finding drafts that should work.

 

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[Rajahal]

Wow, incredibly ambitious project. Can't wait to see how it comes out!

[vca]

A friend of mine built this wooden case:

 

https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/111483338318879631619/albums/5705474467512091409

 

it has 6 drive bays, but the general approach would easily scale.  I believe he has the SATA cables at the front of the case (behind the grill) so to change a drive you take the grill off and then remove the SATA cables from the drive you want to change and then pull the drive out.

 

Regards,

 

Stephen

 

[caseyparsons]

A friend of mine built this wooden case:

 

https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/111483338318879631619/albums/5705474467512091409

 

it has 6 drive bays, but the general approach would easily scale.  I believe he has the SATA cables at the front of the case (behind the grill) so to change a drive you take the grill off and then remove the SATA cables from the drive you want to change and then pull the drive out.

 

Regards,

 

Stephen

 

That is cool and deserves it's own thread!

[ironicbadger]

I thought it about time for an update. I'm waiting for payday before I can begin the wooden stages of construction, and whilst in this annoying (and boring) limbo I've managed to ESXi up and running on my existing hardware without spending a single penny!!

 

Hardware specs / info:

Motherboard: Asus X58 Sabertooth LGA1366

CPU: Intel Core i7 950 3.06ghz

RAM: 12GB Triple Channel

HBA Add-on: Supermicro SAS-AOC-SASLP-MV8

 

It was a fairly simple process after following the posts in the Atlas thread to get everything up and running. All drives (including several 3TB drives) are connected directly to the Supermicro card for the simplicity that brings with passthrough. Raw device mapping gets complicated quickly when you change something later down the road.

 

Performance is excellent and I'm running Unraid, Windows 7 Ultimate, Ubuntu 12.04, Mac OSX 10.8 and FreeNAS all on the same box. Unraid is running with no plugins which makes things very simple - the downloaders and such are all running on Ubuntu.

 

To anyone thinking about going the ESXi route - do it. It'll give you such a fuzzy feeling when it all works!

 

[marcusone]

The x58 supports passthrough?

 

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[ironicbadger]

The x58 supports passthrough?

 

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perfectly

[Chris Pollard]

The are often wooden builds over on the bit tech forums if you want inspiration / ideas etc.

 

http://forums.bit-tech.net/forumdisplay.php?f=42