"Two Towers" - Building my own custom server case from scratch - 15 Aug 2013


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I'm amazed at how dense the industry has been able to pack drives into data centers.

 

Yes, it's amazing ... HOWEVER -- have you ever been in one?  I have ... and the noise level is unreal.  They have VERY high-rpm fans running at VERY high settings to ensure a VERY high airflow to keep the drives running relatively cool.    You would NOT want this setup in a home environment ... or even most small business environments ... unless you have a very isolated room that's fairly well soundproof  :)

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That is one fantastic custom built case. I've been looking into building a NAS lately and came across this thread.

I do have a question. Do you still have the digital schematics for the case, and would you be willing to share them?

I'd love to try my hand at building this case for myself, and the schematics would make it drastically easier.

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I found one tray in particular that I'm absolutely dying to use with this design. It's like it was made for it.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817998184

 

It can take one 3.5 and one 2.5 in drive, and has an integrated 2 port USB panel which connects to the 19 pin MOBO header.

It's totally going  into the top tray.

ETA: It's perfect for that one SSD cache that I like to have in my NAS systems

 

I've also found the following two trays for the rest of the stack.

http://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-5-25in-Trayless-Mobile-3-5in/dp/B000KS8S9W

http://www.amazon.com/Kingwin-SATA-Internal-Swap-KF-1003-BK/dp/B00P2PNOOM

 

I'm leaning towards the Kingwin based on the aesthetics and the design just looks like it's better to me at least.

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Yes, it's amazing ... HOWEVER -- have you ever been in one?  I have ... and the noise level is unreal.  They have VERY high-rpm fans running at VERY high settings to ensure a VERY high airflow to keep the drives running relatively cool.    You would NOT want this setup in a home environment ... or even most small business environments ... unless you have a very isolated room that's fairly well soundproof  :)

 

Small, high speed fans are decades old. My data centers use 5HP fans. As we say, making noise is wasting energy.

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Thanks a ton!

I don't know sketchup too well, I'm more of an autocad and it's derivatives kind of guy.

I'm guessing there is a simpler way to do it, but I'm taking the components and creating diagrams with the dimensions labeled for ease of use.

Anything you learned in the actual building of the project that I should watch out for when I start working with the actual MDF?

 

 

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Thanks a ton!

I don't know sketchup too well, I'm more of an autocad and it's derivatives kind of guy.

I'm guessing there is a simpler way to do it, but I'm taking the components and creating diagrams with the dimensions labeled for ease of use.

Anything you learned in the actual building of the project that I should watch out for when I start working with the actual MDF?

 

Did you get around to building your case?

 

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  • theone changed the title to "Two Towers" - Building my own custom server case from scratch - 15 Aug 2013

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