kingpin Posted January 20, 2014 Share Posted January 20, 2014 i am excited about this. i just ordered 4 xserve raid with hard drive caddies on ebay ($60 each plus about $200 in shipping) Quote Link to comment
xxredxpandaxx Posted January 31, 2014 Author Share Posted January 31, 2014 Just a small update, I got one side of the backplane wired up for power and 1 and a half sata cables done. I am waiting on some more sata cables to be delivered so I can finish up all the data drives and test everything out!! Here are the sata cables. And here are the power cables. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment
kingpin Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 Love it. My xserve raids should be here Wednesday. Quote Link to comment
xxredxpandaxx Posted January 31, 2014 Author Share Posted January 31, 2014 Love it. My xserve raids should be here Wednesday. Awesome! I'm looking forward to seeing what you do with them. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment
xxredxpandaxx Posted February 5, 2014 Author Share Posted February 5, 2014 I did a test today to see if everything would work properly, it does!! I can see the hard drive in the bios! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment
starcat Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 Thats amazing! Looking forward to see you putting it together and your report on cooling. The WD20EARS should run pretty cool though. Quote Link to comment
kingpin Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 My xserve raids should be here Friday! Quote Link to comment
xxredxpandaxx Posted February 6, 2014 Author Share Posted February 6, 2014 Thats amazing! Looking forward to see you putting it together and your report on cooling. The WD20EARS should run pretty cool though. So am I, I'm hoping the WD Green drives will stay cool enough. With the not so good air flow I'm predicting. My xserve raids should be here Friday! Awesome! I will be looking for your build thread soon then. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment
xxredxpandaxx Posted March 20, 2014 Author Share Posted March 20, 2014 Well I have been having some problems getting my drives to be recognized and I am not sure if it is my motherboard or a bad solder connection but I have 4 out of my 5 drives being recognized now and after I get the 5th one working I can clean up all the wires and close it up. Here is a picture of me testing everything out, and kind of where everything is going to go. I will be adding fans when I finish. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment
xxredxpandaxx Posted March 24, 2014 Author Share Posted March 24, 2014 Well I finally got it up and running minus one disk that is connected to the controller which I think isn't working. The temps in the one picture are with two computers scanning the media that is on it. I will try a writing temp test when I figure out why the controller isn't working. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment
StevenD Posted March 24, 2014 Share Posted March 24, 2014 Those temps are a little high. Mine dont go over 36 degrees during a parity check. I know thats a cool looking case and a fun project, but I'd be concerned about the reliability and the cooling ability. Quote Link to comment
xxredxpandaxx Posted March 24, 2014 Author Share Posted March 24, 2014 Those temps are a little high. Mine dont go over 36 degrees during a parity check. I know thats a cool looking case and a fun project, but I'd be concerned about the reliability and the cooling ability. I don't have any fans on it at all right now so they aren't getting any air flow. I will be adding some after I get everything working properly. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment
xxredxpandaxx Posted March 27, 2014 Author Share Posted March 27, 2014 So a little bit of an update, my unraid server the way it was was kind of messy so I decided to start all over on all of my data. I started preclearing all of my disks and before I put a fan next to the drives my temps on two drives were around 40c to 42c and after I put a fan on it, they went down to 33c at the moment. So if this is any indication of how hot these drives are going to run with a fan when I finish it this is a good thing, I am happy with those temps. This is also with only 5 drives in so I am about to put the rest of the drives in to see how the temperature fluctuates. Ill keep you guys posted. ps. pictures will be coming soon. Quote Link to comment
kingpin Posted March 27, 2014 Share Posted March 27, 2014 Exciting. I have my 4 xserve raid cases, but I just have not had time to sit down to get started on this project. Quote Link to comment
xxredxpandaxx Posted March 27, 2014 Author Share Posted March 27, 2014 Exciting. I have my 4 xserve raid cases, but I just have not had time to sit down to get started on this project. It takes a long time to get everything connected right. Hopefully you can go off of what I did and save a little time. I installed most of the other drives so that air flow isn't as good (how it will normally be filled with drives) and the drives have gone up from 33c to 35c while preclearing the drives. I will do a couple writes and reads after the preclear is done and report temps then. Also the temperature in the room is about 72F. Quote Link to comment
xxredxpandaxx Posted April 10, 2014 Author Share Posted April 10, 2014 Well here is a smallish update, I decided to make a styrofoam back so that I could have the airflow go in the proper direction and it helped keep the drives about 6C lower and I only have two fans in the case. One right behind the backplane where the drives are and one exhaust in the styrofoam. Here are some pictures. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment
xxredxpandaxx Posted April 11, 2014 Author Share Posted April 11, 2014 New highest temp during the pre clear is 37C witch I am happy with, before it was up to 40-41C. Quote Link to comment
xxredxpandaxx Posted May 15, 2015 Author Share Posted May 15, 2015 Well I haven't messed with my case mod in quite a while and my soldering of the sata cables to the pins didn't work out right so I just recently thought of a new way to connect them and the parts should be here either tomorrow or next week. I will update then to let you all know if it works or not. Quote Link to comment
BlueHeisenberg Posted February 8, 2016 Share Posted February 8, 2016 Any update on this? I know this is a very old post but I'm planning on doing a similar build with an Xserve Raid case that I'm going to buy for 100€ today. I guess that xxredxpandaxx just got bored of posting the updates or something failed and he gave up everything lol Would be nice to know the final status of this project and if you managed to get all the drives working. I'm planning to put 10 2TB WD Enterprise SAS drives inside, anyway, I will create a new post for that build Anyway, thanks for this post as you helped me decide to buy the case! Quote Link to comment
apgood Posted February 8, 2016 Share Posted February 8, 2016 I'd think twice about building an unraid server with one of these cases as I found drive temps (50 - 60C) to be an issue due to the airflow around the drives not being good. The case is designed to be in a cold air conditioner server room with powerful cooling (& noisy) fans. Quote Link to comment
xxredxpandaxx Posted February 25, 2016 Author Share Posted February 25, 2016 I have kind of put the project aside for now, school takes up a lot of my time. I am in the process of designing a PCB to use with this project. Also I haven't had any temp problems with this case, drives never really go above 40C. I have one 120mm exhaust fan and 2 internal fans to direct air towards the back. I plan on buying a regular xserve case to put the motherboard in at some point and leave the drives in the xserve RAID. Quote Link to comment
aiden Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 I find myself in the position of needing to upgrade my hardware to a new chassis. I have been looking hard at 45 Drives, but they are spendy. I've always loved the look of the XServe design, and it's possible to purchase SEVERAL of them for the price of one empty Storinator case. I realize that it would take 10U (3 XServe RAIDS + 1 XServe) to equal the capacity of a 4U Storinator. But the aesthetics are are a different story. I notice cooling is a concern, but that seems to depend on fan placement and channeling. But my question is, is it worth spending the time + money to buy some of these old girls and rip her guts out? Do all the status indicators still work for those of you who have embarked on this journey? Any other gotchas I should consider? Thanks! Quote Link to comment
Adamcarter Posted March 18, 2017 Share Posted March 18, 2017 Hi xpanda, not sure if you got my pm. Here is the progress on my xraid plus. Making the XRaid Great Again! Quote Link to comment
madsriisager Posted April 13, 2023 Share Posted April 13, 2023 Realising that this is by now a VERY old topic, I am planning to do something like this for myself. But what thing that worries me is noise from the exposed cables. Like when you cut a SATA cable in half and use it for connection, does it not introduce electrical noise and thereby decreased performance of the drives? Quote Link to comment
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