30Hard drive servercase

[flobot]

ok first time posting here in the hard forums, thought it was about time..
ive been working for a while now on a server case to run my file server in, i couldnt find any cases for sale that met my requirements, namely being able to hole more than 24 hard drives, so i decided to go ahead and make the case myself, this is the second time ive made a custom case, though the first one hardly counts, a small micro-atx plexi case... well anyways i put quite a bit of time into this and though its not finished its almost done.

some quick specs:
dimensions: 48x48x32 cm (not that big actually)
case holds 3x3.5" racks holding 10 drives and 4 8cm fans each
has space for two power supplies
fits a standard atx mobo

what im running inside the case really isnt anything all that special
just an asus p4p800-del with a p4 3ghz (northwood), 2x topower 520watt psus, a shitty old video card (monitor will not be connected so i could care less) 1gb of ram, a highpoint rocket raid 404 4channel ide raid controller, and a promise tx2plus 2 x channel, and a lot of hard drives, what is shown in the pics are 10x maxtor 250gb, and 8x maxtor 200, and 1x maxtor 160 sata (system drive) theres a bunch of 120s which will go in the third rack, once im finished reorganising all my files.

anyways on with the pics (sorry about the quality, i took them with my phone)

first the drive racks:
these are all made of .5mm steel, shown here what they will look like with drives.

first images of the case after i finished the hard work of cutting an bending, 1mm steel for the actual case.

and then after i finished the tedius process of placing all the wholes for the motherboard plate in the right locations here the case is rivetted together, with mobo in place to make sure it all fits.

well then after some struggle with what color i should make the case, (i was struggling between either putting a laquer over the steel to keep that nice steel look, or painting it white) well i decided on what, also put some wheels under for easy moving of the thing, because once the drives are in there it will be heavy. also you will notice i finished the front panel, with a nice chrome power button (actually a doorbell button, but it looks damn nice) and opted to go for blue light for a coolness factor, red was considered and i might make a second front panel with red light so i can switch it out... but first the side panels will need to be constructed.

in these last pics the 3rd rack isn not mounted, it goes in the large open slot underneath the second power supply, for the time being ill be stress testing it with 19 drives, and once i finished reorganizing the other 6 120s that will be entering the case they too will be added.

well thats about it for now,
you may be wondering where the 5.25" bays are... but dont bother looking i didnt feel i needed any... this server will be running 24/7 as a fileserver, and is maintained via network... i hardly even use the optical drive in my main system anymore so i didnt see any reason to include such a thing in my server....

i still need to finish the side panels, but i want to make them with a latch design, something like the chieftek cases have... im considereing buying two extra side panels and just ripping the handels out of those... does anybody know any nice solutions for a sidepanel latch/handle?

anyways comments and questions please

 

[zapperfish]

It looks ver mac-like even more so if you change the lights to white, very nice job
are there any side pannals for the case?

 

[earlmred]

Awesome case, what tools/materials did you use to fashion it?

 

[flobot]

its all steel, the case is all 1mm, the drive racks are .5mm,
as for tools not much, just a steel plate cutter, a turning (bending) apparatus (not sure of the exact name) a drill, and a jig saw... i guess a rivet gun was also used... though it could have been done with screws as well, i just like the look of rivets more... there as also some welding done for the front plate, but that could also be done with liquid weld i guess.. which may actually have been a better choice...
theres also a bit of galvanized 1mm, perforated steel used as a spacer right behind the front plate..
atm there are no side panels yet... im still looking for a good latch mechanism to use to make them screwless.

 

[flobot]

as for macs, well i was considering making the entire case out of perforated steel/alu then it would have been very g5ish, but i dont like dust, and a completely perforated case is a bit more difficult to filter

 

[Nivram]

Man, that's pretty awesome!!

I just finished a file server for myself, using an old SCSI cd tower that I salvaged from a school auction, that contains 7 hard drives (for 1 terabyte of storage) and a dvd burner (so I can burn directly from the drives, instead of having to go through the network). Heck, I thought I was doing good with that, and the amount of storage I'd have with it.

So exactly how much porn do you have??? LOL

 

[cell_491]

dude thats so friggin awesome..

 

[SidewinderX]

that is truly awsome man.

 

[nomar]

Great job flobot. That bad boy must be pretty hot. How about the noise?

So what are you serving up? Music, movies? What flavor of RAID are you using?

I'd suggest putting the side doors on a hinges and then locking them or using some type of thumbscrews to tighten them on the other side. Make the hinges so the door opens to the rear.

 

[EQTakeOffense]

You must have alot of pron ;p

Seriously though, why do you need all that space? You have 4+ Terabytes....

 

[tong]

well y buy a lian li 2XXX series case when i can build one of these and have 3x the storage.. hmmmm... hot swapping these 8 250 gigers i got thru usb is becoming a pain.

 

[FunkStar]

Case looks friggin awesome. Looks very pro. Nice clean lines and simply design, plus i like the fans on the hdds and the cool light feature. Too bad they arent sata drives though

 

[cell_491]

DUDE you have to enter that case in this...
http://www.msicomputer.com/msiforms2/CaseMod2005.asp

 

[flobot]

mostly it will be hosting movies, games (neogeo, psx, and pretty much all flavors of nintendo) for use on my media computer... the media computer is supposed to be silent so putting a bunch of storage in there was hardly an option...
the drives stay cool to the touch, i gave them a bit more space than you normally find in cases, they have 1cm between each drive, theres also a 2cm space between the fans and the drives, this allows for more airflow, and less noise as the moving air doesnt immediatly hit turbulance coming off the fan... i dont really hear the fans, all i really hear is the hum of the drives, granted that x30, it gets to be quite noisy, but its quieter than the chieftek case i was using to host the drives before, plus the side panels arnt even on yet.

 

[flobot]

oh yeah... its also hosting about 2tb of anime...
heh... thats whats taking up most of the space

 

[flobot]

Case looks friggin awesome. Looks very pro. Nice clean lines and simply design, plus i like the fans on the hdds and the cool light feature. Too bad they arent sata drives though

well i cant have it all... sata will slowly work its way in here... most of these drives ive had for over a year.... back when they were much more expensive *sigh*

 

[flobot]

Great job flobot. That bad boy must be pretty hot. How about the noise?

So what are you serving up? Music, movies? What flavor of RAID are you using?

I'd suggest putting the side doors on a hinges and then locking them or using some type of thumbscrews to tighten them on the other side. Make the hinges so the door opens to the rear.

i thought about hinges, but i would prefer to be able to completely remove the side panels... hinged doors get in the way when i want to lay the case on its side... when is happening regularly now..
i would like to work in some sort of half hinge with latch system for them, that the door hinges out to about 30 degrees and then comes free of the case... much like the antec and chieftec cases have... though i still need to find a good latch system that fits with the design of the case... im not really in the mood to make a whole spring loaded latch myself.