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neilhart's Prodigy "The White One" - mATX in an ITX case

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neilhart's Prodigy "The White One" work log started.

As you can see, I have the right side panel modified to clear the PCI Slot panel. I have gone ahead and produced an approximately 12 inch 24 pin power cable and connected up all of the harness in a temporary set up to test out the new power supply (it is a SilverStone 500 w Stridder Plus - fully modular unit). This was the first power on for the new PSU and first power on for the system in the new case. I will run it now overnight just to get some confidence in the system...

5-1-front-paneled.jpg

and
5-2-rear-paneled.jpg


I pulled the front panel as it seems to restrict air flow as I had suspected. I have a 200mm fan in the front and no rear and no top fan for now

more soon.
neil
 
neilhart's Prodigy "The White One" work log started.

Thus far it is nice and clean and done right.
To be honest these aren't my thing but your making it look good and for that I commend you :)
As always keep up the awesome work!
 
neilhart's Prodigy "The White One" work log started.

I'm a big fan of G5 cases, but clean work as always! :thumbup:
 
neilhart's Prodigy "The White One" work log started.

Wow. Very cool. Nice work.
 
neilhart's Prodigy "The White One" work log started.

As you can see, I have the right side panel modified to clear the PCI Slot panel. I have gone ahead and produced an approximately 12 inch 24 pin power cable and connected up all of the harness in a temporary set up to test out the new power supply (it is a SilverStone 500 w Stridder Plus - fully modular unit). This was the first power on for the new PSU and first power on for the system in the new case. I will run it now overnight just to get some confidence in the system...

5-1-front-paneled.jpg

and
5-2-rear-paneled.jpg


I pulled the front panel as it seems to restrict air flow as I had suspected. I have a 200mm fan in the front and no rear and no top fan for now

more soon.
neil

Looking good!, Probably the closest mATX fit i've seen on the interwebs :p.
 
neilhart's Prodigy "The White One" work log started.

The parts that I had on order arrived and I was able to assemble the 'drive pack".

6-1-boxes.jpg


I already had two of the 500 GB 2.5" Hitachi hard drives. I would have used Seagate drives but could not find any on sale just now and the Hitachi drives have performed well for me in the past. The idea is to run a 4 drive RAID 0 set, 2 TB in size, with SSD performance. I have been running a similar 4 drive setup on my 24/7 work system without problems for about a year so I am hoping that this system works out as well.

6-2-comps.jpg


The 4 drive fit into the Silverstone model SST-FP58S slot drive mounting bracket. The top layer is a removal tray.

6-3-comps.jpg


And then the Silverstone model SST-SODO2 8X slot loading R/RW DVD is on the very top layer.

6-4-comps.jpg


And a front view of the assembly. I will not be using the brushed aluminum front panel shown.

I have ML loaded on the RAID set (I used the guide that I wrote last year: http://www.tonymacx86.com/lion-desktop-guides/32724-lion-10-7-2-raid-0-tonymacx86-tools-chimera.html with Chimera v.1.11.1 (boot files extracted from the standalone installer)).

6-5-comps.jpg


I have made up a five into one power cable, purchased 14" SATA cables and have the drive pack installed into the "White".

More photos of the front panel area are coming soon.

neil
 
neilhart's Prodigy "The White One" work log started.

No offense but running a RAID0 setup with mechanical hard drives is really dumb in my opinion. I would suggest you do RAID10 with the 4 drives. I'm sorry but having 4 mechanical hard drives in RAID0 is just not smart...

Sorry if I came off as rude but you will be hitting yourself once one of those drives fail.

Jeffinslaw
 
neilhart's Prodigy "The White One" work log started.

Jeffinslaw - I agree that RAID 0 drive sets are high risk technically. However I have had great 'luck' with them. As I have several copies of everything on my network the loss on one drive set will only be an annoyance.

neil
 
neilhart's Prodigy "The White One" work log started.

Jeffinslaw - I agree that RAID 0 drive sets are high risk technically. However I have had great 'luck' with them. As I have several copies of everything on my network the loss on one drive set will only be an annoyance.

neil

Ohhh okay, I didn't know you had a home server. I guess that would settle my mind if I had a home server.

Looking good so far!

Jeffinslaw
 
neilhart's Prodigy "The White One" work log started.

This is an attempt to catch up with my reality. As reported in an earlier post, I have installed a large fan in the front and found that I can run without an additional case fan. The front fan was restricted by the front cover and to a lesser degree the perforated sheet metal.

8-1.jpg


So I removed the offending sheet metal with my wire cutters leaving this.

8-2.jpg


I then focused on adding the fifth hard drive. I chose the Kingwin KF-252-BK "Hot Swap Rack" which I modified by removing the side mounting brackets as the unit was too wide to fit between the front fan and the power supply bracket wall. I cut an 1/8" ABS base plate which I drilled a tapped to match the hole pattern from the original hard drive racks (that I have asided for some other project).
Then using ABS cement, and a 1" tall ABS strip cut to length, I cemented the assembly as show here.

8-3a.jpg


and

8-3b.jpg


Here is the "rack" mounted with a 2TB hard drive running. The "rack" has a red power indicator light as does the large front fan. I think that these LEDs are going to be removed soon.

8-3c.jpg


The front panel is composed of the black base that snaps into the front chassis. And a white plastic main front plate and a white 5 1/4 drive plate. The drive plate needed a slot for DVD drive. Not having a mill, I used my drill press and some raw stock clamped in place (as guides) and cut a fair slot as seen below.

8-4a.jpg

8-4b.jpg


The white front panel was held to the black portion with seven screws. I cut a rectangular hole using the Dremel and cleaned it up with hand files. The hex mesh is from McMaster Carr and it is sandwiched between the white and black pieces (no adhesive used).
8-4c.jpg

8-4d.jpg

8-4e.jpg

8-4f.jpg


The system running - ML 10.8.1

8-4g.jpg

8-5a.jpg

8-5b.jpg

8-5c.jpg


And to give you idea of my modding clutter.

8-6a.jpg


Another post to follow with interior shots and final exterior photos.

neil
 
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