Thanks, and yes, I agree, the cables look way to messy and all over the place. I wish Antec didn't make the cables so thick, one thing I'm not happy about. But overall, I'm quite satisfied with my setup.

My file server has gone through it's share of upgrades and revisions over the years. It started out as a lowly Athlon XP 2000+ system with two WD5000AAKS drives and has grown into the behemoth that it is now.

Last summer, I wanted to make myself a reliable storage server (which could also serve other purposes later) that had room to expand as I needed it to. The parts list as it stands now:

Case: Coolermaster CMStacker 810
PSU: Corsair HX620
Motherboard: ASUS P5K Premium Wifi
CPU: Intel E2160 (soon to be upgraded)
RAM: 4x2GB OCZ Gold DDR2-800 5-5-5-18
Optical Drive: Pioneer DVR-212D
Graphics Card: EVGA GeForce 7200GS
RAID Card: 3ware 9650SE-8LPML
System drives: 2x WD5000AACS
Storage drives 8x WD10EACS
Fans: 3x Scythe Slipstream 800RPM
Heatsink: ThermalRight Ultra 120 Extreme

I had originally setup the hard drives in CoolerMaster's 4-in-3 modules, and everything was bolted together. It was fairly quiet, but there was a distinct hum coming from the computer (more noticable from some directions than others).

A local fabric/sewing store had rolls of 25m of corded elastic on sale for $3, so I jumped on that and got myself two. The stacker case makes suspending hard drives dead simple, since there are convenient holes in the case meant for screwing 5.25" drives in place.

And as is always necessary, the pictures.


The insides of the computer - not the cleanest build, but it works. I guess I could spend a little more time taping cables to the back panel if I wanted to... but I'm a little lazy.


The ugly side of things...


A closeup of the suspension.


The glory!!!



The difference in noise is like night and day. 8)

I've closed off the top vent of the case as well to prevent the airflow short-circuit that would otherwise happen. The drives themselves run at about 33-35C at idle, 35-38C when working. Not too shabby if you ask me...


I know mark is gonna love this one...

I know that in an earlier post that you had mentioned you were going to use elastic 'like you have in your underwear' (or something so stated). What do you do to your underwear that requires you to have elastic like that? Never mind. I don't want to know.





Mark


P.S. That is pretty cool by the way. How you suspended your HDD's that is. It looks cool too with the front view. It would be nice to have a smoke colored plexi cover for it but that would spoil the airflow.

I doubt you will ever know but it would be interesting to know if what you have done effects the longevity of your HDD's by having the elastic absorb vibrations coming in from the case or any other benefits or detriments. Not having housing to case contact doesn't seem to have harmed the heat dissipation much if at all.

This post has been edited by mark: Aug 25 2008, 03:55 PM

If anything, I'd imagine that it would increase the longetivity of the drives, and reduce the overall IO error rate caused by vibrations from neighbouring drives. I know of several manufacturers that have implemented features to counteract errors caused by external sources of vibrations, but nothing really beats isolating one from the other.

Heat dissipation really isn't a concern with these drives. At idle, they draw less than 4W a piece, and that only goes up to 8W when they're working... compared to 8-11W of other drives on the market (*cough*Seagate*cough*).


The creepiest part of it all is that when I get home, I've always been used to that hum that the system used to produce. I've caught myself checking the lights to see if the system is actually on!

*Zxian*, Amazing machine! (lol, Feels like I am talking to my self, since my name is same as yours in real life)

How do you like that case? I am thinking to use it for my new server build, what do you think?

Talk to you later *Zxian*.

I love it myself. But it's getting hard to find one in Canada. ncix doesn't carry it anymore seemingly. I might have to go with something else next time

Hey found one! http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/Sea...p;Sku=C283-1186

Yeah that have it here in America

But It looks like a really good case for lots of hard drives and enough space to keep them cool! and enough fans to make it loud!

I hadn't looked there. But it's VERY expensive for that case. I paid about that much for one about a year ago, including the two extra 4-in-3 drive bays, taxes, and shipping too. It's $140 at newegg. I can't say I'm a big fan of TigerDirect either. NCIX has plenty of great cases within $280 too.


The fans on it are very quiet actually. I can't hear them at all. Big 120mm fans don't need to spin like crazy to have good airflow, so they're usually pretty quiet.

All very true

My server is now considerably quieter than my workstation. I'm only using three fans in that case - all of them are 800RPM Scythe Slipstream fans. Two for the exhaust, and one on the ThermalRight Ultra 120 Extreme. The build of the case is top notch, and I really can't fault anything about it. It's designed to have a ridiculous amount of room for equipment, and it does that beautifully.

$280 is FAR overpriced for that. Just make sure that when you buy it, you get the Stacker 810, and not the STC-T01 model. The latter has space for two PSUs (completely rediculous) and removes one of the 120mm fans.

Yeah I am looking for a better price for that case. But I do like that case, it will work good for a File server. (once I get my job that is!) But I hope to have a few terabytes in it to last me a while.

Anyways, Yeah But I like it loud!!!! it helps me to sleep at night How about some 120mm 3200RPM fans XD Then that cooler master would FLY! hehe.

I can't post pictures, but I suppose I can post my specs. I've had this PC since early 2002, haven't had to reinstall Windows, and have had minimal hardware failure.

Chassis: Antec PS Performance SX1040 Black
Motherboard: Intel D850MV
CPU: Intel Pentium 4 1.7GHz
RAM: 2x 256MB Samsung PC800 RDRAM + 2 blanks
Audio: onboard disabled, Creative SoundBlaster Audigy Gamer PCI
Video: nVidia GeForce 3 Ti200 64MB AGP 2x
keyboard: Apple USB Pro Keyboard (G4 style)
mouse: Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer 3.0 USB Optical
HDD1: Maxtor 20GB ATA-133 7200RPM
HDD2: Maxtor 160GB ATA-133 7200RPM
Optical1: Compaq 48x CD-ROM Black
speakers: Creative Inspire 5200 5.1
OS: Windows XP Pro RTM (with hacked compatibility)

I think the total price came to just under $3,000 at the time. Everything was brand new, although some stuff I did get at cost through a contact at Ingram Micro. The MB was the newest by Intel at the time and the CPU was the fastest available. I built it to be totally top of the line. However, through the years it became not so top of the line, and I eventually hit limits on both hardware and my wallet. I did not list the monitor because I didn't remember which ones I've had. Here is a timeline of changes:

- Partitioned the second drive into two partitions. Installed Server .net 2003 Enterprise on it. It lasted a year because I never activated it and I had since removed it.
- added Sony 24x CD-RW EIDE drive. It failed after 2 days.
- monitor failed during a move, replaced with eMachines 17" flat CRT.
- added Lite-On DVD-RW/CD-RW dual layer +/-
- Mouse failed, replaced with same model from ebay
- Mouse failed, replaced with standard Microsoft Optical Mouse
- upgraded video card with Sapphire Radeon 8600XP AGP 4x 256MB to play Oblivion.
- upgraded CPU with Pentium 4 2.0GHz
- successfully ran Crysis Demo (cons: long load time, gameplay was smooth)
- researched prices on upgrading RAM ($900 to get 2GB)
- Lite-On DVD Drive failed (no replacement)

So that's where I'm at. Since paying that much for more RAM is out of the question, I've already started looking at making a new PC. I figure using a PC for 6-7 years without a format or a reinstall is pretty good, so I am going to rebuild using similar brand products.

I must say, though, I did buy a replacement DVD-RW drive, but I never installed it. It's sitting on my new chassis I bought for my next PC, still sealed in its static bag.

I also have a Windows 98 computer also, but it has a bad motherboard (or PSU) in it. I bought another used computer to get the parts out of it to fix it, so it might need to be reinstalled. I had used it to be a Dedicated server for Quake 3 and Shoutcast a few years ago, but has been closet fodder for quite awhile. Here are its specs as I can remember them:

Chassis: Some garbage beige mid-tower
Motherboard: I think it has a Gigabyte in there... It's on its 3rd motherboard
CPU: Intel Pentium III 1.0GHZ (on flip-chip) Slot1, with 533BMHz Slot1 for backup.
RAM: 768MB RAM
Audio: I'm having difficulty remembering, but I think a Guillemont 128 voice PCI, or it could be SBLive! 128...
Video: 3dfx Voodoo 5500 AGP 64MB <-- the reason why I won't let this system die!
keyboard: A PS2 keyboard that says "Propeller Pilot" on it.
mouse: some $10 USB mouse with a ball in it (remember them?)
HDD1: Maxtor 20GB ATA-100 7200RPM
HDD2: There actually was another 20GB drive, but I took it out and put it in my XP machine.
Optical1: It has 3 CD drives, two are broken and not even hooked up. It has an 8x Iomega CD-RW (Terminator model) that does kinda word.
speakers: 1200w 4 speaker + subwoofer system that is currently hooked up to my TV
OS: Windows 98A (with hacked compatibility)

Welp, gotta run back into my time machine! See you guys next week!

I don't game, which will explain the video card choice. However, I do write/compile a decent amount of code, play some videos, etc. with my main non-work PC at home, so I finally built a new rig to replace this old AMD Athlon 3700 from 2004:

CoolerMaster Cosmos 1000 Case
Enermax MODU82+ 625W PSU
Asus P5Q Deluxe motherboard
Intel Q9550 CPU
G.Skill 4GBx2 DDR2 800 (6-6-6-18)
HIS Radeon 3650 512MB GDDR3
WD 3200AAKSx2 320GB HDD (RAID1)

heh, you could do a lot worse.

My desktop to be replaced soon or I might get an 18inch laptop.

CPU Pentium D 3.0GHz duel core
Ram 2 X 512 MB 800Mhz ram
HDD 1 x 80GB 1 x 320GB
intergraded graphics and sound but I was going to buy a graphic card but I am buying a new computer and I will give my old computer to my mate to use as file server. The case has 6 HDD slots.