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APOLLO (2 CPU LGA1366 Server | InWin PP689 | 24 Disks Capacity) - by alpenwasser [COMPL. 2014-MAY-10]

FINALLY! AN UPDATE! *cries of joy*

Andres "Bluejay" Alejandro Montefusco - The Forums Favorite Bird!!!

Top Clock: 7.889 Ghz Cooled by: Liquid Helium   

#ChocolateRAM #OatmealFans #ScratchItHarder #WorstcardBestoverclocker #CrazySexStories #SchnitzelQuest TS3 SERVER

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Looks very ghetto

 

Well that's the understatement of the week :P

The year is 20XX. Everyone plays Fox at TAS levels of perfection. Because of this, the winner of a match depends solely on port priority. The RPS metagame has evolved to ridiculous levels due to it being the only remaining factor to decide matches.

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FINALLY! AN UPDATE! *cries of joy*

 

IKR?! :D

 

FUCKING FINALLY! YOU MADE MY DAY BY UPDATING A BUILD OF YOURS!

 

Happy to be of service. ;)

 

Well that's the understatement of the week :P

 

Maybe? :P

 

LOOKS SWEET :D

Thanks! :)

BUILD LOGS: HELIOS - Latest Update: 2015-SEP-06 ::: ZEUS - BOTW 2013-JUN-28 ::: APOLLO - Complete: 2014-MAY-10
OTHER STUFF: Cable Lacing Tutorial ::: What Is ZFS? ::: mincss Primer ::: LSI RAID Card Flashing Tutorial
FORUM INFO: Community Standards ::: The Moderating Team ::: 10TB+ Storage Showoff Topic

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Why the fuck haven't I seen this yet :( .  Fucking awesome mate.  Gotta love the dedicated custom builds like this that also look alright.  All we need now is a good looking mining rig with that new asrock motherboard.  Nice job :D

Beneath this mask there is more than flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea, Mr. Creedy, and ideas are bulletproof.

As I get older I get angrier more cynical, meaner. I feel some warning posts coming. I feel a ban coming. I was warned.

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Why the fuck haven't I seen this yet :( .  Fucking awesome mate.  Gotta love the dedicated custom builds like this that also look alright.  All we need now is a good looking mining rig with that new asrock motherboard.  Nice job :D

Haha, np mate, build log section is plenty busy these days, I certainly can't keep

up with it anymore, surely there's plenty of stuff I've missed that would have been

worthy of my attention.

And that Asrock board: Blessed strong language, do want! :D

BUILD LOGS: HELIOS - Latest Update: 2015-SEP-06 ::: ZEUS - BOTW 2013-JUN-28 ::: APOLLO - Complete: 2014-MAY-10
OTHER STUFF: Cable Lacing Tutorial ::: What Is ZFS? ::: mincss Primer ::: LSI RAID Card Flashing Tutorial
FORUM INFO: Community Standards ::: The Moderating Team ::: 10TB+ Storage Showoff Topic

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I like the Ghetto drive cage

Rig CPU Intel i5 3570K at 4.2 GHz - MB MSI Z77A-GD55 - RAM Kingston 8GB 1600 mhz - GPU XFX 7870 Double D - Keyboard Logitech G710+

Case Corsair 600T - Storage Intel 330 120GB, WD Blue 1TB - CPU Cooler Noctua NH-D14 - Displays Dell U2312HM, Asus VS228, Acer AL1715

 

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The Disk Racks


A.k.a. the main part of this undertaking. :)


As mentioned elsewhere,  one of the two main  problem of our
current  server is  that it  only has  seven HDD  slots, and
they're  already all  filled up. The  only way  to get  more
storage is to  install larger disks, which  isn't really all
that optimal.

One of the  main points of this build was  to have more disk
slots. The PP689 only  offers four in its  stock form, which
you can upgrade  to a maximum of  thirteen drives. You would
need to buy another  four-disk enclosure (which btw. I could
not find anywhere to buy), and a five-disk enclosure for the
5.25"  bays. Since 13  drives aren't  really that  many, and
since these enclosures aren't exactly cheap, I decided to go
another route.

It took me  a while to figure  out how to do it,  but in the
end this  is what I came  up with. I had very  generous help
from one of my neighbours, who has a mill and a lathe at his
disposal, as well as plenty of time (he's a pensioneer :D ).


So off we went:


The Mill


(click image for full res)
aw--apollo--2014-04-02--01--mill.jpeg


First Steps

(click image for full res)
aw--apollo--2014-04-02--02--milling.jpeg


(click image for full res)
aw--apollo--2014-04-02--03--progress.jpe


The Mill can also serve as a drill press. The drill chuck he
looks ridiculously huge when you  put a small drill bit into
it (he said they didn't have the smaller model in stock when
he needed to buy his, so he went with the large one). :D

(click image for full res)
aw--apollo--2014-04-02--04--drill-chuck.


Stumbled  upon this  when  going through  my pics. My  dog's
girlfriend,  basically  (she's  a labrador  and  belongs  to
another one of our neighbours). I was dogsitting here for an
evening a  few weeks back. She  can be a bit  hyperactive at
times, but is a very lovely dog. :)

(click image for full res)
aw--apollo--2014-04-02--05--sleepy.jpeg


Drilling and Milling

Lots of holes  needed to be drilled for the  pop rivets that
were going to hold it all together.

(click image for full res)
aw--apollo--2014-04-02--06--drill-drill-

(click image for full res)
aw--apollo--2014-04-02--07--drill-drill-


Milling out the slots for the screwheads:

(click image for full res)
aw--apollo--2014-04-02--08--mill-mill-mi


Phase I Complete

The side  panels of  the disk racks  completed. Testing with
some broken old HDDs I had laying around to make sure it all
fits as it should. It does. :)

(click image for full res)
aw--apollo--2014-04-02--09--cage-panels.

(click image for full res)
aw--apollo--2014-04-02--10--cage-panels.

(click image for full res)
aw--apollo--2014-04-02--11--cage-panels.


Rail Detail

This is how the construct looks  on the side where you slide
in the disks. You  can see the pop rives I  used to assemble
it, the slots which are  pictured being milled above for the
screwheads and the screws on the disks. You can also see the
recesses into which the screws mounted on the HDDs lock. The
system works very well.

(click image for full res)
aw--apollo--2014-04-02--12--cage-rail-de

(click image for full res)
aw--apollo--2014-04-02--13--cage-rail-de


Ventilation

Obviously, 24 HDDs  are going to put out some  heat, so some
ventilation  is  required. I'm  using  six  Papst  fans  for
that. The fans  will be bolted  onto the panels with  some L
profiles. Unfortunately,  120  mm  fans  have  105  mm  hole
distance, and HDDs are ~100 mm wide, so it's not possible to
mount  the  fan  on  both  sides, only  two  screws  can  be
used. It's not really a problem though, two screws tightened
down nicely give sufficient stability.

(click image for full res)
aw--apollo--2014-04-02--14--fan-rail.jpe

(click image for full res)
aw--apollo--2014-04-02--15--fan-rail.jpe

(click image for full res)
aw--apollo--2014-04-02--16--fan-rail.jpe

(click image for full res)
aw--apollo--2014-04-02--17--fan-rail-det


Mounting Brackets

The panels  are mounted to  the bottom  and top of  the case
with screws. To have some  leeway in adjusting things, there
are slots instead of round holes in some places.

(click image for full res)
aw--apollo--2014-04-02--18--disk-rack-mo


Top:

(click image for full res)
aw--apollo--2014-04-02--19--disk-rack-mo


Bottom:

(click image for full res)
aw--apollo--2014-04-02--20--disk-rack-mo


Fan Mounting

Since the  fan screws need  to be tightened  rather heavily,
the  screws  exert  quite  a  bit of  pressure  on  the  fan
frames. To prevent the fan  frames from being crushed and/or
breaking, we made some brass bushings that take the brunt of
the pressure.

(click image for full res)
aw--apollo--2014-04-02--21--fan-bushings


And Mounted

And finally the disk racks are mounted inside the case. :)

(click image for full res)
aw--apollo--2014-04-02--22--disk-racks.j

(click image for full res)
aw--apollo--2014-04-02--23--disk-racks.j


Disk Mounting

The Disks just  slide into the slots and lock  into place in
the recesses  you can see  above. Since I can't  tighten the
screws, I'm using  Loctite to prevent them  from falling out
due  to vibration. I  tried to  get some  screws similar  to
those Lian Li use for their  HDD mounting, but the only ones
I could find were so expensive that they'd have cost me more
than 100 USD. So yeah, nope...

(click image for full res)
aw--apollo--2014-04-02--24--disk-screws.



There's still lots to do, but  that was by far the most work
intensive part of  this build, took us quite a  while to get
it done. And no, it won't be painted or anything, the server
will stand  in a closed  room in our  appartment anyway. I'd
have loved to make it all pretty and nice, but at the moment
I just don't have the time.


So long, and until next time. :)
-aw

 

BUILD LOGS: HELIOS - Latest Update: 2015-SEP-06 ::: ZEUS - BOTW 2013-JUN-28 ::: APOLLO - Complete: 2014-MAY-10
OTHER STUFF: Cable Lacing Tutorial ::: What Is ZFS? ::: mincss Primer ::: LSI RAID Card Flashing Tutorial
FORUM INFO: Community Standards ::: The Moderating Team ::: 10TB+ Storage Showoff Topic

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Very nice work!!

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Folding/Boinc Info - Check out the Folding and Boinc Section, read the Folding Install thread and the Folding FAQ. Info on Boinc is here. Don't forget to join team 223518. Check out other users Folding Rigs for ideas. Don't forget to follow the @LTTCompute for updates and other random posts about the various teams.

Follow me on Twitter for updates @Whaler_99

 

 

 

 

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Nothing but high quality stuff from you alpenwasser! :) 

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Very nice!!

Rig CPU Intel i5 3570K at 4.2 GHz - MB MSI Z77A-GD55 - RAM Kingston 8GB 1600 mhz - GPU XFX 7870 Double D - Keyboard Logitech G710+

Case Corsair 600T - Storage Intel 330 120GB, WD Blue 1TB - CPU Cooler Noctua NH-D14 - Displays Dell U2312HM, Asus VS228, Acer AL1715

 

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Very nice work!!

 

Thanks! :)

 

Man that is awesome! Haven't seen anyone make their own disk mounts before ;) NICE!

 

Yeah, it was a lot of work, even with the help from my neighbour. But it allows

me to best ulitize the space available to mount as many disks as possible.

 

Nothing but high quality stuff from you alpenwasser! :)

 

One does what one can, thanks! :)

Very nice!!

Yes it is. :D

(thanks ;)).

BUILD LOGS: HELIOS - Latest Update: 2015-SEP-06 ::: ZEUS - BOTW 2013-JUN-28 ::: APOLLO - Complete: 2014-MAY-10
OTHER STUFF: Cable Lacing Tutorial ::: What Is ZFS? ::: mincss Primer ::: LSI RAID Card Flashing Tutorial
FORUM INFO: Community Standards ::: The Moderating Team ::: 10TB+ Storage Showoff Topic

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Good lord that's going to be a lot of storage in a small space.

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use, and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them. - Galileo Galilei
Build Logs: Tophat (in progress), DNAF | Useful Links: How To: Choosing Your Storage Devices and Configuration, Case Study: RAID Tolerance to Failure, Reducing Single Points of Failure in Redundant Storage , Why Choose an SSD?, ZFS From A to Z (Eric1024), Advanced RAID: Survival Rates, Flashing LSI RAID Cards (alpenwasser), SAN and Storage Networking

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Good lord that's going to be a lot of storage in a small space.

That's the idea, yes. :D

Although for now I won't have it filled (that's also part of the concept, have

room for future expansion). Probably only 13 drives or so for now, not totally

sure yet.

I also contemplated going with a proper rack enclosure with lots of drive slots

(say, a Norco, for example), but Norcos are very hard to get here, and if you do

manage to find one, shipping will be very expensive since it's usually shipped

from north america or asia. And a Supermicro case with 24 slots? Almost as expensive

as this whole machine (although those usually include a server PSU, but still).

So yeah, overall I'm very happy with how this has turned out. The only thing it's

lacking is being properly hot-swappable, but meh, I can live without that, it's

just a home server after all, doesn't matter if I need to have a few minutes downtime

for installing/removing drives. :)

BUILD LOGS: HELIOS - Latest Update: 2015-SEP-06 ::: ZEUS - BOTW 2013-JUN-28 ::: APOLLO - Complete: 2014-MAY-10
OTHER STUFF: Cable Lacing Tutorial ::: What Is ZFS? ::: mincss Primer ::: LSI RAID Card Flashing Tutorial
FORUM INFO: Community Standards ::: The Moderating Team ::: 10TB+ Storage Showoff Topic

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I also contemplated going with a proper rack enclosure with lots of drive slots

(say, a Norco, for example), but Norcos are very hard to get here, and if you do

manage to find one, shipping will be very expensive since it's usually shipped

from north america or asia. And a Supermicro case with 24 slots? Almost as expensive

as this whole machine (although those usually include a server PSU, but still).

 

 

That's when E-Bay comes in handy, you can find used enclosures cheaper and if you are doing your own guts anyway all the more.

I roll with sigs off so I have no idea what you're advertising.

 

This is NOT the signature you are looking for.

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That's when E-Bay comes in handy, you can find used enclosures cheaper and if you are doing your own guts anyway all the more.

Tried that, and I did find a few offers, but everything what would have been suitable

fell either into the "ships to Switzerland for >200 USD" or the "doesn't ship to Switzerland"

category (just talking about the case here). But that's the thing with large enclosures,

they're usually expensive to ship, such is life.

The M/B, CPUs, RAM and the LSI controllers I did actually get on eBay, and for pretty

decent prices. The M/B turned out to be a bit on the expensive side after all was said

and done (200 USD + 60 USD shipping + ~60 USD taxes here), but the CPUs I got for about

60 USD per piece IIRC (+ ~40 USD taxes, not sure anymore), and the RAM was a decent price

as well. The LSI 9211-8i currently goes for ~100 USD on eBay, new in box (retail price

where I live is still ~350 USD).

But yes, in general eBay is a pretty good source for not-quite-current-gen hardware IME. :)

BUILD LOGS: HELIOS - Latest Update: 2015-SEP-06 ::: ZEUS - BOTW 2013-JUN-28 ::: APOLLO - Complete: 2014-MAY-10
OTHER STUFF: Cable Lacing Tutorial ::: What Is ZFS? ::: mincss Primer ::: LSI RAID Card Flashing Tutorial
FORUM INFO: Community Standards ::: The Moderating Team ::: 10TB+ Storage Showoff Topic

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Yay!!! An update!

Main rig on profile

VAULT - File Server

Spoiler

Intel Core i5 11400 w/ Shadow Rock LP, 2x16GB SP GAMING 3200MHz CL16, ASUS PRIME Z590-A, 2x LSI 9211-8i, Fractal Define 7, 256GB Team MP33, 3x 6TB WD Red Pro (general storage), 3x 1TB Seagate Barracuda (dumping ground), 3x 8TB WD White-Label (Plex) (all 3 arrays in their respective Windows Parity storage spaces), Corsair RM750x, Windows 11 Education

Sleeper HP Pavilion A6137C

Spoiler

Intel Core i7 6700K @ 4.4GHz, 4x8GB G.SKILL Ares 1800MHz CL10, ASUS Z170M-E D3, 128GB Team MP33, 1TB Seagate Barracuda, 320GB Samsung Spinpoint (for video capture), MSI GTX 970 100ME, EVGA 650G1, Windows 10 Pro

Mac Mini (Late 2020)

Spoiler

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Consoles: Softmodded 1.4 Xbox w/ 500GB HDD, Xbox 360 Elite 120GB Falcon, XB1X w/2TB MX500, Xbox Series X, PS1 1001, PS2 Slim 70000 w/ FreeMcBoot, PS4 Pro 7015B 1TB (retired), PS5 Digital, Nintendo Switch OLED, Nintendo Wii RVL-001 (black)

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Yeah, it was a lot of work, even with the help from my neighbour. But it allows

me to best ulitize the space available to mount as many disks as possible.

 

Even with the help of your dogs girlfriend ;)

PROFILEYEAH

What do people even put in these things?

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Are you gonna use rubber isolator on the drive cages?

 

Tought about it, but no. Couldn't find a solution what would not have cost me

tons of money. Lamptron makes some nice rubber washer mounts, but those cost like

5 USD per HDD, which makes >100 USD for all drives. Nope. :D

Not even eBay was helpful in this unfortunately.

Let's be honest though: Before a few years ago, none of our drives were ever

mounted with dampening and things seemed to work fine for many decades without

it, so it should be OK. Noise isn't really a big issue in this machine. The only

real concern is the HDDs getting damaged from the vibrations. If I suddenly

start losing disks left and right I'll know why, RMA them and make some modifications.

The important data is backed up anyway, and most of the drives are new-ish, so

that would still be a manageable scenario.

So, for the time being I'm just going to see what happens and keep an eye

on things.

 

Even with the help of your dogs girlfriend ;)

Well, she was more of a motivational coach than an actual help. :D

BUILD LOGS: HELIOS - Latest Update: 2015-SEP-06 ::: ZEUS - BOTW 2013-JUN-28 ::: APOLLO - Complete: 2014-MAY-10
OTHER STUFF: Cable Lacing Tutorial ::: What Is ZFS? ::: mincss Primer ::: LSI RAID Card Flashing Tutorial
FORUM INFO: Community Standards ::: The Moderating Team ::: 10TB+ Storage Showoff Topic

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Pure Amazing!

Thanks! :)

BUILD LOGS: HELIOS - Latest Update: 2015-SEP-06 ::: ZEUS - BOTW 2013-JUN-28 ::: APOLLO - Complete: 2014-MAY-10
OTHER STUFF: Cable Lacing Tutorial ::: What Is ZFS? ::: mincss Primer ::: LSI RAID Card Flashing Tutorial
FORUM INFO: Community Standards ::: The Moderating Team ::: 10TB+ Storage Showoff Topic

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