Raspberry Pi NAS [ 'Compactizing' and rebuilding the case ~FINISHED NOW] 20th Feb 2015

[JokuTyyppi]

Looks great, keep it up!

 

Thanks, and oh I will!

[JokuTyyppi]

[uPDATE 25th Jan 2015]

 

I was a lazy b*tch today and didn't do that much but managed to make a hole for the fan and some kind of mounting system (not finished) for the drives.  

 

Haven't been able to attach the pieces together yet, as my friend Razbit is still making the circuit board for the power and ethernet ports to the back of the case. After I get its dimensions I can attach the wooden pieces together and start sketching some aluminium. 

 

Not so sure about next weeks progress tho... I have an exam week ahead which may slow the progress a liiiiitttle but luckily not for long

 

Tomorrow I think I will go and get one more 2tb drive and steal one from my main pc to upgrade RPi from 1tb to 2tb Nas

 

Fan hole

 

Overall image right now. That drive there is just an example, not going to use an ide drive

 

Side number one (marked in the picture) will be also openable so that i can just slide the drives in and out.

The area where i draw those ugly lines, will be of black painted aluminium. 

[Razbit]

Looking good!

 

Here's what the board looks like at the moment, gettin' there:

 

 

I'll try to finish it today..

[Razbit]

Just a quick write-up of making the connector board.

 

So, JokuTyyppi asked me what kind of connector system would be good, and I said I'll figure out something. After looking around for a while, I found these:

 

I thought they could make a good connector board, but after desoldering the ethernet connector, I found out it had internal optocouplers or something, so I had to go look for another connector. We decided having some USB ports in the back wouldn't hurt, this is what I came up with:

 

I started by soldering it and the Molex connector to the board, accompanied with a short ethernet cable to go to the Raspberry Pi:

 

Then, the power lines:

 

And USB:

 

The soldering:

 

Also, since the RPi only has two USB ports, a hub was needed. Here it is, all done. (except for some hot glue for keeping it together.. )

 

 

There ya go, buddy!

[JokuTyyppi]

[uPDATE 29.1.2015]

 

Now the wooden pieces are put together and it is waiting for a paintjob and the aluminium top and front covers. It is going to be a really tight  fit with the Usb-hub and the Sata -> Usb adapters.

 

I have also bought a WD Red 2tb and migrated all the files there. The secondary hdd will be stolen from my main pc (WD Green 2tb). The original 1tb drive that was with this Nas had 19500 hours on it!! I thought it would be time to switch to a new one

 

I'll let the pictures talk as I'll have to continue reading for tomorrows history exam...

 

The barebone case

 

[

 

This is how the backpanel IO is going to be. It is not attached to anything in that pic so it is not straight.

 

You see how tight it is? And those drives aren't the ones to be in this system. Seagate: No thank you!

[Razbit]

Looks great, as usual

 

That DoF effect is quite big, but otherwise pretty nice pics you got there, m8!

[JokuTyyppi]

[uPDATE 3.2.2015]

 

The wooden part is now painted and the electric thingys are sent back to Razbit. Also a wooden plate for the Pi itself has been created and painted. Aaaand last but not least I just cut the top aluminum. I am planning to just sand paper it so it would be like brushed aluminum. First I thought I would paint it black but now that the whole case is black, aluminum must be, well, aluminum

 

 

 

 

 

[JokuTyyppi]

[update 7.2.2015]

 

Everything is finally ready except the aluminum which is still waiting to be etched and brushed. I have already installed the components in to the case to see if it is working and IT IS! I think it is quite awesome to have all of those things powered with only one psu and have them crammed in such a small case

 

Sorry for the pictures not being that beautiful as the thing was running when I took the pics and it isn't placed where it'll permanently be when ready.

 

There is a switch for the second hdd so that it won't run all the time and is safe from some spikes in electric network

[JokuTyyppi]

[uPDATE 20.2.2015]

 

 

Hello again, the aluminum cover is now finished and is being glued to the rest of the build right now. I just decided to give you some pictures before showing off the finished build tomorrow. I think the aluminum came up pretty nice for what kind of equipment I had It is not perfect, but looks pretty damn good to my eye at least  On the other hand, the wooden part of this build is not quite straight I tend to do things a little (but luckily only a little ) f*cked up and I have a motto that I never get anything straight ( In terms of things, not people ) Sooo there will be some gaps between the aluminum and the rest, but you'll see tomorrow I hope '

 

So here is the aluminum top and front cover: 

 

 

[JokuTyyppi]

[uPDATE 20.2.2015^Final]

 

My Raspberry Pi home server is now finally completed First it was just about trying out something new and more reliable than just our home router with a hdd but after keeping it running for about a year, I decided that it is really going to stay and it needed a nicer case and most importantly, only one psu instead of four I wanted to make it as compact as possible, while still remaining some kind of airflow inside. I think the hardest part was actually the aluminum top and front as making it look nice took a ton of time and a LOT of nerves There were some nasty complications with the varnish on the aluminum so the finish is not as beautiful as it was but I am definitely not going to take the varnish off for third time, it is a real PIA.

 

Thanks to my friend Razbit for providing some of the electronics, soldering those small wires straight to the pcb and making some things not so f*cked up

 

In future I might change the model B Pi to some other small form factor pc that has a gigabit connection but it is not going to happen anytime soon  

 

Feel free to comment!

 

Here are some pics:

 

 

 

 

 

See u around

[gazabi]

Wooooooowwwww! It looks so clean!

[Antibull]

That fan            

[Razbit]

Just as zen as it should be! Gratz m8!

[JokuTyyppi]

Wooooooowwwww! It looks so clean!

 

Thanks! I think it looks pretty good too, although there are some gaps here and there and the hinges are not the same model

 

That fan

You see, I don't like noise When I was shopping the fan for this I was comparing some arctic cooling fan and noctua, both 60mm. It was a tough decision as the noctua was 15€ and Arctic Cooling was 3€. I thought that I will get mad at noise so Noctua was the way to go. There are still FOUR low noise adapters before the fan I could just have bought one bigger resistor instead of using the noctua ones. Would have been much cleaner and cheaper.

[Antibull]

 

Thanks! I think it looks pretty good too, although there are some gaps here and there and the hinges are not the same model

 

You see, I don't like noise When I was shopping the fan for this I was comparing some arctic cooling fan and noctua, both 60mm. It was a tough decision as the noctua was 15€ and Arctic Cooling was 3€. I thought that I will get mad at noise so Noctua was the way to go. There are still FOUR low noise adapters before the fan I could just have bought one bigger resistor instead of using the noctua ones. Would have been much cleaner and cheaper.

 

Is it an intake or exaust ? If it is intake try putting a pantyhose before it as filter ;p 

[JokuTyyppi]

Is it an intake or exaust ? If it is intake try putting a pantyhose before it as filter ;p

It is intake and I have thought about putting some kind of filter to it. It will just look less nice, but it is probably worth it I'll try to find something today, I think i have some filters left from my main pc

[Ralphington]

I'm so annoyed that i've only just seen this but DAMN is this thing nice, and the case aint too bad either. these raspberry pi's are just a fountain of opportunities it seems, well done!

[JokuTyyppi]

I'm so annoyed that i've only just seen this but DAMN is this thing nice, and the case aint too bad either. these raspberry pi's are just a fountain of opportunities it seems, well done!

Thank you! It is amazing how capable that small AND cheap computer is. Of course the speed isnt anything special, about 10mb/s but that is fine for me In addition to being a Samba server it is also hosting one website for my mothers work and running an owncloud server which I use with my schoolwork to keep everything synced with different computers. It is overclocked to 900mhz wihout touching volts, it helped a bit with the loading speed of the owncloud web view.

[Phorlorn]

Very cute little NAS, love it

[Ate]

This build inspire me so much to build my own.. Where can i get the sata to USB adapter?

 

 

[uPDATE 20.2.2015^Final]

 

My Raspberry Pi home server is now finally completed First it was just about trying out something new and more reliable than just our home router with a hdd but after keeping it running for about a year, I decided that it is really going to stay and it needed a nicer case and most importantly, only one psu instead of four I wanted to make it as compact as possible, while still remaining some kind of airflow inside. I think the hardest part was actually the aluminum top and front as making it look nice took a ton of time and a LOT of nerves There were some nasty complications with the varnish on the aluminum so the finish is not as beautiful as it was but I am definitely not going to take the varnish off for third time, it is a real PIA.

 

Thanks to my friend Razbit for providing some of the electronics, soldering those small wires straight to the pcb and making some things not so f*cked up

 

In future I might change the model B Pi to some other small form factor pc that has a gigabit connection but it is not going to happen anytime soon  

 

Feel free to comment!

 

 

[JokuTyyppi]

This build inspire me so much to build my own.. Where can i get the sata to USB adapter?

Good to hear My sata -> usb adapters are stolen from existing external drives but you can get them from t.ex eBay or from your local pc hardware stores

[JarJarBanksy]

You should make something like this for a rack. Would be pretty cool and cheap. 

 

Legos are not cheap. If you want cheap you go to the hardware store, get some threaded steel rods, a few nuts of the same thread size, plastic tubing, some square wooden rods (1"x1"), and sheet of quarter inch plywood. All in all, the materials and quantity that you need for this should be around $20. The rest is just a bit of work with drilling some holes, drilling screws, cutting plastic tubing to make spacers between the pi's, etc.

[JokuTyyppi]

It has now been running untouched since my last update and it has been great! Just thinking about getting RPI 2 to speed up owncloud a bit... It is a shame that RPI 2 didn't come with gigabit ethernet either, and that would have been my main reason to upgrade to it.