Homemade Home Server

Handernye · April 28, 2013

This is my build log of a homemade server using acrylic glass and random parts laying around the house.

I am building this server because space became an issue. All of my hard drives was stuffed.

Currently this is not running, but the plan is to install FreeNAS on one of the laptop hard drives

(going to replace these with SSD's) and use this as a file server on my LAN. This is so that I can watch

movies on my HTPC, and also so that my parents don't have to bug me every time

they want to watch Desperate Housewife (or whatever).

The only parts missing is a RAID-controller, the hard drives and two SSD's (this build log will be updated when I can afford it).

I need to find a RAID-controller that can support up to 10 hard drives, because this little bad boy is going to have

at least 20 TB of space (might go for 30 TB if I can find ten 3 TB-drives cheap).

Parts so far:

Kingston 4GB 1333MHz DDR3 CL9

Intel Celeron G460 1.8GHZ Socket 1155

Asus P8H61-I LX R2.0

ICY BOX IB-555SSK (2x)

SilverStone ST40F-ES 400W

Corsair AF 140 Quiet Edition

This is the front of the case. Here you can see where the drives are going to be placed.

I have also used an old drive bay cover taken from a Corsair C70. I spray painted it black

and added the power button along with the reset buttons for the alarm to the hard drive bays.

Then I got a DVD-drive and painted it black as well. After that i riveted every thing together.

A sideview of the server. The case itself was made with scrap-parts of acrylic from another project,

so it is not that well cut. The cathode was added so that I could see into the closet (where this server is placed),

because the lightbulb in the closet broke several months ago, and I was just too lazy to replace it...

This is the back of the server. This was taken from my parents old case. Some of it was

from the back of the case, and some of it came from the side panel. I had to cut it out, drill all the holes

and paint it black. Not a perfect solution, but it works. Also had to cut a hole for the fan.

A overview picture towards the back. Here you can see the hardware and some of the solutions I had to

come up with. I put two disk from some laptops laying around, stacked them on top of each other and bolted it

to the power supply. The plan is to replace those drives with SSD's and run FreeNAS on one of them, and use the other

as a cache drive for the RAID-drives. I also had to cut some of the cables from the power supply and replace them with

molex-connectors so that the drives could get enough power. PS: Cable routing was a NIGHTMARE in this little case...

A overview picture towards the front of the case. This is where you can see the back of the drive cages and it's connectors.

This is a brilliant product, so customizable. I bolted the two cages to each other and used this as the main backbone to the case.

Thank you for taking your time to check out my server.

TicTac · April 28, 2013

Nice job looks cool smart idea :)

Handernye · April 28, 2013

Nice job looks cool smart idea :)

Thanks! Did my best with the hardware I had on hand.

Caravetta · April 29, 2013

Looks good man I like the custom case.

gastew15 · May 10, 2013

Wow, it actually doesn't look too terrible for just being thrown together with some parts laying around. Seems like alot better design than my NAS that's just some drives lying around hooked up to a frakenstein computer in a box in my basement XD

Handernye · May 10, 2013

Wow, it actually doesn't look too terrible for just being thrown together with some parts laying around. Seems like alot better design than my NAS that's just some drives lying around hooked up to a frakenstein computer in a box in my basement XD

Thanks! Actually quite satisfied with the result, saving up to get a RAID-card and the hard drives atm... ^_^