An Introduction to Project EGOR the never ending story.

[Snowmirage]

*Incoming log winded post showcasing a bunch of tech gear I hope I do the  Linus Tech Tips community proud!* (Skip to the end for the "good stuff")

 

I stumbled across the Linus Tech Tips YouTube channel a few months back and I've been hooked ever since!  I've been far to busy the last few months to spend nearly the time here on the forums I wanted to, but with things finally slowing down I figured this was a good place to start with a bit of an introduction...... to my gear of course not me....

 

I've been a technology nut for as long as I can remember my first "project" was wiring two 9 pin serial port cables together into a null modem cable which I subsequently used to network our first two family computers and used them to play Warcraft and Command and Conquer with friends for years to come.

 

By the time college rolled around my room was always cluttered with computers in various states of assembly, seeing that tour Linus gave us sometime ago of the LTT studio brought back some memories!  Though I have to say I've never gone as far as to keep a server or two in the bathroom!  But I always had one server half assembled on or under my desk waiting to experiment with a new Linux distro or something, a desktop I was fixing for a friend piled in the corner.  It drove me nuts!

 

After getting a tour of the backroom of our college network one summer I was inspired to get organized and rack mount all my gear!  After realizing it was nearly impossible to get a decent equipment rack with the cash I had at the time I ended up building this monstrosity....

 

Fittingly Dubbed "Project EGOR"

 

Version 1.0 (O the horror!!! It gets better I swear!!)

 

It continued to evolve over time.... half way through college it had transformed into this (a little less suck this time!)

 

Version.... 5.4?

 

 

Now the "good stuff" (well at least I think so!)

 

Presenting Project EGOR

Version... 234.2 or there about... I think...

 

 

Topology and Specs

 

 

In order of appearance (Top to bottom) skipping most of the boring stuff.

 

 

5!!! err 4 ... 4 COMPUTERS HA HA HA HA

 

 

1) VMWare ESXi Server

Rosewill RSV-L4000 Rackmount Case

Intel i7 3820 @ 4.0Ghz

56GB RAM

240GB SSD

2TB iSCSI FreeNAS Drive

Dual Port Gig Intel Nic x 3

 

2) Freenas Storage Server

Rosewill RSV-L4000 Rackmount Case

Intel i7 2700k

32GB RAM

IBM ServeRAID M1015 (2 connections 8 drives in JBOD ... yum!)

13 Drives ( 1 to many!  O well ZIP tie that thing!)

2x RAIDZ2 arrays

~10+TB Total usable storage

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3) Desktop 

Rosewill RSV-L4000 Rackmount Case

Intel 3770k @ 4.7ghz

Corsair H100i Liquid Cooler

16 GB RAM

240GB SSD X2 Raid Zero

2TB iSCSI FreeNAS Drive

ASUS Sabertooth Z77 Motherboard

NVIDIA 660Ti x2 SLI @ 1201Mhz

Kraken G10 + Corsair H50 Liquid Cooler x2

NVVIDIA GT 520

Ceton InfiniTV4 PCIe TV tuner

Dual Port Gig Intel Nic

Corsair HX1000i PSU

 

 

 

4) CyberPower 1350PFCLCD UPS5

 

5) "Old Faithful" 

Beat and busted 4U rackmount case I've had forever

ABIT BP6 Motherboard! (Bonus points if anyone else remembers these!)

DUAL Celeron CPUs!  Overclocked to something still REALLY SLOW!

At least a MB or two of ram!

 

Monitors and Such

 

Samsung S27B550 27"

LG 34UM95-P 34" 

Samsung 731B 17" x2

Klipsch KG-200 Headset

Klipsch Speakers

Corsair K95 Keyboard

Razer Naga Mouse

4TB USB 3.0 Drive

5TB USB 3.0 Drive

 

Work Bench Storage + Test Bench and Tools

 

Whats that?  Yes that's a 72" tool chest and yes it totally counts as living room furniture why do you ask?

 

 

 

It was actually a challenge to fit this all in the frame.... need a bigger place....

 

 

So there you have it.  Its a never ending story nearly 10 years in the making so far and I have hundreds of pages of ideas and plans to come!

 

To long winded? Nah! You're lucky I didn't attempt to explain how it all works or what it does!!! A story for another day.... maybe...

 

Please share your thoughts!

[dizmo]

I don't even have words...

[Mattb6288]

that cable management. got zip ties? haha

[ArcticfoxHQ]

This is beautiful. I'd love to see you get a 6 monitor setup just to say you one upped yourself again.

[Snowmirage]

that cable management. got zip ties? haha

It does need some work  :blush: Only recently added that beaut of a LG monitor and as I'm still moving stuff around haven't bothered to tidy up behind the desk.

 

I'm trying to come up with a way to do some better cable management in the Gaming PC, the servers are what they are I suppose, but in that case there just isn't any room....its almost like it wasn't designed for 480 mm worth of radiators 

 

If I had the tools I'd modify this case or build my own something similar but with a 1 or 2 more space under the motherboard tray to hide everything.

 

 

This is beautiful. I'd love to see you get a 6 monitor setup just to say you one upped yourself again.

 

Funny you mention that before getting the new LG monitor I had a 27", 24" the two 17", and 2 USB monitors I found on sale on woot.

 

That LG monitor though... mmmmm man I love that thing! Best investment I've ever made in gear except maybe the ESX server.

[ArcticfoxHQ]

It does need some work  :blush: Only recently added that beaut of a LG monitor and as I'm still moving stuff around haven't bothered to tidy up behind the desk.

 

I'm trying to come up with a way to do some better cable management in the Gaming PC, the servers are what they are I suppose, but in that case there just isn't any room....its almost like it wasn't designed for 480 mm worth of radiators 

 

If I had the tools I'd modify this case or build my own something similar but with a 1 or 2 more space under the motherboard tray to hide everything.

 

 

 

Funny you mention that before getting the new LG monitor I had a 27", 24" the two 17", and 2 USB monitors I found on sale on woot.

 

That LG monitor though... mmmmm man I love that thing! Best investment I've ever made in gear except maybe the ESX server.

I want to buy three of those LG monitors in the curved fashion just to say i did it but that would cost almost $4k and my system isn't worth that so. This is actually mind blowing to see how much work was actually put in to making an amazing system.

[Snowmirage]

I never got around to posting updates but over the last two years I've tackled a few more crazy Projects.

Moved a couple times and had to seriously physically down size.

First I hand built a custom rolling mini rack for my desktop, switch / router etc.
And hacked together a new desk from a table top and shelf + brackets from Ikea.

 

[Snowmirage]

Next I had a mid life crisis at 30 something.... and decided to waste a ton of money and build this...

2 Gamers 1 CPU inspired running Unraid

EVGA SR-2 board 
48 GB RAM
2x X5680 cpus running at 4+Ghz
two EVGA 980s
24x 3.5" HDDs  combination of 2TB and 6TB drives
Room for 12x 2.5 Sata SSDs have about 6 in there atm as a cache

Completely hand built case, though I did buy the PCI slot thing and mobo tray from .... mountain mods I think it was.