JUDGE ME! Ikea cube home server build

[GW2]

It's not completed yet, but I've finally gotten to the point where I feel like it's worth sharing at this point.

 

The Story - you can skip this if you just want specs and pictures.
 

I received 4 old systems from a client of the company I work for, they were dual xeon systems, spec'd fairly high because they were used as a render farm for architectural renderings, which they switched to sending out to be done many years ago. 2 of the systems were nonfunctional so I removed the RAM from them and fully populated the board on the one I decided to build. I played around with the systems for about a year, fighting to install the latest OS for which the Asus motherboard listed drivers for, but never had any success installing in AHCI or RAID mode to my 2 160GB Intel 320 series SSDs. Just this week I found a Windows Server 2012 license I had from my College days, it installed without a fuss, and didn't even require any drive updates! I'd finally gotten it to the point where I could configure it properly. I had also received 6x 3TB SAS HDDS, a SAS card, and one SAS-8487 to 4x SAS connector cable, with Molex power for the drives. So, after getting windows updated, installing and configuring AD DS, and installing the management utilities for the onboard RAID & LAN I installed the SAS card, which was recognized again, without me needing to install a driver - WOOHOO! Now, only being able to install 4 SAS drives, I would have to wait for the final config, but I wanted to make sure everything worked, so I configured them in RAID 5 and let the Array build. After about a day the building was done and everything came up nice and clean, I updated the firmware of the SAS card & the HDDs, and everything stayed up and running. 

 

Now for the fun part, With everything running, I decided the giant Thermaltake Armor V1 case had to go, I live in a small basement apartment, and had nowhere to put it. I had recently set up my 4x4 Ikea Lack cube unit as a sudo networking rack, I installed a 24-port switch by bending the rackmount brackets forwards so I could screw it into the sides, and used it as a shelf for my router, and Raspberry Pi, and setup the shelf beside it with the two NAS units I have. Later I installed doors on the two units, but the 2-bay NAS only has a 40MM fan and would shut down under load due to temperature. I grabbed a 120VAC to molex power supply used for powering HDDs externally, and I mounted a fan in the door, problem solved! This is where I got some real inspiration, "Why can't i just stick the server in a cube?" I thought to myself. so I disconnected the system, pulled out the motherboard, and low and behold, it fit perfectly!

 

This is the part where the judgement comes in, I simply used wood screws to secure the board to the side of the cube, placed all the hardware in as best I could (drives piled on top of each other, etc) and fired her up, wen't off without a hitch, so then I began the process of cleaning it up, and making it presentable. I mounted the 2 boot SSDs in the spare drive cage I had from my Fractal Node 605, and screwed it into the roof of the unit, put the PSU in the corner, robbed a removable drive 4 drive cage from a scrap PC i had laying around and secured it to the bottom of the cube & mounted the SAS drives in it, I also took the power switch assembly from that case and just hooked it up and left it inside, ran the PSU cables up and across the top to keep airflow clean and open, tie strapped all the cables to keep it neat. 

 

But I had one last problem, This is no NAS, I need real airflow through this thing! I bought a 19mm Antec fan, molex powered, with a 3-speed control switch build into the harness, cut a hole in the door with a jigsaw, and hot blued the bad boy in place, I took a piece of soft black foam from the box of a dell laptop I set up for a client, cut it to size, and hot glued it to the front of the door to cover the fan, and act as a dust filter, things really came together nicely, it's not pretty, but I've always been a function over form kind of guy. 

 

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The results

 

I still need to get my second SAS cable, and one more drive cage, then I can build the array into a RAID 6, giving me 18TB of storage assuming I buy 2 more of the dirves (probably will buy 4 to account for future drive failures). I'm also thinking about adding the power switch assembly to the door, but probably will never bother, as once something works I turn into a lazy turd. Currently it gives my 8TB of storage, I backup the System state and C drive to an HPE RDX 500GB HDD cartridge, and backup the data drive to my NAS. Specs and Pictures of the whole setup below.

 

Router - Not telling! but you can probably identify it

Switch - D-Link DGS-1024D

2-bay NAS - D-Link DNS-321 - 2x 1TB in RAID 1

4-bay NAS - Seagate Business Storage 4-bay - 4x 2TB in 2 RAID 1s(is a total piece of shit, RAID 5 array fails constantly, want to try with 4 brand new drives, but have gotten it stable by just making 2 RAID 1's for now)

Backup drive - HPE RDX - odd solution which I got for free when decommissioned by a client, uses cartridges that just hold a 2.5" HDD, but presents them as removable storage to windows. Works great though.

Server - 
Motherboard: Asus Z8PE-D12

CPU: 2x Intel Xeon E5520 @ 2.27GHz (Quad core Hyperthreaded)

RAM: 48GB (12x 4GB DDR3-1333 ECC Kingston R3)

Boot drive: 2x 160GB Intel SSD 320 series in RAID 1

SAS Controller: Adaptec 6805

Data drive current: 8TB - 4x Seagate ST330000650SS SAS drives in RAID 5

Data drive planned: 18TB - 8x Seagate ST330000650SS SAS drives in RAID 6 + 2 spare drives (no hotspares)

 

The units from the outside

 

Networking cube

 

Storage cube

 

Server cube

[Oshino Shinobu]

Messy on the inside, but functional and hidden away. I like it. 

[ARikozuM]

Why am I more interested in the Pikachu N64 than the server?

[GW2]

Just now, ARikozuM said:

Why am I more interested in the Pikachu N64 than the server?

I understand completely lol.

[samiscool51]

judged

verdict: guilty, of not being in space! go to space jail!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

space.....

[leadeater]

Well now that is some epic DIY 

[reeceythelegend]

Nice setup you've got there. 

 

What do you use the raspberry pi for?

[GW2]

9 hours ago, reeceythelegend said:

Nice setup you've got there. 

 

What do you use the raspberry pi for?

Open VPN server, but i never use it, so i need to re-purpose it for something. Any suggestions?

[Blake]

On 4/19/2017 at 9:49 AM, GW2 said:

-snip-

nice idea, couple of suggestions though.

 

1. Re-drill the holes you are using for all the screws into the particle board, on each one. They kinda suck, use some brass footings and some eproxy, then you can just use normal mobo screws for the mobo. If you can do a similar thing with the network cube that'd look a lot better also, and you wont have to deal with the mdf disintegrating because it's unprotected.

2. Nice that your rocking the tape backups.... but bit pointless if they are not kept off site/in a fireproof safe?

[GW2]

14 hours ago, Blake said:

-snip-

1 - I'm definitely not interested in cleaning it up any further until it needs to come apart for some other reason, it works. Like I said in the OP, I'm a function over form kind of guy, it being up and running pretty much means I'm not going to disassemble the thing until I move. What can I say? I'm lazy! lol. When I move (happening in about 3 months probably) I was thinking I'd go an easier route and remove the motherboard tray from a PC case, and leave room behind it for cable management. I also want to replace the CPU heatsinks as the 40mm fans are pretty much all I hear aside from electrical noise that I believe is coming from the southbridge.

 

2 - They aren't tapes, they're HDDs, I'm going to start bringing one drive to my parents house about an hour away, so that should be good to account for fire, natural disaster etc. But I like the idea of the fire safe, I'll have to pick one up.

 

Thanks for the feedback.

[brandishwar]

On 4/20/2017 at 10:45 AM, GW2 said:

I was thinking I'd go an easier route and remove the motherboard tray from a PC case, and leave room behind it for cable management.

Optionally, unless you really want the destruction, is to buy a motherboard tray from CaseLabs or Mountain Mods as they sell them separately. Just be sure to pay attention to dimensions.

[GW2]

45 minutes ago, brandishwar said:

Optionally, unless you really want the destruction, is to buy a motherboard tray from CaseLabs or Mountain Mods as they sell them separately. Just be sure to pay attention to dimensions.

Being in Canada, generally makes that stuff crazy expensive, but i'll be keeping an eye out for a good deal, thanks for the idea.

[reeceythelegend]

On 4/19/2017 at 11:43 PM, GW2 said:

Open VPN server, but i never use it, so i need to re-purpose it for something. Any suggestions?

Late reply but, I use one for a torrent client. I loaded deluge onto it with the deluge webGUI so I can manage it remotely. 

[Mikensan]

You can do some IDS with the Pi just for giggles (port mirror from your router/switch > Pi). The only thing I'd be worried about is while your motherboard should ground through your power supply, it may use one of the mounting holes as another ground (every vendor is different). Should be able to eyeball it or look at any initial pictures you have of it. And maybe mount some thick foam between your hard drive trays and the wood to help dampen vibrations. I think I see you've already screwed it down which would be my only other suggestion.

 

I really like it, thinking outside (inside?) the box. Very cool to have it all within the same ikea furniture which blends in nicely.

 

You say we could probably guess what your router is, but I'm drawing a blank. The device to the right of your Pi kind of sort of looks like a netgate which could be running pfSense or RouterOS (or any other firewall o/s).