This time I was going to make a better design and although
the first design wasn't a success I learned quite a bit from it.
Measuring up for the MiniITX board
Instead of making one row
of eight HDs like the prototype, 2 rows of four and mouting the mother
board in the middle would give better airflow over the drives.
I decided to make the frames in a "mass production" style so
after finishing the mockup and everything seemed to fit I
used it as a template and made 4 matching frames.
The PSU takes up a lot of room so I mounted
it on the outside
of the case.
The front
A power button, a
reset button, a power light and a HD activity light and also a 4x20 LCD to
display some info about the servers.
When using 8 HDs there's also the issue of having 8 power plugs for them
and this will make a lot of messy cable clutter so I made a "power
rail" of some plugs and some stiff wire.
I used 4 old hard drives to get the distance right by placing the
connectors on them and then soldered the wire to them.
The finished power rail with some hotmelt added to make it more stable.
