Extra Time+Few $$+ 21" Server Case+ Pile of Parts in Closet = FUN!!

[Capt Fiero]

Ok if you want you can skip the reading and go straight for the video. But you will miss the point of the video if you dont read the topic first. (There is nothing really cool in the video just mindless chatter from me) Yes there is audio. Please not this came from boredom but I found it kinda fun to tinker.

http://www.members.shaw.ca/capt_fiero/filerserver.wmv


Ok so it is a lazy Sunday afternoon. Pretty boring dont really want to watch TV, to lazy to go and tinker with my car. It is just one of those days that you want to sit down and tinker with something but what to tinker with. Hmm. Ok Go take a walk to the computer parts closet. Start looking around and pile of parts here, pile or parts there, extra this and that. Walk out of closet and realize I have not done to much with my server recently. So I grab my computer tools and decide what I am going to do.

I dont want raid, and I dont have enough SCSI Stuff but I want lots of hard drives. I want partitions galore. I want this machine to be an all in one box. It has been running as a plain jain FTP/WEB/Print server with a 10gig and a 4 gig drive for ages. (4gig old drive for the OS and 10gig for files and such) Hmm, what to do what to do.

Here is what I ended up with.

21" R case.
Asus P3B-F Motherboard
Slot One P3-550 CPU
4x 128mb PC133 sticks for a total of 512mb of ram
2x 3com PCI 10/100 Network Cards
1 Compaq 56K Data / Fax modem (dont know why I put it in, just becuase. I already have a fax machine)
1 Geforce 2 MX420 64mb Video Card
1 Ulta 133 IDE Card
1 Soundblaster 16 ISA Sound Card (it still works amazing)
1 Vantec Nexus Fan Controller (to keep all the fans quite)
5x 80mm Fans (Hey I have a vantec why not)
Lots of Wire for the fans
1 52x CD ROM Drive
1 no name floppy drive
seveal really long Cables
Lots of Wire for the fans
and
5 IDE Hard Drives a 3gig, 4gig, 10gig, 30gig and a 40gig. That is where the fun started, trying to get all the Hard Drives to work and not have any of them on the same channel as the CD rom drive. I ended up putting 4 of the drives on the 133 card, and put the OS drive on the motherboard channel one with the CD on the channel 2. Getting all the wiring for all of the drives was a bit of a pain then mix in all the wiring for all the fans. It was a hell of a mess. I am going to clean it up later. But for now I just wanted to see if it would really boot up and remain stable.

Extermally it has an external USB Hard Drive, USB Mouse, HP Office Jet all in one scanner, copier, fax, printer, HP UPS on com port 1. This really has turned into something fun. It has already got wheels on it from the last time I got bored with it. I am thinking that it might be time to add a window to it. Just about everything on the machine is shared for use in the house. I am going to put all my moves and music and apps onto the machine, then open up a few FTP locations.

Ok well I hope you at least get a laugh out of the video, it sure was an interesting way to kill an afternoon.

 

[elec999]

If I was you, I would dump the 3gig, 4gig. They pretty useless to me.

 

[Capt Fiero]

If I was you, I would dump the 3gig, 4gig. They pretty useless to me.

Well the OS is on the 4 gig, I am thinking about moving the OS to another drive and if I do the 4gig will get moved to FTP incomming files. As for the 3 gig that is what it is used for now, incomming FTP stuff. I pulled out the 1.6 gig drives I was using for incomming files. I rip apart old garbage machines strip the semi usfull stuff and toss the rest so I end up with a lot of small drives kicking around. I have even had a few 300mb drives. I gave them away to tech friends to use as paper weights.

 

[Mr.Radar]

Those old ISA SB16s last forever. I have one sitting on top of my computer right now. If they made mobos with ISA slots I'd be using it (IMHO, it's one of the best soundcards ever made).

 

[Malpine Walis]

Y'now. I have almost the exact same case. Only it has two fans above the PSU. Did you have to cut the hole for the one below the PSU like I did? And yah, I have my mouse and trackball on top of the case also. Only thing is that I have the mouse connected to the USB on my keyboard (hey a free eight button logitech mouse ain't something to dis).

Also, I would drop by your local ratshack and get some spiral wrap so that you can clean up those wires. Apart from that, it looks like you had some good fun...

 

[Capt Fiero]

I am gonna hit the local speed shop and pick up some nice red or green wire loom and tidy up the wires.

I had a problem with it last night though, one of the hard drives kept kicking in and out. I tried to access the drive over the network and it said it was not there.

Turned out to be a bad molex connecter. I went and bought 4 new pigtails today and installed them. All seems to be fine now.

The machine itself is seeming to be rock solid. I need to do some tweaking to it but I am gernally happy with it.