Ok, so the other day i aquired what was originally a $120,000 custom RAID unit from a dude w/ too much money and not enough space. seeing as its like 3 in the morning i wont take pictures right now, but ill have some up soon- its a 20 disk array w/ 16 SCSI drives in it, abuot 9 GB or so apiece. the original mainboard is no more, but all 8 (yes, eight) power supplys are still functional, and now there is a big ol cavity in the top, about the size of a normal sized ATX case. So my idea is this. Put two computers in the top cavity- one a tricked out rig, the other basically a stripped down board loaded with SCSI cards to run all the drives. Then build in a 24 port switch or something similar- this thing is on wheels, weighs like 200 pounds and is 3 feet tall- its a LAN Party in a case! anyways, any feedback would be vastly appreciated, this is just my preliminary plans, not a project yet, but its got potential.
Sounds interesting, but how are you going to get something that heavy to a LAN? It does, however, sound pretty cool to have your entire LANparty in one case. Make sure you have drawers so you can put your keyboard/mouse/headphones in there I've been toying with the idea of have 2 PCs in one case with an 8-port switch in it but I only have 1 working PC which is my not-so-tricked-out-but-quite-ok gaming rig, and I have an old S7 p200MMX with a 2 gig HDD with a PSU. Sucks eh? I need to get a cheap 2nd hand PC so I can turn that into a fileserver, nothing worse then people copying big stuff of your hdd when you're gaming.
ive had a friend do that while i had my 500mhzcomp, he decided to copy 2.5gigs of my music to his comp. never played a game that bad. back on topic, sounds good, try to get some pics up soon
Step 1: Buy a pickup truck, a small truck is OK Step 2: Buy loading ramps, and a winch kit to mount at the front of the truck bed Step 3: Attach a winch ring to one side of the case Step 4: Now think about putting in the rest of the parts...
much apoligies Devenfore- i've been pretty busy lately and have limited access to the internet. at any rate, yesterday i completely stripped everything down, and yes, i took pictures! i hopefully should be able to post them sometime tomorow afternoon. Changing topics, i opened up the SCSI controller that is built in to the system (or was) inside is basically a tiny motherboard, with 8 pci slots and another dual inline pci slot taken up by a controller card. that pretty much rules out using the existing system, because the cards are MIA and i dont have anything to fit there. So im definately going to build a pc in the top to control the 4 SCSI arrays, and then just put a network drop on the back. comments, suggestions, crazy ideas? im open
I'm looking forward to see some pics, as I have a similar project in mind [ I salvaged an Alphaserver 4100 pedestal server and might turn it if a multi comp case - it's like a half size 19" cabinet, and weights 120-140kgs empty - required a small truck to load it and bring it back home new, I have this thread flagged
Are the backplanes still there if so you should be able to run all of the drives with a single control aslong as it has 2 SCSI channels beause each channel can run 15 Drives Sounds interseting could you fit a atx board in the SCSI conpartment
Yup, all the power distribution stuff is still in place, and they all power up when the unit s turned on. Archon, you pretty much hit the nail on the head as to what im doing, im basically gonna mount an ATX board in there with PCI SCSI cards (i have two which will work). the drives are set up in four banks of 5 drives so there are four ribbon cables. the only thing that may be a problem is that they currently use 'active terminators,' which apparently need to be powered from the appropriate jack on the built in controller. they are built into the cables, so i may wind up having to get new cables if the terminators don't work without outside powering. more updates tonight!
What SCSI version are you useing from the the sound of it is SCSI II or SCSI 160 I think the terminator will be fine but don't know. Hope to see pics soon
Actually, i have no idea what kinda SCSI it is. but uh, anyone wanna give me a quick reminder on what the tag is to display images?
Pictures! Thanks Tos, you da man. Allright so here we have several pictures (crappy i know, but better than nothing of what im working with. As you can see, It is quite phsyically intimidating. As of right now, I've plopped an old Compaq Deskpro on top and I'm attempting to verify that all the SCSI stuff works. I think very soon now, the real fun will begin as lots of crap gets integrated into this. Im imagining something like ZapWizards Ammo Crate, but like 50 times bigger. Such as, LCD monitor folding out of the top, keyboards and wireless integrated, etc. Not quite a project log yet, but almost!
lol, that's really awesome, can't wait to see it up and running. You need to put a motor on the bottom so you can just drive it around with a remote .
Well Monk, I got this from a friend of mine who is a rich b*stard with too much stuff and not enough space. He practically paid me to take it away, and i had to beat him away with some screwdrivers or he wouldve forced me to take a gigantic, quad processor server also. Not that I didnt want it, but i simply dont have the space. Anyways, I've made some progress. So far ive gotten the SCSI cards and the PC hooked up to this to all boot up properly, now i just need to configure all the channels and format all the drives. Once i know for sure that the equipment still functions, the modding can begin!
WHAT?! You didnt take a quad processor server!?!?! You really must be cramped for space.... Well this could turn out to be awesome, cant wait to see some work on this monster. It would look nice with some nice black paint!
