Preparation
Before I moved all the components into the compact server housing, I first had to make sure that they were all in order. I had already put the disks through their paces during the network setup phase.
The HDDs were put through the good old Drive Fitness Test once, which took a whopping 8 hours for each individual disk.
All three disks came to me brand new.
Compared to modern SSDs, the good old HDDs are of course massively inferior in terms of transfer speed. However, this is perfectly adequate for my application, especially as the cache drive will easily compensate for this “bottleneck”.
The NVME purchased on eBay was also (virtually) brand new. It was taken by the seller from a new notebook that had been “upgraded” before delivery.
Of course, completely different transmission speeds are achieved here, which will not slow me down even if I upgrade to 10G LAN in the future.
Thanks to the free trial version, which allows you to try out the UnRaid operating system free of charge for 30 days, I was also able to test the rest of the hardware before moving into the case.
Mounting the hardware
As the compact housing actually only has two 3.5″ bays, but I wanted to install three drives neatly, I had to resort to the good old mounting rails that I had often come into contact with in the early 2000s.
The µATX towers that were widely used at the time usually only had two 3.5″ bays, which is why they quickly adapted to the 5.25″ bays that were often still free.
Thanks to the fully demountable drive carrier and with the help of the aforementioned mounting rails, the three boards could be neatly installed.
The solid mounting brackets for fastening in the 19″ cabinet make a very solid impression and were mounted in no time at all.
Once the board is screwed in place, you can no longer access the intake fans mounted on the front, which is why I mounted the optional fans directly in advance.
The two pre-installed Yate Loons were supplemented by two more 80s in the budget section. The resulting small fan array should ensure sufficient fresh air supply for the frugal hardware.
Once the fans had been screwed and wired, the spacers were screwed into the appropriate threads for the ATX board.
Whether the 60mm colleague in the rear makes a big difference, I dare to doubt. But the less warm air the power supply has to transport out of the housing, the better the conscience.
Speaking of the power supply unit – this was then allowed to take its place straight away. I deactivated the passive mode, as the relatively “loud” fan in the storage room won’t bother me and a continuous airflow is guaranteed.
Next, the mainboard was allowed to move in and now, at the latest, you can see from the size and space ratios in the pictures how compact the case really is.
Thanks to the modular cable management, the fan in front of the power supply is not blocked – that’s how I imagined it!
There was just one small detail that I had completely missed in all my euphoria: Pay attention to the S-ATA connectors on the mainboard. No problem with 90° connectors? Unfortunately not, because the 90° S-ATA cables are all “bent” in the other direction.
A few expensive 180° dual S-ATA adapters from China should provide a remedy.
I was skeptical as to whether they would really work. At least they solved my problem mechanically.
The cable routing of the S-ATA cables could hardly have been more ideal; the cables run directly past the compact box cooler and cannot block it without external interference.
But before everything is screwed and sealed, it’s better to try out whether everything really works with the questionable adapters. And who would have thought it? All three plates are recognized correctly at the first attempt. Nice!
So everything was completed and a first test run could be carried out.
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