Home 'All In One' Server Build

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Big_O

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Jun 1, 2017
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Build’s Name: Home 'All In One' Server
Full Spec: PartPicker Link
Usage Profile: Plex Server, VM's, Storage Server

This is a build thread for my home server i've been keeping since January 2017, thought it would be worth posting here. Using a modified Fractal R5 case, Raspberry Pi and Display and some other custom bits.

Here's a fnsished (for now) picture, with a rather long build thread below:

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Way back in January 2017..........

Initial build - Phase 1

New Fractal Design R5 case arrived along with all the other bits and pieces to build.


Picked up an Asus - P8Z77-V motherboard for a good price on eBay, ideal as has lots of onboard SATA ports.


Decided to go for x2 140mm fans at the front as will have lots of disks. Got rid of and sold the Fractal ones that came with the case and installed some Corsair ML140’s.


Reusing the Intel Core i7-3770 3.4GHz from my old server. Will look into swapping out for a ‘K’ version at some point for some overclocking.


Starting to group together the various cables and braid together to keep things tidy.


Trial fitting some old RAM I have, will be a tight fit so will look into other options.


Got impatient waiting for my new RAM to arrive so put in the old sticks and got thing up and running. Have 16GB but want 32GB as will be running a few VM’s.


New RAM arrived, went for some Corsair - Vengeance LP 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR3-1600. Low profile so fits without any problems, kinds goes with the loose blue colour scheme too.


Added some custom black PCI slot covers ad didn’t like the look of the white Fractal ones.


Decided to make some custom SATA power cables to keep things neat. Did a few calculations and one rail from the PSU can easily cope with the max draw at boot of all the disks.


Installed the drives and added some 90 degree SATA cables. Decided to have the connections at the front rather than the back as looks more interesting, although not quite as practical for removing disks.


Done, everything installed and working correctly. A little messy at the back but couldn’t be arsed to try and make some custom length SATA data cables.


Nice and tidy at the front with plenty of space to add another bank of disks when I inevitably run out of space. Easy to do now in Server 2016 as it supports rebalancing. Running dual parity so gives me 21.84TB of storage with 2 disks redundancy.
 
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Big_O

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Running out of space…. Phase 2

Was running low on storage again, so needed to add some more disks. I could have just put the 5.25 bays back in and used some 3.5 adapters, or bought a 4U rack mount case with lots of drive bays, but where the fun in that. The Fractal R5 comes with a 5 bay and a 3 bay, giving 8 disks in total. I decided to fabricate some mounts out of old bookshelf rails, from the bottom of the case to the top. Put two cuts in the rails and bend 90 degrees.


Trial fitted, would be a pain to remove the drives as the whole cage would need to come out but thought id give it a go any way.


Sprayed in matt black and put some JB weld on the angles to make more secure.


Started adding the drives, used some dampening washers either side of the mounting screws to reduce and vibrations. Went to fit and DISASTER, due to the lips on the bottom and top of the case they won’t fit when loaded with disks outside of the case! Thought about it and since it would be such a mission to remove drives in the future, I went for plan B….


Fractal sell the 5 bays separately, so I bought one and 5 more white drive trays to go with it. These can easily be mounted to the top of the existing 5 bay cage, giving me 10 bays of disks. While I was waiting for these to arrive, I made myself some new braided SATA power cables.


Arrived and fitted using the black bolts and nyloc nut I had left over. Trial fitted to see how it would fit, mounting on the bottom of the case would cause issues with the lip again. It would mean I wouldn’t be able to remove the bottom disk without removing all the trays.


So, bought some mechano to raise the bottom of the trays up and add 4 brackets to the top to secure in place. I used 2 U shaped brackets doubled up for the base and some larger U shaped brackets, chopped and bent to size for the top. Sprayed in matt black using the left over paint I had.


Bottom of the drive trays done. I tapped 4 additional M3 holes in the bottom of the tray, so the bracket I made is attached twice to the tray and uses the existing mounts on the case.


Top brackets work really well. Again tapped 4 more M3 holes in the top of the drive tray then attached to the top of the case. Also tapped two new M3 holes in the fan casing and use the thumb screws the cage originally had. Cages are really secure, no movement at all, better than they were before really.


Added my custom braided power cables in the same front facing layout as before and refitted everything. I also made custom SATA power cables for the OS drive and Cache disk mounted on the rear.


Pic of the front. Purchased 2x new 4TB disks and a slightly more powerful Corsair CX550M PSU. New setup gives me 10x 4TB disks, 32TB of storage with dual parity, this should tie me over for a while. As and when funds allow, I’ll slowly start swapping the 4TB disks with 8TB disks. Soon and the last 8TB is in, I can increase the storage pool, 10x 8TB disks would give me 64TB with dual parity.
 
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Big_O

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Jun 1, 2017
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Minor upgrades…. Phase 3

A few minor upgrades, firstly over the last year. Upgraded to Server 2019 and moved from Storage Spaces to Snapraid + Drivepool, a much more flexible solution. I’ve swapped out 6 of the 4TB drives with 8TB drives, running dual parity still so gives me 48TB of storage. Also swapped my 500GB cache disk for a 500GB SSD as SABnzbd was chugging a bit with heavy downloads and unpacking.


Tided up one of the SATA power cables I made, had cable showing from the heat shrink to the connector rather than it sitting nice and flush.


Added a p2000 GPU for hardware transcoding in Plex, makes a massive difference as can handle around 20 transcodes without using the CPU at all. Picked up on German eBay for a bargain price.

Made a cool little stat screen in Rainmeter too that sits on top of your desktop background. Kind of useful to get info at a glance.


I also changed my labeling on the physical hard drives, using the drive numbers Snapraid + Drivepool use rather than the actual serial numbers.
Saved this info somewhere else.
 
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Big_O

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Jun 1, 2017
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Case Mods…. Phase 4

Got a bit board and fancied a little project, so decided to add a stat screen to the server. On the front of the case there are two 5.25 bays, with two removable covers. Perfect to fabricate a removable display bracket.


Found a Waveshare 4” screen for a Raspberry Pi that would fit, mocked up to check fit and ordered.


Drilled two holes in the 5.25 bay covers to secure the two sections together. Ordered a selection of black bolts, nylon lock nuts and black washers.


Cut the hole out for the display using a metal bracket I made as a guide and a Stanley knife.


Screen fits well, drilled 4 holes for mounting and used the black nuts and bolts to fit, along with some black spacers to ensure the display sits flush.


It’s snug but fits ok.


The display fits well, nice and flush with the display screen and can still be removed using the existing clips on the right hand side.


I wanted to be able to easily turn the display on and off for when it’s not needed. I like the idea of keeping it looking standard so decided to re-use the unused fan speed controller switch on the front of the case. I removed the controller and looked into how I could re-use.


Worked out I couldn’t easily use the existing switch, so found an identical size SPST switch. I’m going to be powering the display via an internal USB header so can break out the 5v power and use the switch to control.


Getting the power cable to fit in the 5.25 bay covers I adapted was difficult because of the top and bottom lip. Ended up using a low profile power cable from a cheap wireless charging adapter.


Tidied up the cable with some braiding and heat shrink. Giving me a USB B to USB Micro cable with a switch on the 5v cable for power.


Installed into the server with a HDMI fly lead to make removing easy. Re-used a 90 degree HDMI adapter that came with the display as there wasn’t much space with the lip on the 5.25 bay covers and the case.


Cable tied some Velcro straps to the top of the case, then used these to secure a spare Raspberry Pi 3 I had lying around in place.


Trial fit everything to make sure it work / fit before properly running the cables through the case. Getting there slowly.


Thought the display looked a little odd as it has a silver bezel. There are plenty of Raspberry Pi screens that have black bezels, but none would have fitted. I bought some matt black self-adhesive paper to make my own.


Cut out a DIY bezel and suck on to the display. It looks better in the flesh, especially looking front on as you would when using.


I thought it would be useful to be able to shutdown and reboot the pi easily, so re-used the PC restart switch on the case. Connected this to the GPO pins on the PI and use a script to shutdown and turn on.


I also wanted a hard reset switch for the Raspberry Pi, using another internal USB header to power it so can use another SPST switch on the 5v power line. Tried a number of options such as modifying a PCI bracket, not of which worked well so 3D printed one based on a template I found.


Switch and RJ45 coupler added to the bracket.


Fitted the bracket in the case, the SPST switch slots in from the outside which stops the bracket from flexing. Installed the switch, made up some braided spade couplers and added the RJ45 coupler for network to the Raspberry Pi.


Looks good from the outside, easy to connect a seccond network cable for the Raspberry Pi and hard reset if really needed without having to open the case.


Pretty much done for now, pic with the side off and front closed.


Cables tidied with almost all cables braided.


The cases front door closes properly with the screen fitted, with the re-purposed fan speed slider used to turn the display screen on and off.


For the stat screen I decided to use Grafana as it publishes to a local webpage . Data is pulled in from things like Windows Performance Monitor via Telegraf and stored in InfluxDB for Grafana to visualise. The Raspberry Pi boots straight into Chromium in kiosk mode and launches the Grafana local webpage showing

Cool thing is that I can also view from any device on my LAN, kind of makes the display screen pointless, but whatever its been a fun project.


Also added two more 8TB WD reds, so now have 8 of those and two 4TB’s remaining. These will get upgraded once there’s another good offer on the WD MyBooks in the UK.

Thats it for now. Server really needs an update with something Ryzen based, a bit more modern, in a Fractal 7 or rack case. Job for another day...
 
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Marsh

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May 12, 2013
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Wow, beautiful , nice cable management.

I wish my R5 looks this good.

BTW, I asked to buy the 5 bays cage, FR support told me they do not have a store .
They shipped me a free 5 bays cage with disk trays after I pay for USPS shipping.
 

Big_O

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Jun 1, 2017
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Ha ha, thanks, love a bit of snooker :)

Yea getting Fractal spares is a bit difficult sometimes. They only seem to have one spare parts store in europe, based in Germany:
fractal-design-shop.de
 

Spartacus

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May 27, 2019
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I wish I had known I pulled both the drive bays out of my R5 since I just have SSD, I stuck a 280mm rad in the front instead.
Also what cable/parts did you use for those custom sata cables? Those look sublime, I need something a bit better for my Corsair 750D the sata are ok'ish but the power is a bit of a mess.

I know corsair sells spare cables I could easily order one and chop it up cleanly like yours.
 

PigLover

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Jan 26, 2011
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...Also what cable/parts did you use for those custom sata cables? Those look sublime, I need something a bit better for my Corsair 750D the sata are ok'ish but the power is a bit of a mess.
I've used things like this before: FrozenCPU ConnectRight DIY SATA EZ Crimp Connector - Black - 90° (M-SCA-16F-BK) - FrozenCPU.com

Just space them over the wires at the right length for your drive mounts.

The only real problem with this arrangement is that you have to pull off ALL of the power connectors to swap out ONE drive. Creates an issue is you want to hot-pull a drive. The vampire-tap connections can also get a bit dodgy over time if you have to jiggle them around a lot.

It does make for a pretty build. These days people tend to do a new build faster than drives die so the maintenance problems it creates are probably a non-issue.
 

Spartacus

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May 27, 2019
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The only real problem with this arrangement is that you have to pull off ALL of the power connectors to swap out ONE drive. Creates an issue is you want to hot-pull a drive. The vampire-tap connections can also get a bit dodgy over time if you have to jiggle them around a lot.

It does make for a pretty build. These days people tend to do a new build faster than drives die so the maintenance problems it creates are probably a non-issue.
I'm interested in the cables used they looked nice and how it was done (the ends alittle bit too if the crips used does it cut through the braiding easily etc).
I have my drives face the rear for that reason, so to pull a drive I just unplug the one needed, then side the drive out the front, but still would like to be managed and nice.
If I have to replace a drive I power the system off generally anyway.
 
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Big_O

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It's pretty easy to make custom power cables to be honest, well worth having a go. It's satisfying being able to make cables the length and colour you want, makes for a nice tidy case.

I bought the various bits and pieces from a few places over the years, usually Pexon, modDIY or eBay, but loads of other places sell them. For my PSU I used:

- 6 pin PCI-E Connector
- ATX terminal pins
- Suitable gauge cable, think I used 18AWG
- Paracord
- Heatshrink tubing
- SATA Push-In Style Connectors

I'd also highly recommend getting a decent crimping tool for the ATX terminal pins, useful tool to have any way. A heat guns also good for the heat shrink, although I lighter will do.

Just make sure you get the right pin-outs for your PSU as they vary between manufacturer. ModDIY have a useful pin-out guide:
moddiy.com/pages/Power-Supply-Connectors-and-Pinouts.html
 
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Big_O

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Yea, thought about having the connectors at the back of the drives as would have made removing easier, but wanted the custom cables visible. It's not often I need to remove a drive so no hassle disconnecting any way, especially as they're not hot-swappable.
 
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