How much clearance is there for the power supply, length wise? I'm looking at building this with an Athena Power AP-U3ATX60FEP8 to leave room for the E3C224D4I-14S, but it may be too long (4.55" x 3.4" x 7.87"). The height fits, and the screws appear to line up on the left side of the PSU mount.
Silverstone DS380: ITX 8x SAS/Sata Hotswap
- Thread starter nitrobass24
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How about removing the 2.5" HD tray and drill holes to mount a SFX PSU, but shifted a little bit to allow the extended itx board to lay?Though I think the frame wlee found is the best approach, not least of all because it looks to support exhaust fans with minimal modding, I'm going to add any more notes that I think relevant to anyone looking to use the Seasonic 250 Flex ATX kit as I did because it still has the advantage of working "out of the box" and has a readily available supply chain for North America and the EU.
Frankly, I don't think there's much to say beyond this post, but I wanted to share this because I just came across one of the right angle brackets that Seasonic supplies with the PSU. It's not just different from the adapter I photographed over the last few days.
It's notably better - perfect even - for this hack, and probably why I tried it in the first place:
The short holes are larger, unthreaded, and countersunk which allows more wiggle room. It's also perfectly spaced and centered at 51.1mm to the accuracy I can measure (I need better calipers, I trust this $6 slide more). I don't recall if (but assume) I used a 6-32 nut to secure the outer SFX (113mm) which is even better, much like square hole racks are better than prethreaded.
I don't think there's more to add, certainly not on this point, but if requested, I can see if I can dig up more photographs from the build process. I took a bunch because at the time, while there was interest in using the extended ITX boards with the DS380, I had yet to see anyone mount one with an internal AC power supply (I didn't see any picoPSU builds either, but I assume someone did it) so I assumed it might help someone down the road. Also, this wasn't the first Q&D hack I used to mount the PSU (in fact, I just found an expansion slot cover that's drilled with .5mm holes spaced 51mm apart) but the others are better forgotten.
Somewhat OT: I will say that if you are going to go off the beaten path - and even if not, even if just whiteboxing or repairing - a $20 mechanical hand nibbler, a $6 slide rule, and even a $10 centerpunch (though I really love my internal spring Starrett) really are essential tools; I assume anyone who is of a mindset to do this stuff already has either a $60 corded drill or a $100 12V Li-Ion cordless - and that buys some very good (Bosch/Makita/Milwaukee) stuff. Add some clamps (or even just heavy stuff) and some scrap wood (mine is straight off the corner in midtown Manhattan) and you'll be free to "make stuff work" somehow.
I'm doing all this in - LAN/WAN buildout, storage arrays, etc. - in support of photographic and mixed media art, so I have no problem adding things like Chicago Latrobe drill bits to my kit because I have(/have had) to build lots of stuff in order to build stuff, and I'm not suggesting anyone buy $150 drill bit sets.
A $15 Milwaukee or Bosch set - whatever's on special at Home Depot - some Tap Magic, and some reading or instruction with a safety first mindset (e.g. please don't confuse an impact driver with a drill, especially with non-impact rated bits) gets you 90% of the way there, especially with the thin sheet metal used in chassis/computers, and it's a great idea to add stepped bits ($5 a piece on Amazon, $12 for a three piece kit) for counter sinking and some taps for the common computer and rackmount thread sizes. Add an oscillating tool (I've cut 1/4" mild steel with a handheld 12V) and you can do things like make the (often missing) rack ears to match the screw holes for the enterprise stuff on eBay, etc.
Could the SFX psu enclosure be cut or opened to allow the board to fit?
I ended up doing something similar. Its ugly but it worked. The SSD cage ended up going on the bottom left of the pic. I can take more photos if you'd be interested.
How is the lower right corner of the PSU mounted? Looks like some extra bracket was added.I ended up doing something similar. Its ugly but it worked. The SSD cage ended up going on the bottom left of the pic. I can take more photos if you'd be interested.
Was about to buy the ds380 with a ss-250su, but looks like I might give it a try with a SFX.
Use the 2.5" HDD tray mounting holes to hold a long piece of sheet metal that will mount the SFX. If i fail utterly at doing it, i'll just mount it like you did.
Back when I bought this the pc-q26 was not available.
The q26 seems to do better in heat management. My drives run hot atm and it is kind of a bummer. I found out by one of the members pointing it out in another thread because I was oblivious to the problem.
It's a great case in that it's beautiful and compact. But it's loud and some of the features do seem half baked.
Awesome. I almost took a drill to the cage but I am terrible at these things.
Yeah, the dremel will be out!! I'm planning to find some ultra-thin fans for the opposite side and see if I can pull some air through. I also am going to monitor temps, and swap out to my PWM Noctua 3000rpm fans, and see what the fan profiles are like, and see if I can find a happy-medium of fan/heat control speed. I would really like to see SUperMicro do like other "enthusiast" boards, and that is allow us to control the fan speed to temp curve.
This darn thing is SO TIGHT I don't even look forward to removing it and putting it back together, although now I think I'd put it together 100% then insert it, then SSD, then plug in the HBA.
Other than having to cut some plastic to fit the HBA and the drive that's made to not go in, and the minor heat issue I really really really like the size/layout/organization of this for a mitx case, I was able to fit EVERYTHING With room to spare, it wasn't fun but it works. I'm thinking of adding 2 other SSD ziptied someplace to utilize the last 2 ports on the motherboard
Time to find some ultra-thin PWM fans heck, even non-PWM is fine to test. I have some 40mm but I want to keep it quiet, off to search Unless @neo 's Ninja product skills is faster !! LOL
This darn thing is SO TIGHT I don't even look forward to removing it and putting it back together, although now I think I'd put it together 100% then insert it, then SSD, then plug in the HBA.
Other than having to cut some plastic to fit the HBA and the drive that's made to not go in, and the minor heat issue I really really really like the size/layout/organization of this for a mitx case, I was able to fit EVERYTHING With room to spare, it wasn't fun but it works. I'm thinking of adding 2 other SSD ziptied someplace to utilize the last 2 ports on the motherboard
Time to find some ultra-thin PWM fans
heck, even non-PWM is fine to test. I have some 40mm but I want to keep it quiet, off to search Unless @neo 's Ninja product skills is faster !! LOLHow about double stacking the 120mm fan so the air gets funnel more into the drive cage?
The problem is that the cage does not have that many openings on the side. It's almost like the fans hit a wall.
https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.com/en//archive/disk_failures.pdf
Study shows ~40C is the optimal temperature to keep steady at. Between 37-42 is like the sweet zone.
If you load up 8x HD in the cage, it will kinda be like a wall anyways right? Any space left they have airway path. Maybe some how mount a 120mm fan direct on to the cage?
Just to be clear, the case has hot spots, the entire design and case are not "hot". It has to do with the dense drive cages FOR SURE.
I'll have more info soon to share, I'm running 8x WD RE so they run HOT already comapred to NAS drives.
I'll have more info soon to share, I'm running 8x WD RE so they run HOT already
comapred to NAS drives.Anyone with a e3c224d4i-14s tell me how flexible the included mini-SAS cables are?
Should I get these instead
0.5m 30AWG Internal Mini SAS 36pin (SFF-8087) - Monoprice.com
Going to try to fit a large heatsink like this
Should I get these instead
0.5m 30AWG Internal Mini SAS 36pin (SFF-8087) - Monoprice.com
Going to try to fit a large heatsink like this