Small Form Factor Server

[W1zzard]

Board: AAEON PCM-5896
CPU: AMD K6-2-400 @ 450
Memory: 128 MB SDRAM
Storage: IBM 20GB 2.5" HDD (IDE RAID planned)
PSU: Fortron Sparkle FSP400-60PN
OS: Linux, Fedora Core 3

http://www.techpowerup.com/wizzard/tiny/1.jpg
The CPU fan connected to 5V from the MOSFET's leg - very quiet and cool enough.

http://www.techpowerup.com/wizzard/tiny/2.jpg
HDD is just taped on top of the mobo.

http://www.techpowerup.com/wizzard/tiny/3.jpg http://www.techpowerup.com/wizzard/tiny/4.jpg
Network plug unsoldered from the mobo and put on a cable (yes i know, no shielding). But it's only 100mbit.

http://www.techpowerup.com/wizzard/tiny/5.jpg http://www.techpowerup.com/wizzard/tiny/6.jpg http://www.techpowerup.com/wizzard/tiny/7.jpg http://www.techpowerup.com/wizzard/tiny/8.jpg http://www.techpowerup.com/wizzard/tiny/9.jpg http://www.techpowerup.com/wizzard/tiny/10.jpg

http://www.techpowerup.com/wizzard/tiny/11.jpg http://www.techpowerup.com/wizzard/tiny/12.jpg
Nice coincidence that two mounting holes of the PSU PCB align with the mobo's mounting holes.

http://www.techpowerup.com/wizzard/tiny/13.jpg
http://www.techpowerup.com/wizzard/tiny/14.jpg
A third hole doesn't align, but it's close, so I used a more "flexible" method of attaching :)

http://www.techpowerup.com/wizzard/tiny/15.jpg
Whole system up and running.

[W1zzard]

RAID controller i'm looking at is HighPoint RocketRAID 464 (http://www.highpoint-tech.com/USA/rr464.htm).

http://www.techpowerup.com/wizzard/tiny/rr464pix_big.gif

8 IDE Disks, RAID 5, Low Profile

BUT not available here in germany yet :(

[Bastieeeh]

Nice work so far. But with all you "customization" it seems a little fragile and sort of "unstable". Where is the cardboard box where all this will be stored in? ;-)

The vrm's are known to get very hot especially with the cpu overclocked. How about yours?

[wazzledoozle]

Why not use a small form factor PSU? Or is this a parts-from-your-closet only project :D
Looks good so far.
Also, I dont quite understand what you did with teh CPU fans power cable. What is that third cable, temp probe?

[W1zzard]

basti: its kind of an experimental setup so i can get the whole concept together .. after that be assured that proper soldering/connecting/insulation will be done

wazzle: the psu has a footprint of a 3.5" hdd and its height also matches this project pretty good .. the 1u server psu i have doesnt fit as good .. for using a tiny 200w mini psu .. well this might have to power 8 hdds + i dont feel like spending money .. total cost of project so far 0.00 :)

[ReconCX]

well, for those that are willing to spend some money...

use a 2.5 half-height laptop hdd and if you really want power, get a centrino mobo, not sure if it's out yet, but they definately exist. then you can cut the size of heatsink as well =)

Since apple has proven this can be done with their mac mini (i'm so gonna get one soon!), i don't see why it can't be done with a PC.

P.S. love your duct tape. it's good for everything! that and wd40.

[rchandler42]

Hey guys.

The Highpoint RAID card seems to be fairly good. I've purchased one and use it in a server to provide RAID 5 on 4 200 GB Maxtor drives. However, I was forced to run Fedora CORE 1 in order to compile the opensource driver Highpoint provides. While their Makefile seems to support 2.6 kernels - like Fedora Core 3 - I could only to get it to compile with a bunch of gymnastics that left me uncomfortable that I had a robust solution. A more skilled linux guru could likely solve some of the issues without jumping through the hoops that I did.

On top of that, you should be aware that the opensource code does not yet support the onboard XOR engine on the 464 card. You basically end up using your board as a 454 and use your CPU to support RAID. On my Sempron 2400 machine that often results in about 10 to 15% CPU being used to support the 464 during disk intensive activities. When I use the Highpoint GUI to verify the RAID 5 array, the CPU usage goes to 100%.

In any event, the Core 1 scenario is acceptable to me for the moment until such time as Highpoint produces full opensource and kernel 2.6 support for the 464. I've installed both Core 1 and Core 3 on the same machine and will use Core 1 as my production machine and keep tinkering with Core 3. By the way, Highpoint support - while fairly responsive - hasn't committed on the availability and/or timing of a 464 opensource driver.

The other issue I've found on Fedora Core 3 is that it seems to have issues with multiple drives on 33 mhz PCI buses. You may find your message log file filling up with various dma error messages. Sadly their is a lot of conflicting information on the web about what the issue may be. That certainly was the case when I used two Silicon Image PCI IDE controller cards and ran Linux Software RAID. For the most part, that problem seems to disappear with the Highpoint card on Core 3. I've done very little checking so far though.

Good luck!

[Baum]

Nice work, but looks quite dangerously with these 220V wires fixed with tape.
Stay alife and beware of these HOT Wires :rolleyes:
450 Mhz + 6HDs ?? Performance might be very down (If you keep in mind that you will use these HD over Network)
My experience:
Via Epia Mini itx Board (500Mhz)
20GB 2,5" Notebook HD
ATX PSU 300W
Assembled in an old woodbox for Acid
Today it houses my old Car Radio
I used Suse 8.5 and NXServer from Nomachine