I had been looking around for a raid-5 solution for quite some time, almost to got my hand on a Thecus 5200 when Nilfire77 show me the light on hardware raid. Although the difference between hardware and software raid in a network still depend on the network itself, the hefty price tag of thecus 5200 turn me to build a DIY raid-5 NAS as the cost of it is almost the same (although a bit higher but i got a full functional PC), I also make it a HTPC (1 stone kill 2 birds) as well since it will be on 24/7. To make thing more interesting i will custom made the casing as well as tried to apply some modification to some of the parts.
Part list
Abit fatal1ty F-I90HD
Intel E6300
300w 1U PSU
3ware9650SE-4 sata II PCI-e 4x raid card
1 or 2 X 1G 667Mhz ram
Icydock internal 5bay hot-swap bay
4XWD 500G AAKS
2nd hand DVDrom (doing modification)
Spire SP510-1U 1U all copper heatsink
Challenge
Power consumption
A full system tend to drink more juice then dedicated NAS, but considering the fact that it serve as a HTPC, the extra juice is accounted for. But still as a 24/7 operation, I would like to keep the consumption to its lowest possible.
Generally a C2D will need ard 100w-150w under load, a hdd will take ard 10-15w so 4 will account for ard 40-70w under full load. Considering the fact the C2D with speedstep can ease some consumption, i drop the idea of having a merom for this project (merom cpu and board are very expensive and only available). And most of the time a NAS would be on idle so might have lower consumption.
Help needed: any recommendation of place to get cheap and good 1U PSU?
Size Planning
Being a HTPC i would like to keep the system with minimum footprint. Part choosen are as of minimum size, idea of mini-ITX was shelfed again because of the hefty price tag and mostly could not handle HTPC capabilities as well. I will custom-build a casing to house the different part.
Thermal planning
Thermal planning will start only when the actual plan and layout is finalized because some of the part i would have to get of amazon US. Help and Feedback needed.
Acoustic planning
Due to the fact that this system will be placed in my living room, acoustic would be keep to its minimum. Current plan for the system part only have 1X120mm fan and the 1U PSU fan. Currently had 2x WD 500G AAKS and they have very gd acoustic tolerance. so having 4x AAKS sld not post much acoustic issue.
Help need on the 1U PSU, any recommendation of quite 1U PSU, as most 1U psu are very noisy.
Below will be the log of different stage of the project.
DTG of log: 080110H May 07
Linear Mode
