# Project: NAS Corner.



## Yukikaze (Jun 28, 2009)

So, my best buddy's birthday is coming up. He has trouble with his g/f lately, and needs a good doze of cheering up, along with more storage space for all his downloading needs (The 1Tb external HDD he has ain't cutting it - 1080p content eats up space like candy). So I decided to drag him in for a little modding experience to keep his mind off things, and to provide him with a birthday present.

My D945GCLF came back from the RMA today, and finally it will be used for something. A while ago, I looked at a simple corner shelf, not unlike this one, just a lot thinner:






And then the thought hit me. Grab a pair of those thinner corner shelves and use them as the top and bottom (or the left and right, after all it can be placed both == or || in direction) of a nifty looking case. The D945GCLF only has two SATA ports, but it has another IDE connector, and a place nearby sells a converter to turn an IDE connector to a pair of SATA ports. Granted, speed isn't great, but for large, slow, quiet, "green" drives, it isn't an issue. When it is done, connect it to my buddy's network and voila, extra space.

So, the idea is to grab two shelves and mod them into a box containing up to three drives (Fourth drive slot will be used for a CF card or a slim laptop HDD to store the OS on, since I don't want to store it on the storage drives for easy replacement/removal of the drives themselves), while keeping it reasonably slim. I have a flat PSU from a Dell Optiplex I gutted a while ago (Sold the innards in a non-slim Dell case, along with my ancient 9800Pro for 100$) which will suit this just fine. I am still thinking what I'll use to close the gap between the two shelves, wood is easy, especially if I opt for balsa which is easy to bend (well, in one direction), but I am having an idea to use coke/beer cans for the material. Might be interesting to work with that. Gonna paint over it anyways.

Save for the case material and the HDDs and converters I have pretty much all I need (PSU, memory, mobo) already here:
Intel D945GCLF w/Atom 330
OCZ Value 1Gb DDR2 800Mhz
16Gb SD card for the OS
Dell Optiplex 180W PSU

I'll get the shelves on Wend. after my "Fundamentals of Modern Physics" exam. I'll try to draw out the component arrangement and have pics up on the weekend. Now I just need to notify my buddy he's been enrolled into one of my nusty projects 

So, what do you guys think ?


----------



## lemonadesoda (Jun 28, 2009)

Nice idea. What's also nice is you can make it a "long case" and fit in whatever you want.

Only issue is cable-spaghetti. Wireless NAS sucks... so you will need power and ethernet.


----------



## Yukikaze (Jun 28, 2009)

lemonadesoda said:


> Nice idea. What's also nice is you can make it a "long case" and fit in whatever you want.
> 
> Only issue is cable-spaghetti. Wireless NAS sucks... so you will need power and ethernet.



Well, it will have both, obviously. But I'll keep it tidy. I am toying with the idea to make it an actual shelf (If it will be used as such or not isn't important. the idea is neat) by attaching the cables in a way they'll have two options, to go either out the back, or downward.

Might be interesting to try.


----------



## Kreij (Jun 28, 2009)

Idea :

Use a larger corner shelf. Enclose the NAS device in something (wood case, metal etc,) and then on the outside put CD/DVD racks. Make the whole container swing back and forth (at 90 degress) so he can also use it for CD/DVD storage. 

You wanted crazy ideas, no ?


----------



## Yukikaze (Jun 28, 2009)

Kreij said:


> Idea :
> 
> Use a larger corner shelf. Enclose the NAS device in something (wood case, metal etc,) and then on the outside put CD/DVD racks. Make the whole container swing back and forth (at 90 degress) so he can also use it for CD/DVD storage.
> 
> You wanted crazy ideas, no ?



I am not 100% I understand your idea. Where would those DVD racks go ?


----------

