NASLite Network Attached Storage

From about the start of the day I did this. It's neet and small.

I will mount the hard drive over the mother board with long stand offs and a plate to mount it. will put a screen over the top of it and paint the box yet.

I have the hard drive just sitting out of it now and it's working good. I uploaded the photos to Photobucket right from it!

Here are the photos. I thought people would like to see this mybesome one would like a small NASlite-2 HDD like this too. It is super quit. No fans! So will have not dust ether.

Here is were I started with some tools I would need.



I mark the lines were to cut.



Hammered corners in with a putty knuff. Use the level to start bending them. Made a nice corner.



Cut out the back plate. It took a wile to do. Drilled them took the big cutter. But buttum part I just used a utility knuff then bent it back and forth to break it off. I think it took me a hour to do it and file it down. But the plate fit the 1st time. I had to made sure it was right for how high the stand offs would lift the mother board up.



Here is were the back plate in and the file I used to make it all nice.



This is were I am at now. I put 4 stand off in and it's mounted. It's working good now. I have it booted up and the hard drive on the out side. But will mount it over the mother board with a screen top I have in the 1st photo.



I all ways wanted a small server like this that did not cost a lot. This is the only way I know how to do it.

I was thinking how to install the hard drive on top of it. I made a plate that would fit on top. But ran out of stand off's to mount it on over the mother board. I thought mount it with some L brackets. So I took the steel sheet 26 GA think and bent it like a L Bracket.

Cut holes and mounted it. I mounted the were the power goes in too on the back.

I just have to make the top for it, Put the power and HD LED's on it. Will mount them on the top screen. Then take it all apart to prime and paint it blue.

Here is a photo of it now.



This is a photo of it running with only power and Ethernet on it. I want to get a short IDE cable for it too yet.

The mounts I did not mesher to good. They pushed out the sides of the case a little.

I spent about all day on this and going to try and do the rest tomorrow.

I looked a long time for on google for a 8 inch. ide 80 pin ribbon cable. Could not find one.

So I made it my self. Cut it to 8 inch. and removed the end plug and pound it the end of the cable. Hooked it up and it booted and looks neater.

To day when I got up. I took the grid and cut and flatten it. Bent and cut it to fit on the top and made 4 screws hold it down.



Then I cleaned it with dish soap and paper towels and dried it. Put it on a wire hook and went out side to hang it on a tree in 35 Fahrenheit temperature. Can said "Use product at room temperature (70F)" So I did it fast out side and bought in side to dry. It says can paint in half a hour.



Got some running primer. I hope I can sand it off before painting.

I have to mount the LED's and power switch in the front of the grid yet and put rubber feet on the bottom yet.

Got it all painted. When I put it back together the paint was still a little sticky. But it's all together now with a reset and power switch. Power and hard dirve LED's.

I have to put rubber feet at the bottom yet. But I will wait till the paint is good and dry. I guess 24 hours.

It's working good. Here are 2 photos of it now from 2 sides.

Raymond, RadioShack has some enclosures that may have been a good fit. Or, how about a Tupperware box from the local grocery store. Or, you could have gotten an ipaq from ebay for $40 and drop that drive in it.

But, there is nothing like a "made it myself", so I guess what you have there is as good or better. I can totally dig that. Way to go dude.

Well yes, I guess you enjoyed the achievement. But, I 'bought' a CompaqPro SFF from the municipal tip for £10 ($20) and got my NL up and running with an old HD. Rather more 'cosmetically' appealing!! jeffjohn

I was waiting for NASLite-2 HDD to come out for a long time. I thought it was taking a long time because they were testing that it booted in lots of things.

I wanted it to boot in a old NAS server small box. A Intel Storage Station or a netgear ND-508. But it would not boot in ether. I got Trustix Linux to boot in the netgear.

Looks like the only way to get a small case was buy a small mother board and make my own.

This case is not as low as the Intel Storage Station or Netgear ND-508. But it's not as wide ether. Better yet it has no fans. It's hard to know it's turning on with out looking at the power LED.

This board is not as low as the Storage Station. But the Netgear is about as low as the board in there. But I wanted it about as small as the mother board. I like it. I think it turned out good.

The netgear don't have the hard drive going over were the CPU is so it can be lower then what I did. But what I did is not as wide.

What motherboard and external power supply are you using?

When I was looking for one I asked here and found it my salf and said this:

I got it at http://mini-box.com a "VIA EPIA-5000AG Mini-ITX Motherboard,VIA C3 533MHz Fanless Processor" for $108.99, and a
"picoPSU-120 Power Kit" for $54.95. Shipping was $8.86 so it came to $172.80!

The power supply is very small. It's about as small as the plug that plugs in to the power on the mother board. Then it just gets power from a 12 volt brick type power supply. That is on the out side.

You might find a better deal on ebay. There is on the UK site c/w 512meg ram sat at £35.00 (around $70) with a couple of hours to go. Remember these boards take SDRAM

Some people were asking about a Fanless system for a SG20 Magnia. So I did a youtube video of this system I posted about in here.

It's about 2 min. long and I talk about it in the video.

I forgot I did the photos of making it in here so this video goes good with this post here.

-Raymond Day

I put a video up of this server. I did the video because some people wanted a fanless system. Seems like they don't know how to make one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaXacXYlAdE

-Raymond Day