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PostPosted: Fri May 14, 2010 11:07 am 
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comp1962 and erail, great job guys. I have wanted to do this for a while but never got around to it. I have the spare case just sitting here. after reading this post again it might be a little beyond my ability. If I still lived in washington near my dad I could get the wiring and the fabrication done not a problem. Unfortunately, neither of those are a talent of mine. if either of you 2 are interested in farming out your talent let me know. I love how this looks and both of you did a fabulous job.


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PostPosted: Fri May 14, 2010 3:26 pm 
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Thanks T-Bone I certainly appreciate your comments. My unit is now waiting on another powersupply which I ordered from Sans Digital. As I mentioned earlier something went wrong with the powersupply I installed which happens when you let a project sit to long which is not something I generally do but time has not been on my side.

Having said all that I do believe that erails took a much simpler approach to mounting the CFI Back Plane Board which is the same board used in the Sans Digital TR4M and I believe he used the existing powersupply in the demo unit. If I am correct in saying this then that installation is much easier then mine since I chose to use keystock to support the standoffs and mount the backplane that way and also I drilled out the case riviets and replaced them with screws so it could be easily servicable.

The component cost makes this project not really practical since you can buy a Sans Digital 4 bay enclosure for less but its a very nice project to undertake and there is something to be said for having matching cases. Since you have a case and if the powersupply is working then all you need is the CFI Board and a SATA to eSATA cable along with some custom fabrication and some lower profile fans if you use erails idea which has worked for him for quite sometime. I know I am interested in seeing his brackets.

Anyway the new power supply was suppose to arrive today but it was never delivered and while I am tempted to take on out of one of my 4 bay enclosures I just decided to be patient and wait. Thing is once I get the unit working then I know I will be motivated to studying the power requirements for the LEDS between the Sans Digital and the MSS to see if I can design a circuit to convert the power and power up the hard drive lights but as I think about it if I have the MSS HD lights function like the Sans Digital units it might drive me crazy so I will give that some thought.

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PostPosted: Fri May 14, 2010 3:56 pm 
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To mount the backplane< I just used two brass strips bolted to the backplane and the slid into the MSS, the drives attached to position the backplane and then I just drilled the brass strips and MSS attachment point to rivet the brass strips in. Has never moved and I have done alot of drive changes over the year and a half it's been in operation. I took off the old esata connection on the motherboard and mounted a sata to esat converter to the motherboard in the same place the old esata connector was. Used the original powersupply but only supplied power to the leds and the switch at the back to activate the powersupply. Grafted on some molexes on the MSS powersupply to power the backplane. Plugged everything in and away I went. Keeps all drives approimately the same temp as a real MSS and I used 12mm deep fans.

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PostPosted: Sun May 23, 2010 7:34 pm 
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I did receive the power supply from Sans Digital but because of the connectors needed for it I decided to keep it for a backup for my existing port multipliers. So off I went to Frys to pick up another Micro ATX power supply yesterday. I installed it and tested all the connections out with drives in the enclosure and things tested perfectly. Today I ran out of cable ties and cable tie brackets so I could neatly secure some of the wires. I did get stumped on the eSATA connection, you know those connectors are not the greatest things in the world but I was not pushing the connecter in hard enough on my unit so it was not working at first, I mean its a real tight fit because of my mounting but I got past that and things worked out fine.

Now I just have to solder the power wires to the back plug connection and put the case covers back on. The only thing I did differently this time was I chose not to terminate all the wires not needed in the PSU so I neatly tied them down to the brackets I made and its not all that ugly after all. I had installed a fan to the front grill to bring air in to the PSU but I chose to turn the PSU around to accept the air through its vents which face to the outside of a normal enclosure. The air is then pulled through the top of the PSU and the new fans in the back exhaust the air out or atleast thats the thought process. All the new fans in the enclosure are extremely quiet accept the one I added to the front grill but its a small price to pay to try to keep things cool.

I did run into some interferance the screws and the side moldings when I last attempted to put the moldings back on. I did check the space but after checking the space I added more screws for the board support brackets and they interfeared with the ribs in the molding but its nothing a dremmel can't handle. If I do this again I may opt to do it differently. Anyway I will be taking some additional pictures to share the end results. Then I will put it into use after which I will begin to figure out the voltage conversions so I can use the LED's because it will just make the project that more complete.

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PostPosted: Thu May 27, 2010 1:02 pm 
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T-Bone wrote:
comp1962 and erail, great job guys. I have wanted to do this for a while but never got around to it. I have the spare case just sitting here. after reading this post again it might be a little beyond my ability. If I still lived in washington near my dad I could get the wiring and the fabrication done not a problem. Unfortunately, neither of those are a talent of mine. if either of you 2 are interested in farming out your talent let me know. I love how this looks and both of you did a fabulous job.


I was thinking about how erail modified his MSS Case and what he did to his CFI Port Multiplier and it got me thinking that if you had a Rosewill RSV4, Sans Digital TR4M or even the CFI 4 Bay Port Multiplier you can do a conversion easily or atleast I believe you can.

I was looking at one of my port multipliers listed above and I took some measurments of the space between the walls of the EX470 being like 5" and in the 4 bay port multiplier beinging like 4". If you were to remove the backplane and bracket its attached to you install it in your EX470 case easily by adding a piece of 1/2" stock to the sides of the CFI bracket then insert hard drives and connect them to the back plane at which point you just need to spot where you want to attach say 4-6 small screws. Then remove the drives and back plane and drill the screw clearance holds then reassemble the backplane and drives then spot the holes you will need to drill and tap. Then you can just splice into the wires from the power supply and attact 2 90 degree molex connectors to power the backplane. Then all you need is a SATA to eSATA cable but I recommend you get a 90 degree SATA connector then make the connection or find one that already has a 90 degree connector. I changed out my fans but you can use the existing fans and just wire them into the 12v lines and your done. As far as restoring the port multiplier you took apart well you can get the same stuff erail did and just make physical connections to the hard drives since you have to open up the port multiplier anyway to install and remove drives and your back in business and will have 2 port multipliers.

Now if you do not have an existing Port Multiplier then its a bit more involved putting it together but erails assy appears to be the easiest way to get the job done. Of course I made mine so I can dissassemble it and work on it which ment I drilled out the back panel rivits and replaced them with screws but I probably will never really need to open it up again but in the event I have to I can and it makes it much easier to work on.

Now I am going to test this assy out as soon as I can find me an MSS Case with a working Power Supply and Drive Trays. If I can find what I am looking for then I will test out what I wrote above to see how it works out. I will dissassemble the Rosewill unit which will void my waranty but its not a big deal. FYI you can order the CFI board from Sans Digital. If they do not have it listed on thier web site just ask Stanley to list it for you and he will see that it shows up so you can order one.

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PostPosted: Sat May 29, 2010 1:42 am 
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I now have the MSS Port Multiplier on my primary system for testing. So I gathered up 4 drives including 2 older (Cringe) Seagate/Maxtor drives and 2 WD Green Drives. The intention here is not to acually run these drives for the long haul just to see if I have enough cooling capacity to keep the drives cool. One concern I do have is that the power supply I did install is blowing air up towards the drives and the MSS Case has vent holes there so the bottom drive is of concern for me. To accomodate better power supply cooling I did add a fan to the front grill to bring in cool air to the power supply which will get pulled though the front grill holes on the power supply itself. If the air exchange is good then the power supply will run cool at all times. I will have to check some thermal temps next week to see what the temps actually are but so far things look good.

Here is a picture of the 4 drives I have added for testing. Do not laugh at the 80 GB drives they are there just for testing:

Attachment:
File comment: Drives in Black are the actual drives in the MSS Port Multiplier for testing
MSS_PM.PNG
MSS_PM.PNG [ 121.33 KiB | Viewed 12815 times ]

Attachment:
File comment: Front view - Added fan to front grill and drive just their for alignment purposes. Had to remove the lock as it interfeared with the fan. I am using silicon mounts for the fan so it has to be close to the grill.
100_0534.JPG
100_0534.JPG [ 1.83 MiB | Viewed 12815 times ]

Attachment:
File comment: Rear view. Red Power Switch added to turn power supply on. eSATA connection there but its a tight fit which holds the cable better but the braket to the right side is ugly but necessary to properly hold the eSATA connector in place - will have to make a cover for it
100_0535.JPG
100_0535.JPG [ 2.9 MiB | Viewed 12815 times ]

Attachment:
File comment: Rear view of the mess of wires. I had previously terminated all those wires in the first PSU but somethng went wrong with it so this time I opted to leave all the wires until I am able to troubleshoot what went wrong with the 1st PSU which I have to say was a much cleaner install.
100_0547.JPG
100_0547.JPG [ 1.99 MiB | Viewed 12815 times ]

Attachment:
File comment: Rear view with the Fans connected and ready for assembly. When I was able to assemble it but I know I will need to terminate the wires as they cause issues with closing up the case but it works so for now they will stay that way.
100_0548.JPG
100_0548.JPG [ 1.56 MiB | Viewed 12815 times ]

Attachment:
File comment: SATA to eSata cable connection. I used a 90 degee SATA adapter to make this connection possible. Notice the pins between the two support brackets. These are for the LEDs used in the Sans Digital TR4M. My goal is to make a board to convert the voltages and fire up the LEDS on the MSS to make the project complete.
100_0549.JPG
100_0549.JPG [ 1.76 MiB | Viewed 12815 times ]


So far so good. I have the unit working and its on my primary server for testing. All the drives installed are sacrificial lambs so if something goes wrong I will not cry about it.

So whats left to do:

(1) Figure out the LED voltages used in the TR4M and the EX470 MSS
(2) Figure out the pin outs on the CFI Back Plane Board
(3) Build a relay board with micro relays to act as the LED Switches so that I can fire the LEDS to indicate drive activity.

I have classified his first unit to be a proto type and so its will be a work in progress. Since starting this project I have over come more obsticles then I had originally believed I would encounter. This project as it stands now is really not cost effective to build but I have given this some thought and will continue to do so to get the cost down and to simplify the build so that others wanting to do this can.

I admit this is a wicked cool project and there is something to be said for having matching equipement. The biggest cost is not in the back plane, or the power supply but in the MSS Case so if you have an existing MSS case then the cost drops significantly. MSS cases are hard to find but they show up on eBay. Most people selling them part out the entire thing because they get more money for the parts then assembled so finding an enclosure with the trays. PSU and LED Boards is difficult at best.

So if you have an older MSS hanging around and its a working unit and want to do this project then sell off the motherboard and backplane and your good to go. The back plane can be ordered from Sans Digital, the 90 degree SATA connector and SATA to eSATA cable I got at Microcenter. The PSU and Fans I got at Frys.

What I fail to see is why they put LED's in fans. Maybe I am just old school but now the back of my MSS Port Multiplier lights up blue just like the Sans Digital TR4M and Rosewill RSV-S4-X both units are made by CFI.

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PostPosted: Sat May 29, 2010 2:08 pm 
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Looks great, thanks for sharing the build! I hope it runs well for you, let us know how it works out.

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PostPosted: Sat May 29, 2010 7:13 pm 
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So far so good its working well. I can even hot swap the drives which I was always led to believe was a problem in the TR4M. I am watching the drive temps closely to see if the fans are acceptable or if I need to find replacements.

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PostPosted: Wed Dec 15, 2010 12:04 pm 
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erail/Comp1962

Looks like I clearly have my sights on the project now. with HP announcement no reason to hold off on the projects I was curious about time to commit. So I ordered my ex495 should arrive today or tommorrow. Ill be migrating my data to the new box and retiring my ex47x. I am wondering if I can use the Caddy's (yes) and the MSS backplane to complete this project. This would make the project a little easier (I hope). Hopefully we get more parts cropping up from decommisioned ex47x's.

Thanks for helping me create my own Cloud computing solution when Im away from home. letting someone else manage my data isnt an appealing thought to me. Its like our signing up to be a hostage. I worked at a bank and it would happen all the time. they would commit to a technology like this and then after everything was said and done a feature or somethign would get changed and then the bank would have to shell out more money to get to their data again. It was quite annoying for my boss. with the comming of tiered data packages coming from internet providers Cloud computing doesnt seem like a good finacial decision for most people anyhow.


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PostPosted: Thu Dec 16, 2010 2:55 am 
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Hi T-Bone,

Using the existing backplane in your EX470 to turn it into a PortMultiplier is not going to work because its controlled by the motherboard. It would require you to boot some sort of an OS say Windows then create shares and for that you would need a Debug Cable for the video connection.

The post in this thread was for the very first conversion I did which was cool but it occurred to me that to make it more attractive it would have to be simpler to do. With that in mind I made a 2nd unit and to prove how easy it is to make....I made it at my kitchen table.

Anyway here is a link to the Guide I wrote on how to turn an existing MSS into a PortMultiplier.

http://www.mediasmartserver.net/2010/10 ... enclosure/

Since you EX470 is a functional unit I would urge you to consider repurposing. I am beginning to experiment with one of my servers to just be an FTP server. I have been playing with using my different servers for Video Confrencing which on a home connection can support upto 10 people in a video confrence room. In these two suggestions you do not need remote access turned on. Damian wrote about setting up a VPN and with this you do not need remote access. So you get to use it for other things that maybe down the road you might want to use your new server for but why tax it when you can use your old friend who has served you well all these years.

The other interesting thing you can do with your EX470 is test things you might want to do with your EX490 and should something go wrong along the way, then you only have to recovery a server thats not your front line server and no harm done.

Or you can sell the server as a working unit or part it out. While I am not certain because I do not have an MSS other then the EX470 it would be interesting to see if the Back Planes are the same. If so then you will have a spare backplane and the PSU's are compatable so you can sell off what is not compatable with your EX490 and then if you want to convert the case to become a Port Multiplier then you will have matching units. I will say this that converting a unit does not save you money but if you review what erail did and you have a Sans Digital TR4m or a Rosewill RS4 or a CFI 4 bay Port Multiplier then check the backplane board number and see if its a CFI-B43PM and if it is then you can use that Backplane and purchase the components erail did to continue using the original PortMultiplier because his cost was most certainly less than mine. In the end what you get is something unique that you can show off to others.

Well you have lots of choices here so give it some thought because everything I mentioned is alot of fun.

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PostPosted: Fri Dec 24, 2010 10:47 pm 
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Yeah Im thinking either a test bed or packing it away and using it as my backup. Ill just need to copy my data over and then Ill have a redundent back up. might get a little out of date but better then losing it all


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PostPosted: Sun Aug 07, 2011 6:11 pm 
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erail wrote:
I modified the stock MSS power supply to get 4 pin molex connectors on it. That was a fairly easy mod. I Put a couple of 15mm fans in the MSS to gain more space in the back. Figured out what wires I needed to attach to the MSS board to keep lights going and slapped it back together. I now have a esata enclosure which matches the MSS and has plenty of space left for more drives, maybe usb.


Ok I have my backplane semi mounted. I just need some aluminum an I'm good to go. I don't know what power supply to use. I like the idea of using stock lights. Erail can you let me know how you used the stock mother board an power supply. Help!!!


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PostPosted: Sun Aug 07, 2011 7:21 pm 
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I sent you a PM but what I did to just power the leds, I don't remember. It's just a couple of wires from the power supply plug to the motherboard receptical. The more I think about it , I don't think I had to do that since the the original demos powered the whole mother board with the power supply. But you can probably figure it out from looking at the mother board. I believe I just used a yellow and a black. By powering just the leds, I could use a switch to turn the drives off but the leds always have power unless you pull the plug.

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PostPosted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 7:48 am 
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So now Im at a cross roads...

Do I use the power supply that came with my demo unit ex475 or do I use the power supply that came with my Sans Digital Enclosure that I took apart start this project?

Im not sure what the better more effeciant power supply is at this point. I would like to save electricity if I can. Also one of my pre requisits is to have the lights function on the new unit.

Since both Erail and Comp1962 went diffrent directions with this project I have a lot to think about....


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PostPosted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 7:50 am 
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Also thanks erail for your help so far.


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