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External Drive Array Project - P2
The 3.25" Lian-Li TR-03 multifunction display was mounted to the top 3.5" drive bay in the drive cage. A hard-drive may fit along with the display, but currently the drive array will be set to use 2 internal 3.5" drives with a possibility of adding another later.
- The controller has 3 fan inputs, 3 temperature probes and one hard-drive LED connection.
The bronze acrylic front cover was attached to the front of the enclosure. The LCD shows through the fairly well. The micro-ATX power supply was used to test the display.
- Installing the power supply and relay.
The Pico Power Supply pictured below mounts directly to the ATX connector on a motherboard. In order to use this for the Drive Array project, an enclosure had to be fashioned to prevent the exposed circuitry on the top and bottom of the board to contact anything else.
Lexan was used to form the top and bottom of the PS holder which was then mounted on sheet metal. The mount will also house the relay. The relay is connected to the Power-On' and GND wires (green and black) on the power supply. The other two connections on the relay will connect to a molex plug that will ultimately connect to the host PC power supply 12V connection.
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- Installing the component into the case:
The power supply module, Infini-band connector and backplane was secured to the wood enclosure using threaded metal wood-inserts and a standard PC case 6/32 screws.
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The hard drive rack cage was installed to check for fit. The backplane includes the Infini-band connector, relay and power connector. The picture below shows reveals and rat's nest of cables in the cramped quarters. Some cable management is due.
The front lexan was removed to show the components:
The power supply and relay were tested using the micro-ATX power supply I modified earlier in the article. A pigtail was assembled using a 2pin molex connector and the 12V lines of a 4 pin molex. The 2 pin molex was connected to the Drive Array and the 4 pin was connected to the micro-ATX PS. The power brick for the drive array was connected and plugged into the mains. The micro-ATX PS was then connected to the mains. The sound of the relay engaging and the drive array fan and LCD lighting up was music to my ears.
Adding the Drive and connections:
An SATA 500 GB hard-drive will be used for testing. The second drive won't be added at this time.
(click to enlarge)
The front cover was reattached using brass thumbscrews to allow easier access to the drive cage and LCD controls.
The drive array is ready for testing. The relay cable will be fitted with 2 pin molex plugs and an adapter cable created for the Book Server to covert the 4 pin 12V power molex to 2 pin molex receptacle. The host Infini-band connector will be retrofitted into an external enclosure where the host SATA cable from the Book Server will attach.
Continue to Page 3 - Setting up and Testing
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