|
|
|
|
| "Clutter Cutter" Quadra 700 HD case |
| Written by Markus Hartel | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Monday, 10 September 2007 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The "Clutter Cutter" plan was to gut the four HD cases and stuff the innards into a classic Mac case, powered by a (preferably cheap) PC power supply. A Mac SE or Plus would have been cool, but a.) it (sort of) has been done before and b.) the form factor didn't fit my needs. The first Macs I ever worked with -IIci/cx/fx- came to mind, but the horizontal design would take up too much valuable Manhattan real estate. I also pondered the thought of sticking everything (including the mini) into a PC case, but being a real Apple fanboy I finally decided to keep the mini as original and small as possible. Then I remembered working wih the famous Quadra 700 -I always liked its vertical design- and the form factor seemed just right for my needs.
So there is the mess: 5 drives in 4 cases, each with their own power supply... in the good old G4 days I had it all in one tower (except for the USB HD on the left). I hated the clutter with the mini and couldn't get over flicking five different switches to access my *valuable* data.
anyways... SATA cable coming out of the Mini...
...going into a miniStack V2
1.75 TB - wow! I just tossed the original 80MB (that's MB not GB!) Quadra SCSI drive... why 5 drives? the 465.8 GB Oxford is a firewire RAID (2 Samsung spinpoint 250GB drives)
2.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duo - as fast as a mini ever gets
now the real deal... stock Quadra 700 rear (not my shot)
In order to get all that drive junk and a power supply into that Quadra700 case I had to gut it and dremel off any protruding internal pieces. Thanks to the LEM swap list I acquired the Quadra 700 for shipping cost (some odd $15)
After killing an ancient AT power supply - which might have been dying already, I picked up a 500W ATX power supply - probably overkill for four drives, but it was cheap at CompUSA ($30 w/discount). The Quadra's original power supply did work, but the bottom proprietary connector and the lack of a power switch didn't work for me... The new ATX power unit has plenty of molex connectors and SATA power connectors, which come in handy for the firewire RAID.
To attach the 6x3.5" drive cage (bottom left, $10 from a local computer repair shop) to the case I hot-glued nuts to the Quadra's plastic case. I live in a Manhattan shoebox and had to fix -as you can see- all that crap on a kitchen stool... cleaning the plastic dremel excess around my desk was even more fun :| my wife also stated that it "smelled funny" while I dremeled away...
'nother nut mount - note my favorite Husky screwdriver with interchangeable bits
During the process of building the "Clutter Cutter" Q700 case, I got so involved that I forgot to take pictures... basically in this shot everything is almost in place. Nothing much else to report besides the glued nuts and hotglue for the HD controllers. The power supply is held by two metal shelf brackets ($1 for four brackets, from -yes, a Dollar store), hotglued to the case and screwed safely to the power supply. The case holds three controllers - one USB 2 w/ SATA drive and firewire w/ a two drive RAID and one firewire with one ATA drive. I'd like to replace the USB with firewire and convert everything to SATA for less clutter.
a firewire/USB/SATA RAID controller hot-glued in place, I'm using firewire since it outperforms USB2. For this controller I gutted & soldered the original power plug to a molex connector.
power check - the LED light is scavenged from one of the external HD cases - note the space on the top right for a fan -installed in the Quadra's lid-... note: I left the ATX power supply in its original state for future use.
to keep the drives cool I placed a blue LED fan in the lid ($10 CompUSA)
...added external Firewire connectors, utilizing extension cords ($10 ea. CompUSA) - now the whole thing can be daisy-chained if necessary - actually its useful to hook up my video camera. I couldn't get this type of extension cable for the USB controller, so the cord goes straight into the Q700 case, which sucks for portability (well, i don't really need to move the case), but a USB connector would be nice in case (no pun intended) if I need to move the damn thing.
Write Comment |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Next > |
|---|
|
|