cross-posted from: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/66988984
What I have
I have an old Acer Aspire A515-51G and I also have a desire to have a home server. In combination this creates a need for the laptop to carry more HDDs than it can from factory. Usually it can take one M.2 SSD and one 2.5" SATA drive.
What I want
I want to make the laptop able to run at least 4 HDDs in RAID 5 for storage and have one SSD as boot drive.
What I did
The buying phase
- 4 HDDs
- M.2 to SATA adapter
- 12V/5V SATA power converter
- 12V 10A power supply
The designing phase
I needed space to hold the HDDs, so I designed a 3D printed a cage to attach to the bottom of my laptop. Two 80mm fans can be attach to it. You can see it on printables. Also I remixed a tray (here is the original) so the HDDs can slide in and out of the cage.
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The assembly phase
A cutout at the bottom of the laptop was needed to give access to the SATA ports of the adapter.
I put a 2.5" SSD into the already present place for it in the laptop.
Then the cage was attached to the laptop, the HDDs were put in their trays, the trays inside the cage and the cables attached to the adapter and HDDs.
This is the kind of post I love
The fact that there exists an m.2 x6 port SATA adapter is the wildest part to me.
There’s a NINE PORT ONE! That’s bonkers!
I was also very happy to find out they exist, otherwise this whole thing would’ve been a no-starter.
I used one for my server. I’m quite happy with it
There is an adapter for everthing
This is the type of stuff I love to see the most when it comes to PCs. This to me is far more impressive then someone with a standard case, with standard RGB fans, standard AIO RGB cooler…
This reminds me of stuff I did in college.
Next step is to free the acer from it’s physical bonds and screw the motherboard to the 3D printed stand.
One could frame it and put it on the wall
if you wire up some blinky LEDs to the power supply, then yes. I NEEDS THEM BLINKYS
This has awakened sonething in me
It’s handy having the service screen though.
It’s beautiful.
That’s janky as hell, I love it.
How are powering them up… Do you have a PSU behind the HDDs ?
Edit: never mind just saw the whole post
i know a Bourgeois when i see one
That’s scary looking but also really awesome.
Part of me wonders what chipset is running that adapter, and if you’d get a better one if you went for a miniSAS adapter rather than individual sata ports (enterprise port generally implying a better controller chip)
Then realised there would probably be no use for such an adapter in enterprise so if you did get a different connector it would probably just be the same interface chip as whatever is in this.
so what kind of looks did you get when you booted that up in the public library? how long before either (a) the cool librarian asked you how you did it or (b) the jerk librarian asked you not to burn down the library
Lol, cause who wants to use a single USB to interface with the laptop? That’s crazy.
This is some proper cyberpunk. Great job.
I like it. The OCD in me is screaming why you didn’t use a dremel tool to cut the slot for the USB ports instead of using a rusty, dull, steak knife from the junk drawer, but that’s just me. LOL
But it doesn’t bother you those are SATA ports?
So I actually have a setup similar to this, but with a mini pc (m.2 to 6x sata adapter, each one connected to a 4tb ssd - well eventually, only 2 are populated currently) and I did use a dremmel to cut through the metal top of the case and it was still a horrible sharp mess, even after I tried sanding it down. I ended up 3d printing a custom i/o shield to stop my cables (or fingers) getting sliced on it and that actually works really well!
Edit: I dropped some pics of my setup in the comments on the original thread!
Nice work! I’m considering a similar project and this looks like a good way to do it.
