I just saw this article:
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/SFF-RAID-HDD,10319.html
It’s an amazing feat by Will Urbina. He has an amazing tool shop and knowledge on how to use them. He custom built his own Small Form Factor case that holds 8 2TB drives for a total of 14 TB raided. Pretty amazing.
I would count this as a great version 1.0 product. The two changes I would make for v2.0 would be:
1) Accessibility: I would mount each drive into a removable tray. Changing the drives out is going to be a bear. Having removable trays would not only make this a snap but also allow for hot swapping, a real help when dealing with RAID failures. If you can get a tray with built-in heat sinks for the drive that will lead nicely into my next recommendation.
2) Heat: The heat issue should easily be solved by putting heat-sinks on the drives (or heat-sink trays as mentioned above). Then simply seal the box, put vents on the front left side and channel the air through the front left, across the drives to the right and through the back. The drives will need more spacing to accommodate the trays and airflow but maybe you could switch to 2.5 drives. This will definitely take some engineering, especially to work around removable drive trays, but proper sealing and a good fan in the back would give a good airflow. May need to increase fan speed or add additional fans to the front intake.
Awesome idea. I have a few tools in my tool shop, some of which were gifts, others bought new for projects, and others picked up on Craig’s List or garage sales. With only a 2 car garage and 3 young kids I have no workshop. :) But, I have the dream of slowly adding to my tools each year and someday building a sizable work shed in the back. I would love to be one of those dads that has tools and builds things with their kids. I always envied my friends who had this and their dad’s shop at their disposal for inspired ideas or school projects.
Ideas like this keep me hoping that this will be a reality someday.
Great job Will!