Rack mount HDD enclosure

Rack mount HDD enclosure, part 2

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment
Build Log:

I’ve made some progress on this particular project by ordering parts for it. I also sent out the evaluation request to iStarUSA for the hard drive rack, but ultimately I don’t think I’m going to use it. Instead I’ve had a little bit of a rethink on it.

First, let’s talk about what’s been ordered. I ordered a 2U plastic rack mount enclosure from Allied Electronics, specifically Bud Industries part PRM-14462, which has useable dimensions of 16.5″ width, 3″ height and 7.5″ depth, which is more than enough space. What I was seeking, though, was an enclosure with a removable front face. A lot of the enclosures I found had the faceplate part of the overall structure, with the sides, top or bottom screwing into it as part of the overall structure. And the aluminum rack mount chassis that Bud Industries develops go along that line as well.

But the plastic rack mount option does not. The rack mount “ears” can be removed from the box if desired, and the front plate is not critical to the overall structure, making it a perfect fit. I’ll need to modify the front panel to mount intake fans — possibly even get rid of it entirely and just mount some kind of mesh in its place, like the MNPCTech modder’s mesh. Might do the same to the back, actually, to make things easy and promote a clean air flow through it, along with being easier to cut what and where I need.

This one also appears to be a lot easier to disassemble. Since I’m no longer planning to go with hot swap drive caddies, this is going to be important. This enclosure is going to be used in a home setting, meaning the drives aren’t going to be getting pounded like they would in a large business or enterprise setting, so the need to replace them should be very, very infrequent.

So instead of mounting up drive caddies, I’m looking at drive cages. Since I’m not planning to allow the drives to be removed out the front of this, meaning I’ll have to completely open the enclosure to get to the drives, I think I’ve found something that’ll work just perfectly: CaseLabs S3 Dual HDD Mount. It appears from the picture that this is only 2″ tall, perhaps a hair taller, which is perfect for what I’m building.

Now if I was trying to do this with 2.5″ laptop drives or SSDs, then I would have gone with something off the shelf and called it a day — even gone with removable drive caddies as well since that is what is mostly available. But for 3.5″ platter drives, things have been a little more… difficult to plan and locate.

I had also planned on just having SATA to eSATA pass-through cables in the back, but have decided instead on using a port multiplier. It’ll increase the cost of this substantially but lower the complexity of trying to connect all of this up. I didn’t even realize that the port multipliers could be purchased separate, but Addonics carries them. They have options with a built-in RAID function, but the one I bought doesn’t have that.

So the parts list so far is looking like this:

  • Bud Industries PRM-14462
  • Addonics AD5SARM6G 5-port SATA III port multiplier
  • CaseLabs S3 Dual HDD Mount (x 2)

I only just discovered the CaseLabs HDD mount, so I haven’t ordered that yet as of the time I’m writing this. But so far the cost of these, not including shipping, is about 150 USD, which seems like a lot. But when you consider that pre-fabricated enclosures like this tend to be easily double that, I’m still coming out ahead.

For example there’s the M-140-JB enclosure from iStarUSA, which currently sells for about 300 USD through Amazon. It has a 150W open-frame power supply and hot-swap bays, but does not come with the port multiplier for connecting it to your server/system, nor any drive cables, which will add about 100 USD. And then there’s the EA-105-JB, which is basically just a steel box with some fans and hard drive mounts — no power supply, no drive cables, nothing else. Some places list it for about 150 USD.

All that’s left now is to figure out how to power the thing, and for that I’m leaning toward just getting an inexpensive 1U power supply and creating an on/off switch for it using a leftover locking anti-vandal switch I have laying around. The open-frame power supply on the M-140-JB gives me an idea as well.

So that’s it for now. Hopefully my next update on this will feature me actually building this.

Animals and pets

Slacktivism

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

It is very easy to click Like or Share on Facebook. It requires no more effort than moving the mouse to the desired location and setting you finger down for a split second — though in the case of Share it requires do the same to click the button to create the post.

Going out and doing something requires effort.

It is one of the reasons I get extremely frustrated when I see images like this:

10342448_685740681503939_2673944626941795340_nLet me fill in a little of my history here and hopefully it’ll be clear as to why this image pisses me off. First, open Google and search the phrase “Fairfield cat killers”.

Back in 1997 I lived in Fairfield, Iowa. I was a junior at Fairfield High School when three guys, also students at Fairfield High, allegedly drunk at the time, decided to go to the Noah’s Ark Animal Shelter and wreak havoc, swinging a baseball bat at anything that moved. In the end they killed 16 cats and severely injured 7 more.

Now back in 1997 the Internet wasn’t nearly as widespread as it was today. I couldn’t just write a quick blip on a blog, or create a cute little image like the one above on Facebook, or tweet my support for the animal shelter and how I’m against animal cruelty. Instead actions were required. You had to actually get out and do something.

And I did. I volunteered at Noah’s Ark.

I also had a cat at the time, and he definitely made sure to tell me how much of a mistake I had made, so unfortunately it was only for a day that I volunteered. Now I was in high school, and most high schools require community service as a condition for graduating. Except I never reported the time to my school. Instead I worked for a couple days at the local library for the community service time that I actually reported.

And though I only worked a day at Noah’s Ark, I’ve still done more with regard to animal cruelty than anyone who merely clicks “Like” or “Share” on any picture like the above one, or tweets or reblogs or upvotes, or whatever word happens to apply to the social network of your choice.

If you want to do something to actually bring animal cruelty to an end, you need to be active outside your home. Donate your time — even if it’s just a day — or your money to a shelter or the ASPCA. Then you’re actually doing something, and you can truly say you are against animal cruelty.

Actions always speak louder than words, and getting out and doing something will always mean more than merely “sharing” something online.

Absinthe

Absinthe – Part XVII

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment
Build Log:

As planned the loop in Absinthe was upgraded to three radiators. To be honest, ahead of this I wasn’t expecting it to work. A 2x120mm radiator plus an RM1000 sitting in the bottom of the Corsair 750D. It works…

The work started this past Friday evening when I flushed the radiator and assembled the fittings onto it.

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I used a gallon of water for a straight flush before setting it up into a loop through my water filter for a filtered run to get any leftover. Then my wife and I planned for the next day.

Saturday

I woke up before my wife on Saturday and took advantage of the time to tear down her computer as far as possible to move onto another table. I just wanted to eliminate as much bulk from the system as I could. I was starting with a full loop and a tower with quite a bit of hardware in it.

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And really the problem was simply that it was heavy. I drained the loop as far down as I could first, then started tearing everything apart one piece of copper at a time. Once everything was out, I hooked them up to the spare pump and reservoir for a flush. The radiators were pretty straightforward. The CPU block and GPU setup required a little improvisation.

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Then came actually installing the radiators back into the system. Recall from the Absinthe “intermission” article that I said your loop needs to be planned around your radiators. And recall from the start of this article that I wasn’t even entirely sure this would work. I knew from building Beta Orionis that the three radiators would fit into the case. It was the power supply that was the concern. The fact I would need to use extension fittings to get the hardline fittings above the edge of the fans helped convince me this could happen.

But the whether I could get the power cables around everything would determine the success of this idea.

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A tight fit, and I knew it would be a tight fit. But it still fits. Talk about a huge sigh of relief. And with that came installing the other radiators and tubing it up. I used this as a chance to completely redo her tubing as well.

Initially I had the pump mounted to the front radiator using the UN Z2 bracket. The route of the fluid would be from pump -> front radiator -> bottom radiator -> graphics cards -> top radiator -> CPU -> reservoir. And what I built would have worked, I just didn’t like how it looked.

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Like I said it works. But I didn’t like the fact the pump was just hanging off the radiator, for one. But the front tubing I wanted to keep, but I wasn’t sure if I could mount the pump to the bottom radiator and still preserve that. I left the loop running overnight with distilled water running through it while pondering the next move: fill with coolant or, drain it and change what I didn’t like.

Sunday

I ultimately decided to change the loop. It didn’t require completely rebuilding it, thankfully, only pulling down the connection from the CPU to the reservoir and from the pump to the front radiator. I also had to change how the pump and reservoir were connected to ensure there would be clearance for what I had planned.

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But the pump fit the way I hoped it would. And I used a Swiftech SLI fitting to go from the reservoir to pump, which easily puts it higher than the 90-degree rotary fitting that would go from the pump to the front radiator, much the same how I have it in Beta Orionis.

Two 15mm extension fittings plus the 90-degree rotary fitting made the connection from the CPU to the reservoir.

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And I think the new loop looks much cleaner than the previous. The tube that crosses around in front is a much lower profile than what I initially had in Absinthe.

Overall I’m quite pleased with how it turned out. I was able to pull a couple 90-degree fittings from the loop, though I did add in two 15mm extensions. That dual 45-degree setup was split up and one 45-degree fitting created a much cleaner run from the GPUs to the top radiator, while the other made for an easy run from the bottom radiator to the GPUs.

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And now for the overall loop (plus the mandatory cat tax):

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That’s Beta Orionis in the background hooked up to the “heart lung machine”. So with it all connected up, the only thing left to do was another distilled water leak test.

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While it was leak testing, I worked on finishing the cabling. Ultimately it wouldn’t be done till I could connect the pump to the power supply after it was filled with (fresh) coolant and ready to boot.

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And with that, my wife has her system back.

But work isn’t quite done. I have a fan mounting bracket on way from Mountain Mods to show later this week, along with a DEMCiflex filter kit for the 750D. So more updates to come.

Beta Orionis

Beta Orionis – Part XV: Follow-up with Koolance blocks

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment
Build Log:

I’m a little conflicted.

Earlier I posted about a rather interesting temperature differential I was experiencing with the Koolance VID-NX680 blocks I had originally purchased for my graphics cards. Under Bioshock Infinite, the cards had experienced a greater than 20C difference in temperature with the hotter card getting into the upper 70s. I posted about this on The Mod Zoo forum, and it was recommended I contact Koolance. In hindsight as well I decided I needed to attempt to re-test the blocks — this time around, though, with the intent of doing an RMA. So I set out to do just that — identify which block needed to be returned on an RMA and start the RMA process with Koolance.

Only that’s no longer necessary.

Flushing the blocks

Before re-mounting the blocks on the cards, I flushed them with distilled water. The apparatus I set up for this involved the old Phobya pump from the original water cooling build that preceded Absinthe, a Bitspower reservoir sitting with an open top to feed into it, pushing water through a tube into the block, with the outlet on the block just dumping into the sink.

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Obviously I had the pump wired up with the intent of actually using it to push water through the blocks. It’s similar to how I described flushing the radiators for Beta Orionis in an earlier article. The beauty of using this kind of setup for flushing blocks is the pump will put pressure behind it instead of trying to rely on gravity or the seal and shake method.

After flushing both blocks, I mounted them and set them up in a serial configuration. Then after refilling and bleeding the loop, it was time to test.

Temperature testing

And the results compared to previous are like night and day. I ran two tests against it: Valley Benchmark running the benchmark sequence, and bfgminer on its benchmark setting for around 30 minutes. In both cases, the temperature differential was similar to what was seen with the Watercool blocks: about 3C or 4C difference between both cards. That is exactly where you want it.

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With Valley Benchmark, as shown here, the temperatures maxed out at 46C and 43C, which is very similar to what I got with the Watercool blocks running Heaven Benchmark. Now with the Watercool blocks, I never captured any screenshots running bfgminer, but I can tell you that it produced temperatures exactly the same as Bioshock Infinite, making it a pretty good means of temperature testing cards. And in the case of the flushed Koolance blocks, the temperatures were, again, very similar to the Watercool blocks, maxing out at 51C and 47C.

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This is what you want to be seeing out of your water blocks. So no RMA will be necessary on this.

Afterward

As I said, though, I’m now conflicted on what to do: keep the Koolance blocks or switch back to the Watercool blocks. I think it’ll be the latter. Watercool’s blocks just look better, in my opinion, especially with the back plate, though the performance between the two is very similar. I had the Watercool blocks running in parallel, whereas I had the Koolance blocks running in series, and the difference between the two tends to be a couple degrees, advantage series. So with the Watercool blocks in parallel performing similar to the Koolance blocks in series, that tells me the Watercool blocks are still the better performers.

Plus, again, they look better in my opinion.

Now I don’t need to swap them out right away. The temperatures are exactly how I expected them from the outset. But since I have a mainboard swap coming up soon, I’ll wait till then to swap the blocks so I do it all at once.

Rack mount HDD enclosure

Rack mount hard drive enclosure project

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment
Build Log:

I’ve been looking around for a rack mount hard drive solution that meets certain requirements:

  • 4×3.5″ hard drives
  • No built-in RAID controller
  • One eSATA connector per drive — i.e. no port multiplier
  • Maximum 2U height
  • AC power supply and fans for cooling

So far I’ve come up empty, so I’m instead looking at building one.

I’ve already got a proof of concept via an eSATA bracket I picked up at my local Micro Center. Basically I connected the SATA side of the bracket’s cable to a hard drive and ran an eSATA cable to an eSATA port on my computer to ensure it would be detected. For power, I’ve been looking at either getting a 1U or 2U server power supply, or using one of the units I’ve seen at Circuit Specialists. For the enclosure I’ve already found several options and am still researching them.

All that’s left is the hard drive rack, and that’s where I’ve been running into difficulty.

It seems to build what I want I cannot go “off the shelf”, at least not without replacing my two WD Blues with their corresponding laptop versions. Instead what I’m wanting to do is add two additional WD Blues and convert my RAID 1 into a RAID 10 — giving me an extra terabyte of storage space and additional performance without sacrificing the safety and redundancy. So part of this is coming down to cost evaluation.

Now one of the requirements for this project is a maximum 2U form factor. I can find power supplies that will meet a 1U or 2U form factor without difficulty. Finding drive cages for 3.5″ hard drives that will fit into a 1U or 2U enclsoure, on the other hand, hasn’t been so simple. Now if I change over to 2.5″ hard drives (platters, not SSDs), I can find racks that will fit 2×2.5″ HDDs into a single 3.5″ drive bay with around 1″ height. That will fit into a 1U enclosure without any difficulty, and two can fit side by side as well, still leaving plenty of room for a 1U power supply and any internal cables, provided I get an enclsoure with the right depth. And those options are available off the shelf or for immediate order. Again, though, that would require I buy 4×2.5″ laptop drives, and the ones I would buy are $65 each currently, meaning we’re talking a $260 expense just in hard drives. Adding two additional desktop WD Blue HDDs would be only around $106 total currently on Amazon.

Most 3.5″ hard drive racks are tray or trayless options that fit into a single 5.25″ drive slot — which is 1.65″ tall and 5.75″ wide. 1U is only 1.75″ and no enclosure has an internal dimension allowing for that, so using those would require a 2U enclosure, and I could only fit 3 of them into a 2U enclosure. From there are options that fit three drives into a dual 5.25″ slot, which would require a 3U enclosure. And up from there.

So I’m having to go custom on this. And for that I’ve turned to iStarUSA.

iStarUSA has a few intriguing options for this project. Under their “Custom & OEM” category for internal drive cages are items T-35HD2-SA and T-C35HD-TLK. Both are single-drive hot-swap options. The former is only 1.1″ (28 mm) tall, while the latter is 1.34″ (34 mm) tall. Both of these can easily fit into a 1U enclosure. Both are about 4″ wide as well, meaning 4 can sit side by side in a 1U enclosure and leave about 1″ to 1.5″ of clearance left. iStarUSA also has available item T-C35HD4-TLK, which is 4xT-C35HD-TLK already bracketed together with a power/data board connecting all of them together. Unfortunately none of these are immediately available for order. So instead I’ve requested an evaluation on item T-35HD2-SA, since I feel it’ll best meet my needs. I’ll try to also get a quote on 4 of them as well, provided the unit meets additional build requirements I have in mind for this. I’m thinking about taking 4 of these and building them into a 2×2 setup inside a 2U enclosure, at least 10″ depth to allow room for fans and cables behind the cages.

Now another option that comes to mind is just taking something off the shelf and modding it to meet whatever needs I have. And that is certainly an option, but I’d rather not go that route as it could, in the end, be more expensive overall than going with what I’ve found, depending on what I’m quoted to purchase the item I have in mind.

So now that I’ve got that out of the way, let’s talk about the requirements for this project. The main reason against an external enclosure that supports RAID is I already have a RAID card already configured to RAID 1 with my hard drives in two separate external enclosures. I want to make that into a RAID 10, with the card still handling the setup. To do this, I need 4 hard drives, and having them in a rack mount enclosure in the RAST rack mount cabinet I’ve made would be easier. Sure it’d be less expensive buying two additional enclosures, but that’d require two additional power plugs and more cable bulk on my desk. Building it into a rack mount would just be much easier. I’d still have 4 eSATA cables given the current plan, but I’d have only 1 AC power cable instead of 4 wall warts.

Why not just mount 4 hard drives into the enclosure with fans and a power supply and call it a day? I’ve considered that option as well, but if I ever needed to replace one of the drives, I’d rather not have to pull the entire thing apart to do so. My existing setup already requires I practically take apart an enclosure to replace one of the drives.

Plus I’m interested to see how much it’ll cost to completely build this out compared to what is already available as a finished product.

Projects/Technology

IKEA RAST rack cabinet

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 1 Comment

Note: IKEA has discontinued the RAST nightstand. This article is kept for historical reasons only. As an alternative for lightweight equipment, consider this article where I build a rack cabinet from the IKEA BESTÅ cabinet.

In a previous article I rambled about various rack mount projects I have in mind. Before being able to actually do any kind of rack mount project, I kind of need a rack cabinet. And since I didn’t want to spend several hundred dollars on such a cabinet, I looked around for various ideas on building my own, one of which was using the IKEA RAST nightstand as the cabinet and buying rack rails to create the cabinet. And ultimately that is the way I went.

The original idea off which I based this came from here. This was not originally my idea. I’m only providing my experience building it.

I purchased two sets of 6-unit rails from Amazon, namely the Reliable Hardware Company item RH-6-SRR-A for only $9.80 each — each set is a pair of rails so you only need 1 to make 1 cabinet. Along with these, you will need 12×1/4″ screws with nuts, 6 for each rail. At minimum they need to be 1″ long, but 1-1/4″ screws will be better, especially if you want to use washers with them. I used 1-1/4″ screws that I bought from Home Depot. To mount any rack devices you will need #10-32 — not #10-24 — and the 1/2″ screws will work fine. You’ll need 4 of those screws per device, possibly 8 for the larger devices.

So what about cost? Here’s the breakdown (without any applicable sales tax)

  • RAST nightstand – 14.99
  • Screws – 2.94 each for 4 screws/nuts, 3 needed
  • 6U rails: 9.80 for single pair

Total: about $33.61 (plus any applicable tax or shipping charges)

The 8U rack rails (Reliable Hardware Company item RH-8-SRR-A) are $12.75 for a pair, which would give an 8U rack for about $39.50, adding in an additional packet of screws and nuts for the longer rails. But when you consider that cost compared to what most pre-fabricated rack cabinets cost, you’re still coming out pretty far ahead. You could still easily build three of these cabinets for the same cost as one pre-fabricated cabinet.

And if you wanted to stack them to build up a taller cabinet, something I intend for my entertainment center, you’d just need brackets to secure them. I mentioned using pegs in the previous article, but seeing the nightstand in person, I’m not entirely sure how wise that would be. Brackets would be the better choice.

Or if you really want to get fancy, and have the space and tools to do such, you can build as tall a cabinet as you want in whatever style you want — just make sure it’ll be strong enough to bear the weight of whatever you intend to mount into it.

Now in my recent visit to IKEA, I did acquire a LACK table, and I am considering taking a rack mount surge suppressor and gigabit switch and attaching them to that table as it will reside under my wife’s new desk. They’re the only rack mount items I’d have below her system for now, and it’d clear some more room off her table top, especially since the new table is 12″ less wide and 6″ less deep than her current table, but about 12″ taller. Sitting on top of the LACK table would be a drawer unit that currently sits on top of her desk. The computer tower we both feel should be able to sit on her desktop behind her monitors as it currently does.

Now this doesn’t mean the rack cabinet I just built will be going unused. I do have a server I will be mounting into it. Interesting story with the case, too, the Logisys Computer 4802: it doesn’t fit in a 19″ rack unless you remove the handles. But I also know there are smaller, easier to manage server cases that I’m considering for a full rack — likely to sit in the media rack I intend — rather than using the 24″ long server case. For now the 24″ case will do the job and I’ll just buy some blanking plates to fill in the other two unit spaces.

Plus I have other rack mount projects in mind, so any additional cabinets I build will certainly be put to use.

Projects/Technology

Ramble about rack mount and other project ideas

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

Projects are one thing that kind of keep me rolling — thank you to my father and grandfather for the genetic circuitry keeping that rolling. It’s what led me to build Absinthe and Beta Orionis — and the upgrades that will soon be coming to Absinthe. And it’s what is leading me to want to build another water-cooled system for one of my wife’s friends.

Beyond that, my wife is big into online gaming, and one game she plays particularly is Minecraft. She’s been bugging/begging me for a server. So instead of just taking another case and building out into that, I decided to take a different route: rack mount. Rack mount chassis can actually be acquired for a pretty decent price. I picked up the Logisys 4802 chassis from NewEgg for $55 plus shipping. It’s a four rack-unit chassis (4U), though it doesn’t have much in the way of fan space, and fan space is really my only complaint about it.

Now I just need a rack mount cabinet to hold it. Unfortunately pre-fab rack mount cabinets tend to come at a premium, and it’s one I don’t want to pay, so I’ve been looking at other options.

Now that we have an IKEA here in Kansas City, I’ve heard of a couple custom rack mount setups others have been making. One of the more infamous is the LACK rack, made with the IKEA LACK side table, available for about $10, and able to provide 8U of space. The only thing about it of which I’m not fond is that the legs are the mounting rails, and they’re made of particle board and fiber board. The shipping weight on the rackmount chassis was over 25lbs, meaning the weight of a loaded-down server in the chassis I selected will easily approach 40lbs, depending on components. About the only way that would be a viable option here is by turning the table upside down so the weight is fully supported without it having to rest down onto the floor. No thanks. Someone who mounted a RAID system in the so-called “enterprise” version of the rack had to use L-brackets to ensure the weight was adequately supported.

IKEA does distribute a LACK table on casters, which would provide the weight support, but 1) it’s $30 and 2) I’m still not fond of having to use the sides of the table as the mounting points.

Then there was another option: the RAST nightstand from IKEA. This one has my attention: the inside is exactly 19″ wide, perfect for rack mount rails, and made from 3/4″ solid yellow pine all around. If you take the table as it’s manufactured, you can get 6U out of it, but you can get 8U by moving the shelf down. So you take this, plus a 6U/8U pair of rails, and you’ve got a 6U/8U cabinet for less than $30 (plus tax and shipping, where applicable). So that’s the route I’ll be going for the server — I’ll need two and I’ll need to attach them together to have a full-depth rack since the server chassis is nearly 24″ long. Full instructions on making the cabinet are available.

They may also be stackable. Drill a couple holes down through the ends of the side walls for steel pegs and that should hold to provide a taller cabinet if needed. Or you can just use straight brackets to attach them together. Going taller of course means stability becomes a concern. Even if you make the 6U or 8U version of the RAST rack mount cabinet, then stacking these would be an easy way to get more rack mount space on the cheap — 4 of those stacked would give you 32U of rack space for less than $120, 24U if you go with the 6U build. Either way it’s one hell of a value.

I think I need to walk around IKEA with a tape measure looking for other possibilities.

Now one project I’m considering is converting my entertainment center into rack mount. I don’t have much that can be rack mounted — currently. I can create a rack mount cabinet using any of the options I’ve already mentioned, and then buy rack mount shelves to set it up however I need without having to mess with my existing hardware at all. But where’s the fun in that?

Now before continuing, I should mention that virtually all of the electronic components in my entertainment center are beyond warranty. Trying any of the ideas in mind will likely void your existing warranties, if any, so that is your risk to assume. Continuing…

Recently I discovered a company called Circuit Specialists. One of the products they put out are rack mount enclosures. They’re available in 300mm (a little under 12″) and 350mm (about 13.75″) depth, and from 1U to 5U height. The front panel is aluminum, but the rest of the enclosure is steel. It seems to be thin steel — 1/10″, about 12 gauge — based on the dimensions provided, which isn’t something I can cut with tools I have or am willing to acquire.

Bud Industries makes enclosures as well, but pricing varies based on distributor (they don’t sell them directly), and they tend to be more expensive than Circuit Specialists. They’re made of aluminum, though, which is easier to work and mod with just a jigsaw, possibly even a Dremel. They also have plastic rack mount enclosures available at 8″ depth only but 1U to 3U height. I think I’ll need to investigate that a little more. The 1U option could be very handy for creating a rack-mount server from a Raspberry Pi with cooling fans and a hard drive, or you can tear apart drive enclosures and build a rack mount drive array for a fraction of the price.

One of the 2U enclosures would be a good experiment for rack mounting my original X-Box (yes I still have one of those) while a 1U enclosure would be good for my HD-DVD player (yes, I still have one of those, too).

I’ve also had in mind creating a rack mount water box for water cooling a rack mount server, and those could be very handy for such a project. A 2U height could handle an 80mm wide radiator, and AlphaCool makes single and dual 80mm radiators. You’d need a 3U height for 120mm radiators, 4U for 140mm, and 5U for 180mm or 200mm radiators. Note this is all for mounting the radiator on its side.

If you attach the radiator to the bottom of the chassis — this would require having at least 1U space below the water box for an air channel — then you could use whatever side radiator you could fit depending on how you mount the radiator. If you mount it so the radiator goes side to side along the 17″ width of the chassis, you could have up to a triple 140mm radiator. Go with a 12-inch or greater depth enclosure and you could fit two side by side. Go along the depth of the chassis and you could fit up to a 180mm radiator for an 8″ depth, a dual 120mm radiator for a 12″, though a dual 140mm might fit, and a 16″ depth would provide for a triple 120mm radiator, and you could probably run several of those side-by-side as well.

You’d still need to account for a reservoir and pump, though. So perhaps a 2U box that houses just the radiator and pump, and a 1U that is just radiators with fans blowing across the chassis to evacuate the warm air, with 1U between them for airflow into the radiators.

Imagine a gaming rig built into a 3U or 4U chassis that is water cooled using a rack mount water box below it. I sense a future project! I wonder how well my wife would go for having Absinthe rebuilt in such a fashion… Probably not very well, so I’ll probably start with her server in figuring this out. The server is running an AMD Athlon X2 4200+ processor, which has a 65W TDP. Getting it on water would probably allow me to really overclock the thing, along with being an interesting project/experiment.

And to power all of that, Circuit Specialists has small power supplies that can provide 12V current — 12V being needed to power fans and pumps. Just create a connector to feed it into a power distribution board like the Bitspower X-Station and you can power everything from that. A double-bay reservoir/pump combination should do the trick as well.

So yeah, plenty of options available, lots of possibilities…. and too many ideas coming to mind as well. I am too much like my father and grandfather in that regard.

Beta Orionis

Beta Orionis – Part XIV

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

Build Log:

It’s still on the heart lung machine. The replacement AX860 I received is exhibiting the same problem as before under load. Initially it was fine for a couple days, then it started cutting out on me. This actually makes be believe the mainboard may be the concern, not the power supply. But then the question is why the problem would be exhibited with an AX860, which is a platinum rated 860W power supply, but not the GS800, which is a bronze-rated 800W power supply.

Something just doesn’t add up on that.

So a replacement mainboard is on the way from NewEgg. I’m not replacing it with another Gigabyte mainboard — I want to be able to overclock this, and the weird power cycling this mainboard does when you toggle a couple settings has me worried. I’m going instead with the Asrock 990FX Extreme6. It’s basically a blue version of the Fatal1ty Killer board, but without the E2200 LAN chip and a 1-year warranty instead of a 3-year warranty. So if the board dies anytime in 2015, I can RMA it. After that, might was well look at upgrading.

If I can confirm the board is the problem, I’ll RMA it and then just set aside the replacement for something else.

Moving on…

New graphics card blocks

In the previous section I mentioned that I was utterly disappointed with the temperature performance on the Koolance blocks I had on my graphics cards. It seems that Koolance’s VID-NX680 just wasn’t up to the task. I mentioned that I opted to replace it with the Watercool Heatkiller GPU-X3 since I was able to find them for a great price from FrozenCPU — who actually sent me 5 of the backplates instead of just 2. And no I’m not kidding on that last one:

backplates

That’s 5 backplates on top of the two water blocks — probably a little difficult to see underneath. The order called for two blocks with a backplate for each, and they sent me 5 backplates. With several people checking these orders, how did this escape notice? And when the person who initially packed it saw they had packed 5 backplates for just two water blocks, that immediately should’ve prompted scrutiny to ensure they were getting things right.

The extra plates went back Monday afternoon via 2-day USPS Priority Mail — a week after I received them.

So the big question, of course, is how well they perform. And truthfully, the difference is like night and day. These are the temperatures running Heaven Benchmark 4.0 on its benchmark option — max column is the important one.

heavenbenchmark

There’s still a slight differential in temperature, but this is about what you want to see: at most only a few degrees deviation. With the Koolance blocks I was seeing 10C difference between the cards, with one card still reaching 60C. So this is quite a stark contrast. The temperatures for Valley Benchmark were about the same: 3C difference with the hotter card reaching 45C. Recall that this is also with three radiators, all of them ST30s, with two 240mm and one 360mm radiator.

Certainly a major improvement. And I should add these temperatures are with the cards running in parallel.

Now this doesn’t mean that Koolance’s block is bad. It just means you can’t use it for any serious load. Perhaps the blocks I received were faulty, or perhaps it’s just Koolance’s design. Either way, I’m glad I went with the Watercool blocks. Plus the backplates give a little better piece of mind with having that weight on the card. Plus the nickel and copper go well with the fittings and copper tubing.

So now it’s just about waiting for the mainboard to arrive from NewEgg — hopefully in time for the weekend as that’d be the perfect time to take this whole thing down. I will need to pull new tubing — again! — for the lines going to and from the CPU block, and I’ll probably re-evaluate the fitting setup I have coming off the top radiator at that time as well, likely replacing it with straight tubing or some other kind of bend.

Update: After playing Bioshock Infinite for about an hour and a half, these were the observed temperatures — again, max column is the important one. Compare this to the previous temperatures with the Koolance blocks. Again only about a 3C difference between the cards, and these Watercool blocks are keeping them nice and cool. I should’ve gone with these first and saved myself the trouble.

bioshockinfinite

Free speech and press

Employers and electioneering

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

I came across a Huffington Post/YouGov poll today that asked a simple question: “Should it be legal or illegal for companies to ask employees to vote for candidates they support?” Not surprisingly, as of the time of my vote (I said yes), the vast majority of responders said “illegal”.

In reading this question, it would not surprise me if a lot of people were of the mindset that the company in question would be able to determine how a particular employee voted and could then weed out those who don’t align politically with the company. Except that’s not entirely possible.

In the United States, all elections are carried out by secret ballot. This wasn’t always the case, and the practice wasn’t universal across the United States until 1892 (there were 44 States in the US at the time). Under that practice, it would be impossible for someone to determine how you voted unless you explicitly say how you voted.

That a person voted in a particular election is public record, but how that person voted is not available. It is not possible for someone to determine from public records how you voted in a particular election, only that you voted. So it would be impossible for your employer to determine whether you voted for a candidate they support.

Now your employer may be able to determine who in their company voted in the most recent election. If they believe voting to be important, they could use that information to modify company policies to try to encourage as many to get to the polls as possible. They may also be able to determine if they’re registered to vote and, again, modify company policies to encourage registration. A lot of people think there are major privacy concerns at play here, but I don’t share that point of view.

So then, if your employer wants to promote a particular candidate around the office, should that be illegal or legal? I believe it should be completely legal, so let’s get into this.

For one, there’s the First Amendment to the Constitution. The Supreme Court of the United States ruled in the infamous and landmark Citizens United case that corporations can promote political candidates or causes. They are still open to the consequences of their political speech, but they are not barred from making it. This means that if a corporation wishes to send out an e-mail to employees encouraging them to support a particular candidate or ballot initiative, they are free to do so. I think the only subjects on which they are still barred from doing so have to do with unionization or labor relations, courtesy of Federal laws and regulations regarding those topics.

For example, I work for a large health care corporation in the United States. This past election cycle they didn’t send out any messages encouraging us to support any particular candidate or ballot initiative. The same for 2012 when Missouri Proposition E was on the ballot regarding health insurance exchanges in the State — it requires the legislature or voters to approve any health insurance exchange to be created under the Affordable Care Act.

While they never sent out any kind of communication asking us to support a particular candidate or ballot initiative, it is not illegal for them to do so, nor should it be illegal for them to do so.

But again I feel in considering this question, many probably think that corporations could go one step further and reprimand or otherwise show disfavor toward employees who do not vote a particular way. Political affiliation is not a protected class under employer discrimination laws, and at-will employment laws mean a person or their employer may terminate employment for any reason or none — except reasons specifically barred by discrimination laws.

So could a person be terminated simply for voting the “wrong way”? Yes.

Would any corporation actually do such a thing? No. There is plenty that safeguards against such an action that most do not readily consider.

For one, if the employee in question had a long tenure with the company, that person would be very costly loss to the company. Even then, training a new employee would be expensive for most companies. Every employee brings some kind of value to the company that would be lost if they were terminated, even if for cause.

Second, nothing bars the employee from going public with the reason for their termination. I know the typical retort: the employer would sue the former employee to keep them from going public. While this could happen, truth is a defense to any lawsuit alleging libel, slander or defamation. So if you believe you were terminated because of your politics, and only because of your politics, you’d better be able to defend such a claim if you go public with it.

If the employer can cite a different or compounding reason for your termination, you lose. And as lawsuits are public record, if you lose a defamation suit brought by a former employer, you lose even more. So if you’re going to go public with claims that are defaming toward your previous employer, you’d better be absolutely right about it, because you may have to defend those claims in Court.

So in the end, yes an employer should be allowed to encourage their employees to vote a particular way. And while an employer technically can fire an employee for not voting a particular way, there are numerous safeguards that would prevent an employer from doing so.

But the only way your employer could know, definitively, how you voted is if you actually say how you voted.

Law Enforcement/Police

Michael Brown lost, and still would have if he were white

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

Let’s play a game of “what if”. In this round, let’s propose this scenario: “what if Michael Brown was white”. Debra Saunders, an opinion columnist at SFGate, stated such an idea before immediately contradicting herself:

So do I believe that Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson might not have confronted Michael Brown, 18, and his friend Dorian Johnson, 22, if they were white kids walking in the middle of the street on a hot Saturday around noon? Yes, I do. But I also find Wilson’s explanation credible. He testified that he approached the young men because he saw cars swerving around them. It’s his job to keep the community safe.

First, if two white men were walking down the middle of the road, police will confront them. As Saunders pointed out, hence her contradiction, Brown and Johnson’s actions were causing problems with traffic. Now if Michael Brown was white, would he still be alive today? Very likely, but not for the reasons you might be thinking.

I will say up front that if a white person did the same as Michael Brown, the outcome would’ve been the same. But I don’t believe that would’ve happened.

The fact that blacks are statistically far more likely than whites to be arrested, convicted and jailed for longer sentences also leads them to have a far lesser trust of authority, especially the police. Trust for police among blacks is much lower than among whites, and contacts by police with black individuals are more likely to be confrontational. Add into this the fact that encounters by white officers with black individuals are painted heavily with the “racist” brush, and it becomes a powder keg.

Michael Brown’s death was the lit fuse in Ferguson’s powder keg.

The first rule of police encounters is to remain calm and cool, and to recognize that if you escalate a simple encounter to a confrontation, you will almost always lose — at minimum it’ll be your freedom, even if just temporarily, or it could be your life.

The reason Michael Brown would still be alive if he were white is because he would very likely have, without fail, obeyed the officer’s command to move to the sidewalk if he were encountered walking down the middle of the street as Brown was — an act that is more dangerous than it is illegal, just like most traffic-related infractions. If he acted up against the officer, though, even to the point of losing his life, we would have readily attributed it to some kind of substance issue — strung up on some kind of drug — or a psychiatric concern, and not to any kind of ingrained distrust for police.

Brown did not have to die that day. If he had merely obeyed the officer’s command to move to the sidewalk, cooperated when asked about the cigarillos in his hands, then the outcome would’ve been quite different. Brown would still have been arrested on a theft charge, and even though the video shows evidence qualifying for a felony charge, the prosecution would probably have made it a misdemeanor with probation and restitution simply to get it out of the way.

But as the evidence demonstrates, Brown did not obey the officer. He attacked the officer. He gave the officer reason to fear for his life. That is why Brown died that day. It is not because he was black. It’s because he attacked the officer. In confrontations with police, you will likely lose. Whether it’s your freedom or your life, you will very likely lose.

This is why in cases where you believe an officer is overstepping their authority, the encounter with that officer is not the place to complain about the officer’s conduct. Obey the officer so you walk away, then file the complaint as soon as possible. If your phone has an audio recorder, start talking into it on your way to file the complaint. Departments take notice when complaints are filed, because they know if complaints are not being handled, the city or county government will ask why, as the citizens will demand answers.

But for God’s sake, do not aggressively confront the police. You will not win.