Terra-Server

The goal was to build a computer or server with 1024+ GByte of storage capacity, why you might say? Well I needed a bit of storage capacity .. okay, it's a bit overkill ... but that couldn't stop me ...

What do we need to build a Terra-Server? Well we need the following things:

• Acrylic Case
  Well, this wasn't the original idea, my first idea was to customize a Mac G5 Case to an ATX Case ... except the steal was a bit thicker then I thought. I've destroyed 2 Dremel blades on a cut of 5cm ... It was a lot of work ... and fitting 8 harddisk would cause a problem. So I've decided to buy another case ...
• 5x 80mm Case Fans
  If you've got an acrylic case, you're a bit into case-modding, so I had to buy case fans like any other case-modder. (lame excuse eh?!)
• 8x Western Digital 1600 (160 Gbyte)
  Enough storage?
• 2x Promise Ultra 133 TX2
  Most motherboards have 2 IDE connections which means you could connect up to 4 harddisks, enough for most people ... not for me, so I've added 2 IDE extension card (each allow up to 4 extra IDE devices).
• 2x Realtek 10/100Mbps
  Although the motherboard had already 2 network connections (100Mbit & 1Gbit), It wasn't enough for me ...
• Be Quiet (400 Watt, ATX)
  To run this power consuming machine I bought a power supply from Be Quiet. It's a good power supply and it has some nice features.
• Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe
  This motherboard has some nice features, like an gigabit connection, 8 USB2.0 connections, 2 Firewire connection, etc ...
• AMD XP2500+
  1,8Ghz

This was pretty easy ... there was a plan ... but who reads it (Unless something doesn't fits, and even then you wouldn't read it).
After the assembly it was time for the first startup ... this went all fine, no errors like "Keyboard not found, press F1 key to continue ...".
or others
The next step was installing an operating system, I've chosen for Microsoft Windows 2003 Enterprise Edition. There was no real reason why I've chosen for this operating system.

If you look close at the pictures you'll see a duck in my pc. Well the story about that duck is this. Last year there was this Simpsons Episode: Sleeping With The Enemy in that episode, Ralph was saying "duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, ...". This was so stupid and funny that I started saying it all the time ... so a girlfriend of mine bought me this duck for christmas ...

Yes indeed, I've got a new goal ... I think you can guess what it is?

What do we need to build a Terra-Server? Well we need the following things:

• Cooler Master Stacker
  If you want to install 9 harddisks, 1 cd/dvd-drive, you need lots of space ...
• 3x 120mm 5,25" Bay Fans + 1x 80mm Case Fan
  Lots of fans ... lots of cooling to do ...
• 8x Western Digital 5000 (500 Gbyte)
  Enough storage?
• 1x Western Digital 1600 (160 Gbyte)
  Windows XP Professional & Vista Ultimate, did I say they are legal versions?!
• 1x RocketRAID 2320
  This time I'll do it otherwise, instead of 8 seperate drives, I'v decided to create one huge drive. I've chosen for RAID 5, I think it's quite good, I don't think 2 drives will fail at the same time ...
• Asus EN9700GS
  Well I'm not really a gamer, but I like to play some games once in a while ... like Half-Life 2 ...
• Cooler Master iGreen (450 Watt, ATX)
  Well yes, videocard, 9 harddisks, 1 cd/dvd drive, 4 fans, ...
• Asus P5N32-SLI Premium (Wifi AP Edition)
  This motherbord had some nice features, like an nForce chipset, 2 gigabit connections, 10 USB ports, ...
• Intel Duo 2 Core 6400
  2,13 Ghz

This was fairly easy, I think it took about 2 hours to assembly all the stuff to a working computer
There was just one problem thou ... RocketRAID wouldn't detect my harddisks ... I've searched the manual, I've searched the internet ... no solution ... until one day ... I had this idea ... what if I would flash the firmware (for some reason I didn't think earlier about it) and update the drivers ...

As you can see, there was an fix for Western Digital harddisks, the drivers implemented this fix in version 1.03, the firmware implemented this fix in version 1.04.

When I've flashed the firmware and updated the drivers for Windows ... the problem was simply gone ... it was just that stupid thing I didn't think about for 3 days ... But it works, and I won't forget this anymore EVER!