phinix nanoTower - Smallest and most powerful mITX rig !

Rossi~ said:
Wooo designs!!! :) Lookin' goood!
Quick question, went back to the starting post and noticed you're not having games on a RAID-0 SSD. Striping on SSD doesn't really show that much of a performance increase unless you're laoding/using relatively large amounts of data, e.g. games, moving media data etc. Having a stripe boot partition isn't going to see you much more performance than just one on it's own, one SSD with TRIM for OS is damn quick anyway :p . If i was you i'd get a 30/40gb SSD for boot and a larger 80/160Gb SSD for games, you will see a big difference in maps/levels loading in games that way.

Also, mega photobucket failure going on back there lol
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Photobucket pisses me off!:) I opened third account now to make sure that 10GB a month will eb fine:) People love my build I guess...:D

Well, I had OS on single SSD and on two stripped and have to say there is huge difference between actually. It loads quicker and software response is better. I even had 3 in RAID0 but didn't see much difference, biggest is between one and two. True, some games take advantage of it, I keep few on SSDs actually, like Crysis, FarCry2, or now Sabotuer. I may change it in some point in the future to one 60GB of OS and second one for games. Right now I'm flashed, all money went on this build:)
 
phinix said:
Photobucket pisses me off!:) I opened third account now to make sure that 10GB a month will eb fine:) People love my build I guess...:D

Well, I had OS on single SSD and on two stripped and have to say there is huge difference between actually. It loads quicker and software response is better. I even had 3 in RAID0 but didn't see much difference, biggest is between one and two. True, some games take advantage of it, I keep few on SSDs actually, like Crysis, FarCry2, or now Sabotuer. I may change it in some point in the future to one 60GB of OS and second one for games. Right now I'm flashed, all money went on this build:)
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Ah cool so you've had experience yourself, that good then :) Good to know, though apparently depends if they're TRIM supported drives or not. If you stripe 2 TRIM supported drives you lose the TRIM function.

Yeah you could always keep what you've got and then replace the games drive with a 160Gb SSD, or replace them all and go SATAIII 6G. At some point that is when you've stopped throwing money at building pretty alu/acrylic boxes :p
 
Here's the right side panel. This one has bigger window to show graphic card. ALso, chaotic hex shape edges to add some dramatic character to the panel:)

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What do you guys think?
 
I couldn't help myself... had to try it out on the Tower.... Don't mind the colors, I only tried them out to make some contrast for outside cover panels...

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Damn i cant wait till you have it finish!!! If it looks anything like what you have mocked up there its going to be SICK!!!
 
The renderings look great, now show us the real deal! :D
 
Rossi~ said:
Yuummmmyyy
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I know, I know, I love it too:)

So that will be the design I'm gonna make. Well, I may add some small changes, like add holes for USB ports and audio out on the left side fo the left panel. Also power button needs a place so it may end up on the left panel. Still don't know where I'm going to install fan controller. Thing is with this small design there is no space outside for those items...

I worked a bit last weekend, I cut the bottom part of the mobo tray to make space for power chamber front panel right under the mobo. Also I cut out that square in top panel for fan exaust and access to cables in I/O mobo panel. Trimmed those L shape alu prifiles that were installed under mobo tray - there were sticking out a bit to the front of the case priventing front panel installation, so had to trim them both about 5mm. Another thing was cut small holes for H50 barbs - I cut out fan hole in middle panel but left it without holes for pre-installed H50 babrs and tubing Now its ready for that radiator installation. Yep, I think that was all. Also bought another 20x30mm L shape profile - I will use it to mount power chamber. I know all thos wrods won't exactly show what I did, but didn't have time to make photos of those parts. Will do it tomorrow.

Now, guys - I bought today a small tapping kit, but this time it is different, not like the one I had. Old one was pain to use cause threading bit was unstable and I failed all my attempts.
This time I bought different kind - the one that looks like Draper one.
Old one is like this:

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New one is exactly like this kit:

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Now, please give me all tips, instructions and kind of ideas how to tap aluminium. Please help me out here cause I need to tap main alu rods to mount outside panels. This is the only way I can mount them, cause when the whole hardware will be installed I won't have access to internal sides of those rods, so cannot use regular nuts etc...
Please share your wisdow.. how to thread holes. I will be using M4 screws, so what size of drill bit I need to use to drill holes for that tapper bit, how to do it right?
Last time I tried with old kit I basically ruined the thread somehow.. ripped it off and ended up with clean holes:(
 
For tapping aluminum get some of this

http://www.tools-plus.com/tap-magic...um=feed&utm_source=froogle&utm_term=TAP30004P

1. Clean the tap. Tooth brushes work great.
2. Few drops of Tap magic in the hole.
3. Gently get the tap started in the hole.
4. 1/2 turn in.
5. 1/4 turn back.
6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 until done tapping.

It is slow but steady and will keep you from breaking the tap or getting it stuck. It is also a good idea when possible to do a thru hole tap. Meaning the starter hole goes all the way thru the part, this keeps the tap from getting jammed in the hole also.

As far as Drill size goes. I am in the USA so we tend not to use metric. But if you know that the major Diameter of the screw is 4mm, in this case, then you would probably use a 3.5mm or 3mm drill bit.

Practice on some scrap utnil you get it right, then you wont mess up your case.
 
phinix said:
Photobucket pisses me off!:) I opened third account now to make sure that 10GB a month will eb fine:) People love my build I guess...:D
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rent your own server instead:D way esier to work with via ftp:p my trafic pr. month is about 30 gb xD

your design is wicked cruel man! love the honeycomb pattern, and the general scheme. you should have used all black wires for the extenders though:/ you can see a little trough the sleeving:(

oh, and remember, warranty is overrated;) chop that psu up!

edit:
this should come in handy for you;)
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størrelse på skrue/andet der skal bruges = size on bolt to be used
størrelse på hul som bruges til gevindbor = size of hole to be drilled before tapping
 
Thanks mate!

Hmm.. I just found this - look slike pretty cool gadget - I could plug two SSDs and use only one SATA port on mobo, that would give me one more SATA!

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Im confuuuuseed. Would that not half the bandwidth if you're planning on RAID-0?
 
Rossi~ said:
Im confuuuuseed. Would that not half the bandwidth if you're planning on RAID-0?
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RAID 0 doubles it. For example, my two Vertex drives gives me 415/250 MB/s - read/write, compared to single 230/135 MB/s. It is almost x2.
 
I meant if you use that gadget you'll be limiting 2 drives to use jsut one port on the motherboard?
 
Rossi~ said:
I meant if you use that gadget you'll be limiting 2 drives to use jsut one port on the motherboard?
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Sorry, not sure what you mean, one SATA channel will give be fine for two raid 0 I think...
 
phinix said:
Sorry, not sure what you mean, one SATA channel will give be fine for two raid 0 I think...
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Not really, no. SATA 2.0 runs at 3Gb/s, which is 375MB/s. SATA 2.0 uses 8b/10b encoding, so that cuts the maximum throughput of a single SATA 2.0 link to 300MB/s. You'd definitely notice the cap on your sequential read speeds, and your sequential write speeds might be slightly affected too.
 
Kaldskryke said:
Not really, no. SATA 2.0 runs at 3Gb/s, which is 375MB/s. SATA 2.0 uses 8b/10b encoding, so that cuts the maximum throughput of a single SATA 2.0 link to 300MB/s. You'd definitely notice the cap on your sequential read speeds, and your sequential write speeds might be slightly affected too.
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Well.. in this case its better solution for SATA 3.0 then...
 
Now.. time for UPDATE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YAY!!! :D

Maybe not much, but it took me a lot of work and time to do those small things...

First of all, power chamber. I made 3 of 4 panels for this thing. Also made two main L shape profiles which will be holding left panel (one below the left window).
On the photo below you can see this left panel. Its not attached yet, it will be mounted to those two L profiles on both sides with rivets. You can see those profiles inside as well. These are already mounted - I drilled small holes for M4 screws and bigger, 8mm holes in them to the middle of the alu rod to hide screw heads. Each L shape profile is attached with two screws. It is steady as rock:)
On some of the photos you may notice that I also "trimmed" those L shape profiles behind the mobo tray - they are only trimmed, not filed or sanded yet, so they look ugly, but I had to leave them for now cause wanted to make that power cahmber panels. They will be finished this weekened.

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Here's one of the sides - you can see I used black head cap screws I got from Bill to mount them.

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On photo below you can see front panel which is just put there, its not attached yet. I need to fabricate some L shape profiles for it on the bottom.
Also what I did and what can be seen here is I cut out that rectangle bit from the mobo tray in order to fit this power chamber panel below it. Idea of all thos panels is to hide all cables and mess and make it look all clean and tidy. Power chamber will contain the PSU and water pump.

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And here you see top panel for the chamber. You can see it won't cover the whole bottom of the case, cause I need space for graphic card on one of the sides.... But, to route it to through the whole case I left small "tongue" on the left so it gets in that small space below mobo tray (its 8mm wide, but very important to keep the whole structure steady).

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Better look on the top panel... from the top:)

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Now, two other BIG things I made lately: top panel has now huge square hole in it! :)
Yep, that will be necessery for H50 fan exhaust and access to cables plugged to the mobo:)
Of course you also can see that small, 13mm deep gap on the front - that is for dvd that will go up to the main top acrylic panel...

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Last, but not least - my favourite - I finished the hole for H50 cooler - you can see the fan hole is cut out. The beauty part are those small holes for tubing.. I love them:) I actually filed those sharp corners, so tubing won't be even scratched during the mounting...

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So, that would be it for now. I'm leaving you with two last shots of my little beauty:)

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Here's the right panel design, updated. I didn't like that small piece sticking out at the bottom part, so cut that out. Now, this is the final version, which will be fabricated.

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MAH GAWD!

I will purchase one of those please! :)
 
Kaldskryke said:
Not really, no. SATA 2.0 runs at 3Gb/s, which is 375MB/s. SATA 2.0 uses 8b/10b encoding, so that cuts the maximum throughput of a single SATA 2.0 link to 300MB/s. You'd definitely notice the cap on your sequential read speeds, and your sequential write speeds might be slightly affected too.
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Not only that, but you are highly unlikely to get even close to full benefit of SSD Raid 0 with the motherboard raid controller, you will most likely see about 300 MB/s max, to get more you would need a dedicated raid card using a PCI-e 4x or 8x connection. Now that said 300 MB/s is by no means slow, but the preforemance would scale better with a dedicated raid solution, rather than onboard.
 
I have been playing with top panel design today, this is what I got right now.
Just a small teaser:D

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Common man, the suspense is KILLING all of us, moar pix!
 
haha:) Outside panels will be ready next week. This weekend I will be working on power chamber, need to finish it this weekend. I have cut all walls of it, now need to figer out how I'm going to put it all together.
There are few small things that need to be done, but they take load of time...
So be patient my friend.. be patient:)
 
Here's the latest sketchup of it, on top of the Tower. Looks ok, I'm sure it will look beautiful in real life with yellow ring switch, yellow leds lighting it up from the inside through that mesh in the middle...
Sketches always look a bit sintetic, fat for me... But its still useful to see it before you actually cut it out from material:)

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Thanks guys! :)

Guys, how about this top panel design? Its more like side panels, with those asimetrical window holes...
I'm hasitating:(


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