Acer AC100 mini server upgrade/mods. Should be interesting

[kojack]

I have had this acer mini server for years and it's been sitting just waiting for some love.  Well, in the next week or so I will be firing it up for a NAS storage unit for our businesses. I have been doing some research and I can supposedly install a bootloader from sinology to make this into  a "new" NAS unit.  I will be adding the noctua cooling solutions to it as I think It has a 120mm fan space in the rear and I will get the low profile cpu cooler for the system. 

For drives I will install 4 8tb Seagates and run them in a raid array to give protection of data. If I can't get this to work correctly I may swap in a whole new board, chip and go that route for the server.  Either way,  it will be setup in the next two week for use! 

 

I will keep a progress report going once I start in on it!

[ryan]

Keep us posted. 32tb is alot but there's no such thing as storage overkill 

[kojack]

I figure once I get up and running with the photography/videography/design business, I will need all the storage I can get.  So building for future needs.  I have over 10tb of personal stuff right now on 5 drives hanging around the house and workshop.  I don't think it will take long to be going into more after doing work for others. 

[ryan]

like I say keep us posted. 32tb might sound like alot but in todays world is it really?

[kojack]

I think it's all I can fit in there.  It's an older system, and I think the max drive you can actually fit it 2tb each but I am going to try to see if it will see the 8tb drive.  If so, plan moves ahead, if not.  I will get a synology NAS box and load it up!

[Custom90gt]

Funny we are doing similar projects.  I just put together an HP Mediasmart server and upgraded it to a quad-core xeon with 4GB of ram.  I put 3x8TB drives and a 14TB drive in it for backups. It's not fast, but it runs UnRAID and is small enough to fit in my fire safe.

[kojack]

3 hours ago, Custom90gt said:

Funny we are doing similar projects.  I just put together an HP Mediasmart server and upgraded it to a quad-core xeon with 4GB of ram.  I put 3x8TB drives and a 14TB drive in it for backups. It's not fast, but it runs UnRAID and is small enough to fit in my fire safe.

That's why I want to use this system.  It fits in my printer stand like a smack in the face.  I will take a picture after of the spot it sits in.  I don't need fast,  I need Lots of storage after I am finished with a project.  Got any pics of your system?  

[Custom90gt]

14 hours ago, kojack said:

That's why I want to use this system.  It fits in my printer stand like a smack in the face.  I will take a picture after of the spot it sits in.  I don't need fast,  I need Lots of storage after I am finished with a project.  Got any pics of your system?  

 

Sure, here it is next the the server:

 

It's not a bad little build considering I have <$75 into it excluding the drives. 

[kojack]

9 hours ago, Custom90gt said:

 

Sure, here it is next the the server:

 

It's not a bad little build considering I have <$75 into it excluding the drives. 

Cool.  Love the older HP cases.  shiny coolness.  I will grab a shot of mine tomorrow and post it for you! I am into mine for zero since I scabbed it from our business when we were closing.  ha ha.!  mods will be my only cost.  I love that little machine you have there though.  reminds me of my DV7 notebook!  awesome external system chitty motherboard. 

[kojack]

Here's my little rig in it's home.  Once upgraded I will see what it can do.  

[ryan]

i like kojacks setup better...but nice setups guys

[kojack]

I need to get my office cleaned up and set up correctly.  The stand that the server is in, is going to be painted I think.  I am still undecided on that, as the desk I am going to use for writing etc is the same color and my new editing desk is black.  Decisions decisions.  I love old stuff.  Old cameras, old computers, old bicycles, etc.  It brings me back to that time.  

 

 

[Custom90gt]

On 1/11/2023 at 6:32 PM, ryan said:

like I say keep us posted. 32tb might sound like alot but in todays world is it really?

 

Depending on the type of RAID @kojackruns, it may be less than 32TB.  I don't have my backup server running any type of redundancy since it only has 4 bays and it's my 3rd line backup.  It also lives in my safe unless I'm actively backing up files to it.

[kojack]

I am not sure how I am going to set up the drives yet.  I need to find out if it will actually take more than 1tb hdds yet, that's what the owners manual says.  But I am going to toss a 2tb in.  If it runs that, there is no reason to think it won't run large drives.  I may even say EFF it and put 16tb drives in it.  will see what happens.  The 8tb drives are inexpensive, so use them maybe until they fill up.  I will want redundancy in my setup so 16tb of storage for now.  

 

It will be an interesting project anyways. 

[kojack]

I have been doing alot of reading etc about doing this system. TrueNAS is an open source software package that I think will create the raid array for me.  No limitation.  I am going to be adding a 256gb ssd on a PCI adapter (if I can) for OS, so my 4 hotswaps are Nothing but storage.  I am adding 16gb of ram to it, and I need to cut a hole in the back of the case to mount the 120mm arctic cooling fan I have. I had bought 2 120mm fans for a project build and the case had provisions for 92mm and I didn't notice.  So, I have two of these fans.  One will be used on this system, the other will be sold.  

 

This project will be moving along quickly now, I almost have my new office setup done and I am putting the editing system in it's new home today. 

[kojack]

I recently signed up to the acer community and asked the question regarding booting and operating my OS from a PCI-e mounted drive. I got confirmation this morning that it, indeed can run the OS from that.  That's great news as I can pop in one of my 512gb ssd I have sitting here and add 4 18tb drives in the box for storage. 

[kojack]

So I had my acer apart.  it's already running a nice fanless heatpipe cpu cooler.  I noticed the boards are mounted on the back area of the case so 120mm will not fit there...HOWEVER,  There is already a 120mm fan mounted on the side to push air through the CPU cooler.  So swapping that to a Noctua will be easy, as will be the 40mm in the PSU.  I am getting ready to order the PCI-E nvme drive card so I can install the OS on it and see if I can get it to work as OS based drive. 

[Custom90gt]

Just to bump this up, I was looking for one of these for a friend but I just cannot find one.  It would be a great little device for his use case...

[kojack]

Ok, I am getting ready to order my PCI-E SSD expansion card for my OS drive. My AC100 has PCI-Ex8. The card I am looking at is PCI-Ex4. Will these work together?

[Custom90gt]

On 5/11/2023 at 5:09 AM, kojack said:

Ok, I am getting ready to order my PCI-E SSD expansion card for my OS drive. My AC100 has PCI-Ex8. The card I am looking at is PCI-Ex4. Will these work together?

 

They will

[kojack]

Thanks for the clarification.  that will be awesome. 

[kojack]

Update time. Started this build. Ran into a couple of issues I am working on now.  One, TrueNAS needs the same size drives to work correctly.  Right now all I had was 2 1tb and 1 2tb. So, This delays the project.  What's worse is that I don't have a video cable and the machine has no other input method for display.  So I have to wait until my buddy gets off work. He has a bunch.

[kojack]

Update 2.

 

went down to my shop behind my house and took the cable from that to start the install of TrueNAS.  I have the USB iso in rufus now creating the boot drive

 

[kojack]

Update 3. Installed the OS onto the new ssd in the system. The system will not recognize the new drive in bios, and windows 7 ultimate does not see it either when I loaded in one of the HDDs with the OS on it.  Any ideas?

[Custom90gt]

On 11/27/2023 at 9:35 AM, kojack said:

Update 3. Installed the OS onto the new ssd in the system. The system will not recognize the new drive in bios, and windows 7 ultimate does not see it either when I loaded in one of the HDDs with the OS on it.  Any ideas?

 

Won't see one of the HDDs in Bios? do you have the latest bios installed?