Ever since I've saw an opened PowerMac G5 and Mac Pro tower case, I was amazed how a seemingly consumer-oriented brand was able to manufacture a brilliantly designed and finished workstation PC that was also very easy and intuitive to work with. From the latch that unlocks the sidepanel to the perfectly hidden power cables, this felt like a case only a skilled enthusiast could dream up. So I decided to do a casemod with one, even though I had no idea what I was going to do with it yet. When the Ncase M1 suddenly became a real thing, I decided to just stop collecting external disks and make one proper NAS.
This is the case I found. Someone wanted to do a casemod but never got around to it. I took over that burden without hesitating.
This is the original PSU box where the original PSU would have been found. The PSU you see is a 600W Enermax 80+ something unit that I wasn't using. It was a modular PSU and I wanted to integrate the connectors like so:
This is the box how it sits on the floor of the PowerMac case, hidden from sight. But when I decided I wanted to build a NAS, I would only be needing three cables: ATX 24-pin, EPS 4/8-pin and a few SATA connectors, so I decided not to waste time on including modular connectors and just solder the SATA straight to the PCB:
The other cables (Molex and PCIe) were clipped, a Mini-Fit Jr connector was fitted between the AC connector and the PSU.
This is the result, a clean start to begin with. At the right you can see the next adjustment I did, replacing the standard fans with Noctuas. Back then, the Redux silver-colored fans weren't available yet, or I would have gotten those to match the rest of the case.
2x Noctua NF-B9 fans and 1x Noctua NF-R8 fan. I was able to reuse the rubber mounts on the 92mm fan bracket, but I destroyed two on the 80mm bracket. But it had anti-vibration mounting from the start. Did I mention these cases came out in 2003 ?
With big NAS comes big responsi... euhm many SATA connectors. And since the original PowerMac G5 only allowed up to four 3,5" HDD's and I wanted to fit as many as I could, I started contemplating on creating my own HDD toolless shelves. These are Corsair SATA 6Gbps Upgrade Kits for the 800D case, which only had 3Gbps on release. It uses a single SATA power connector, so ideal for my PSU with two SATA connectors.
Since Apple used a custom-made motherboard specifically tailored for the case, I needed a way to mount a standard mATX board.
MiniHack (company: LaserHive) from the www.insanelymac.com forum hooked me up with one of his plexiglass motherboard trays. To fit it properly, some sockets needed to be cut from the case, so you're seeying one side of the case which is one solid, bent piece of thick aluminium that had about 50 rivets to secure it to the inner box that houses all the hardware. Amazingly sturdy with all those rivets in-place, like it's welded.
This was one of the first steps for creating the HDD rack. The aluminium beam is a curtain rail and the black rings are rubber faucet rings. Yes I'm one of those DIY store plunderer guys ! LEGO for men ! But what it was able to do was give support to the drives while being decoupled enough to not cause resonance. Or such was the idea.
Another idea was to use the case's HDD retention trays to make it nicely finished. But after doing measurements, I couldn't find a way of fitting it with the HDD brackets, by about 10mm. So I decided to not use them.
Not only were the Apple HDD brackets out of the question, after careful measuring, I also could only fit 7 HDD's, so I had to cut one of the SATA backplane PCB's short. I measured it so that the distance between the SATA ports was equal. Since I'm experienced in Photoshop, I made this to help me visualize what I was trying to make:
So this was the plan, 7 HDD slots with the aluminium rails and rubber grommets as a support mechanism, with the SATA ports alligned so they would push right in.
After having a productive, sunny day I was able to drill all the components tofor the HDD rack.
Partially assembled. Here you can see my handywork and compulsive measuring paid off with everything according to plan.
The back of the rack. You can see the ports and the holes I need to fasten it to the case.
This is the case I found. Someone wanted to do a casemod but never got around to it. I took over that burden without hesitating.
This is the original PSU box where the original PSU would have been found. The PSU you see is a 600W Enermax 80+ something unit that I wasn't using. It was a modular PSU and I wanted to integrate the connectors like so:
This is the box how it sits on the floor of the PowerMac case, hidden from sight. But when I decided I wanted to build a NAS, I would only be needing three cables: ATX 24-pin, EPS 4/8-pin and a few SATA connectors, so I decided not to waste time on including modular connectors and just solder the SATA straight to the PCB:
The other cables (Molex and PCIe) were clipped, a Mini-Fit Jr connector was fitted between the AC connector and the PSU.
This is the result, a clean start to begin with. At the right you can see the next adjustment I did, replacing the standard fans with Noctuas. Back then, the Redux silver-colored fans weren't available yet, or I would have gotten those to match the rest of the case.
2x Noctua NF-B9 fans and 1x Noctua NF-R8 fan. I was able to reuse the rubber mounts on the 92mm fan bracket, but I destroyed two on the 80mm bracket. But it had anti-vibration mounting from the start. Did I mention these cases came out in 2003 ?
With big NAS comes big responsi... euhm many SATA connectors. And since the original PowerMac G5 only allowed up to four 3,5" HDD's and I wanted to fit as many as I could, I started contemplating on creating my own HDD toolless shelves. These are Corsair SATA 6Gbps Upgrade Kits for the 800D case, which only had 3Gbps on release. It uses a single SATA power connector, so ideal for my PSU with two SATA connectors.
Since Apple used a custom-made motherboard specifically tailored for the case, I needed a way to mount a standard mATX board.
MiniHack (company: LaserHive) from the www.insanelymac.com forum hooked me up with one of his plexiglass motherboard trays. To fit it properly, some sockets needed to be cut from the case, so you're seeying one side of the case which is one solid, bent piece of thick aluminium that had about 50 rivets to secure it to the inner box that houses all the hardware. Amazingly sturdy with all those rivets in-place, like it's welded.
This was one of the first steps for creating the HDD rack. The aluminium beam is a curtain rail and the black rings are rubber faucet rings. Yes I'm one of those DIY store plunderer guys ! LEGO for men ! But what it was able to do was give support to the drives while being decoupled enough to not cause resonance. Or such was the idea.
Another idea was to use the case's HDD retention trays to make it nicely finished. But after doing measurements, I couldn't find a way of fitting it with the HDD brackets, by about 10mm. So I decided to not use them.
Not only were the Apple HDD brackets out of the question, after careful measuring, I also could only fit 7 HDD's, so I had to cut one of the SATA backplane PCB's short. I measured it so that the distance between the SATA ports was equal. Since I'm experienced in Photoshop, I made this to help me visualize what I was trying to make:
So this was the plan, 7 HDD slots with the aluminium rails and rubber grommets as a support mechanism, with the SATA ports alligned so they would push right in.
After having a productive, sunny day I was able to drill all the components tofor the HDD rack.
Partially assembled. Here you can see my handywork and compulsive measuring paid off with everything according to plan.
The back of the rack. You can see the ports and the holes I need to fasten it to the case.
