16 TB Storage in a System No Bigger Than a Shoebox

Posted on April 30, 2010 by Kristina
Filed Under Applications, General

Black Dwarf

Logic Supply recently helped support a project by Will Urbina, a custom computer designer and modder. He created a computer system that contains a storage “mass completely unprecedented for its size”; it is compact, well designed, and really creative. I kind of want one for my office. It looks like a mini jukebox that plays HDDs instead of records. The final project is titled “Black Dwarf,” and you can read about it here.

The donated hardware was a Quanmax KEEX-2030 3.5″ Mainboard and a 120-watt miniature power supply.

You can also view a video of the project here.

Comments

8 Responses to “16 TB Storage in a System No Bigger Than a Shoebox”

  1. Benjamin Ellison on April 30th, 2010 7:12 pm

    Very nice… any idea what OS he decided to run?

  2. Ihage on May 3rd, 2010 7:12 am

    I keep my comment simple: I like it very mutch. Where can I buy ??

  3. Kristina on May 3rd, 2010 8:45 am

    @ Ihage,
    I don’t believe Will plans to make any of his final projects into sell-able items, which is unfortunate because he creates some really neat stuff! However, it doesn’t hurt to contact him and ask. See his site here for contact info.

  4. Kristina on May 3rd, 2010 1:29 pm

    @ Benjamin,
    He’s running Windows 7 right now, but is looking into running other OS’s as well.

  5. Ray on May 7th, 2010 8:30 am

    Since it’s headless, he could consider running Open Solaris with the zfs file system.

  6. Mike on July 20th, 2010 1:25 pm

    I thought that you weren’t supposed to operate hard drives oriented like that? Maybe I am wrong, but what I have always heard is that running them while they are perfectly vertical or horizontal is fine, but not running them while they are at an angle. The issue was something about the forces applied to the drive as it spins.

  7. Stephen on July 21st, 2010 10:37 am

    @Mike> The problem isn’t the angle its running at, its changing from one angle to another and using them, meaning, if you install with the drive horizontally, it could cause drift if moving to vertical. If the data is loaded when the drive is on an angle, gravity doesn’t change so the heads will still be on par with where they’re supposed to be.

  8. Jason K on July 27th, 2010 8:13 am

    How about the Serener 120W DC-DC Power Converter since it’s no longer available what is the best alternative for the same application? I’m looking to build something similar and need to power 8 to 16 drives.

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