Throwing this in here for future reference, on WAN show Linus mentioned that they took a old 45 drives server and upgraded the front row to NVME. Probably to take in U.2 form factor drives.
Chapter linked
They did release a video the following week showcasing them populating a 45 drives server with re-certified drives but no mention of that NVME upgrade was in that video.
Hopefully it was not cut content from this server upgrade and it will be another upcoming video that we can learn from. Maybe there will be some model files that can be shared from that project.
Also saw that. IIRC they had gen 4 storage pods that came direct wired. I imagine there are a lot more of those out in the wild than the older gen 2 and 3 units. Would be neat if they released how they added it. I believe in a later WAN show they said they are close to releasing all of their other 3d printed models for things like cpu holders and whatnot.
Would be cool if they upload the couple 3d printed brackets but it looks like the new faceplate is the bulk of the custom work.
On a separate note, are you able to share the design you had for the hard drive shims/anti rattle brackets you 3d printed? Iāve just been using large rubber bands around drives for vibration isolation but your design is a lot neater.
Yea its a lot of work, I was hoping it was maybe something involving using the existing bays. I donāt want permanently cut up parts of my storage pod.
Thank you for calling me out on that, I thought I had posted it.
Managed to find it in a backup
Let me know how it works out for you, I think it still need some adjustments.
If anyone still wants to tackle this but find the highpoint cables require a bit of work with cutting and crimping, these started showing up on Aliexpress.
They look a lot easier to work with.
Thanks for the file. I was thinking about getting them printed in something like TPU but weāll see how that goes. I still havenāt even made a bracket to hold the SAS expander cards yet.
For the newer cables you found that 8 ended one looks particularly nice. They already combined all of the power leads into a single connector and it appears to be using a much lighter gauge of wire. Looks like it would have made assembly a bit easier especially since you would only need two per row.
Took a few design iterations along with a few life issues that came up but theyāre finally being manufactured. I should have them in my hands in 2-3 weeks. After a month or so of testing Iāll let you guys know. But letās be very clear, these boards are not a great value. Each board is costing me a minimum of $200, And you need 3 of them to populate a storage pod 2.0. Iām sure you could get a better price if you ordered maybe 100 of them and started selling them, but i doubt the market for these is that large.
Wonāt stop me because i love rolling my own hardware, but itās still a hard pill to swallow for some.
Thank you so much for everyone here digging up the cables needed for this type of mod. I dont have a Storage Pod 2.0 instead I have one of the direct wire s45 I think they are based on the Storage Pod 4.0, dont quote me on that. I have an older one that has the SFF-8087 cables. Well I want to upgrade to a set of LSI 9305-16i cards but they are SSF-8643 connectors. I could not find an adapter to convert the cables. I have started down the rabbit hole of ripping out the cables and getting the HighPoint-Tech cables to fit. I also ordered a set of the aliexpress cables listed above as well as some of these that i found on Ebay, I talked with the seller and they will get more in stock, They have a 90 degree bend in the adapter so not smooshing the cables, and the power is already wired up for 2 drives to 1 power adapter just like the original cables that came with my server.
here is what my adapter plate looks like to go from the original mount holes to the HighPoint-Tech cables. The drives sit about 2mm higher in the drive pays but it dose not interfere with closing up the servers case.
