Hello all, I'm back.
I got 4/5 packages in today. Thats right, NewEgg decided to ship in 5 different shipments, 2 of which took the same FedEx truck the entire way here. The 2 DIMMs are still in transit from New Jersey and will be here tomorrow. I guess that gives me plenty of time to figure out how to install FreeNAS on these flash drives.... But for now, the pictures:
Yes, 4 different packages... How ridiculous. Top is flash drives, followed by the PSU+motherboard+switch, then HDDs+CPU, and lastly the case.
My ingredients have been assembled.
Mobo installed in the case.
CPU installed. The CPU gave me quite a scare as lowering the load arm requires a bit of force and I didn't want to break anything. I then looked online and found it was supposed to be this way, so I loosened the clamp screw as much as possible and forced it in, then tightened the screw back slightly.
The cooler had a bit of what appeared to be thermal paste on the bottom, though I've never seen it so solid (usually the thermal paste I use from a tube is quite a bit runnier). I wasn't sure if I should add some or not, but I just went with it and popped it on anyway.
I gotta say, the dual chamber design is great. I can keep all the cables in back where no one will ever see them, keeping the look through the window clean. The power supply is near perfect for this case as there are 2 cables with 4 SATA connectors each (perfect for the 4-drive bays) and then 2 more on a third cord that I can use to wrap around front if I choose to fill it up all the way. The only problem is the 2 singletons aren't spaced far apart enough for the gap in the 2 HDD spaces up front, so I will have to find a SATA power extender online (I'm sure it exists).
Sliding hard drive cages, I don't think it can get any easier than that (except of course just hotswap bays). These mounts are absolutely perfect.
All the hard drives mounted and wired up. Like I said, these will all be in RAID-Z2 together. The only problem I had is that between the power supply and the HDDs themselves, there wasn't alot of room for the SATA power/data connectors. With a little bending, and a little force it slid in though, and the screws are keeping it in place.
View of the mobo that you will see through the window, finished and wired up. The only its missing are the DIMMs.
Lastly the finished product :). Now I get to figure out the FreeNAS installation while I wait for the DIMMs, yay :'( thx newegg... I'll be back tomorrow with pictures of it actually running! lol