Toaster RAID Returns, Better Than Ever

The Finished Product

The new Toaster RAID model has:

  • a Jetway NC62 motherboard
  • an AMD Athlon 2.4 GHz dual-core CPU
  • 1 GB of DDR2-800 memory
  • an Nvidia NF-8200 MCP78s chipset
  • an Nvidia video controller with VGA and DVI video ports
  • two Gigabit Ethernet ports with a Realtek RTL-8211B controller
  • two nine-pin serial ports
  • six USB ports with headers for two more

I selected this board for several reasons. Most importantly, it had four SATA ports, which would allow for an implementation of RAID 5. I wanted a high-performance x86 CPU and I read that AMD CPUs perform well running storage servers. Also, I like yellow.

Since this is a headless file server, a high-performance Nvidia video controller and a DVI port were superfluous. The Nvidia chipset appealed to me because it seemed to have a good reputation. The abundant USB and A/V ports serve no real use on a file server, but they came with the board.

I used four Seagate 2.5", 5,400 RPM drives with 320 GB of capacity and 8 MB of cache, for an aggregate native capacity of 1.28 TB. For an additional $45 per drive, I could have used 500 GB hard drives for a capacity of 2 TB. The power supply is an external 12 V, 110 W unit.

The back of the motherboard and a small drive-cage were made from some aluminum "L" brackets. Using the small 2.5" drives, there is easily room for eight to 12 drives.

  • I thought the idea in fitting a NAS into a toaster is that you plugged the disks through the bread slots!
    Reply
  • NateDawg80126
    "Is that Patrick Swayze!?" -Moses as he looked across the Red Sea.
    Reply
  • boostercorp
    ytoledano3I thought the idea in fitting a NAS into a toaster is that you plugged the disks through the bread slots!yeah it would ve been nice if you could just shove in two hot plug & play drives in there.
    Reply
  • gives a whole new meaning to "hot swappable" ;)
    Reply
  • Astara
    boostercorpyeah it would ve been nice if you could just shove in two hot plug & play drives in there.Imagine a backup-product like the various 'one-touch' backup offerings -- but in this case, you just push a drive into the toaster slot -- it begins the backup process, when done, it can eject** the drive. That sounds very sweet.

    **-raise drive, not physically throw it out of the toaster! :-)
    Reply
  • Shadow703793
    Using the small 2.5" drives, there is easily room for eight to 12 drives.
    Then why not use some of the 640/750GB or 1.5/2TB drives?

    Any ways cool mod.
    Reply
  • ph3412b07
    ghetto-fab :D
    Reply
  • Here's a better one:
    http://www.embeddedarm.com/software/arm-netbsd-toaster.php
    Reply
  • arkadi
    Grate job, looks perfect mate.
    Reply
  • bustapr
    wouldve been cooler to put in a dvd drive in the bread slots.
    Reply