These are the additional cards that I still need to slot into this machine:

I have chosen the AMCC 3ware 9550SX-8LP to give this machine a SATA RAID setup, as its a very low profile card which will have to fit between the HD 3850 and the GT 430 and give the HD 3850 the best breathing room possible under the space constraints which I have here.

The Adaptec ASR-2005S/48MB 64bit Pci Ultra160 Scsi Raid Controller will give the system onboard SCSI RAID.

The Audigy 2's just a good period specific sound card. (If you can suggest something better in this department, I'm open to suggestions! 😀 )

After doing some more research today, I found that I in fact need to fit a SAS controller, as the other drive cage option for this machine is SAS and not SATA!!!

Here's a look at the 4-disk array which sits above the 6-disk array:

Here's a look at it's backplane:

So I in fact need one of these controllers by LSI:

Here's the 6-disk SCSI drive cage:

And here's its backplane:

My latest plans for this build!

It really starts to become expensive when you have to order in all of these individual parts! (So this project's going to take some time to complete!)

I've already ordered my LSI SAS Controller! 😀

I'm going to have to order in a pair of these in order to mount the SAS SSD's into the hot-swappable drive caddies:

I've been looking at IDE drives and found this MONSTER!!!

I never knew that IDE drives got so large!!! (This machine definitely deserves on of these in the IDE department! )

Here are its technical specs:

Sure it'll be a decent addition to the system....reminded me of buying a carton of their improved acoustic equivalent, the CinemaStar P7K500, for various projects and they were quick & reliable. Still have a few gathering dust that were destined for a RAID build that never happened.

PC Hoarder Patrol wrote on 2024-09-08, 03:19:

Sure it'll be a decent addition to the system....reminded me of buying a carton of their improved acoustic equivalent, the CinemaStar P7K500, for various projects and they were quick & reliable. Still have a few gathering dust that were destined for a RAID build that never happened.

The attachment HGST CinemaStar P7K500.jpg is no longer available

The attachment Final_CinemaStar_P7K500_datasheet.pdf is no longer available

I take that those are the SATA type?

No, they're PATA

PC Hoarder Patrol wrote on 2024-09-08, 13:23:

No, they're PATA

Very Nice!!! I'm jealous! 😀

Irinikus wrote on 2024-09-08, 13:26:

PC Hoarder Patrol wrote on 2024-09-08, 13:23:

No, they're PATA

Very Nice!!! I'm jealous! 😀

and right back at ya for this whole build! 😀

PC Hoarder Patrol wrote on 2024-09-08, 13:35:

and right back at ya for this whole build! 😀

Thanks! 😂

I'll partition the 500GB IDE drive appropriately to install Windows 98 SE onto it. I'll try to run the Voodoo5 5500 as well as something like an Audigy II under Windows 98 SE. (I'm looking at getting an Onkyo WAVIO SE-200 High End PCI Sound Card to run as the primary sound card under XP!)

I do want all of the installed hardware to function nicely together in XP (All graphics cards and sound cards!)

I was shocked that the Japanese chose to use a VIA chip on this, but it turns out that this card sounds better than the newer PCIe version which features a Creative chip!

I should have the SAS controller in the next few weeks (I purchased it new in box from a seller in Israel!) Like with any PCI setup I'll more than likely have to juggle things around and disable some onboard devices to free up the IRQ's to get everything to play along nicely!

The big question is whether the GT 430 will be happy to have the SAS controller sitting in the slot above it???(The first PCI slot) The SAS controller's a low profile card and for that reason it needs to be in that slot in order to allow sufficient airflow to the HD 3850, which will be sitting in the AGP slot above it!

I already have the Voodoo5 and the GT 430 in the slots that I want them in!

The nice thing is that there's an extremely large amount of airflow going through this case, so things will stay cool, but it's literally loud enough to wake the neighbours!!!
I'll maybe look at adding fan speed control once everything's in, in order to quiet it a bit!

My LSI SAS controller arrived from Israel today and it's now fitted and doesn't prevent the GT430 or Voodoo5 5500 from firing up! 😀

Here's the current system spec:

Such a cool system, but is the airflow arrow on the cooler in front the wrong way?

H3nrik V! wrote on 2024-09-27, 05:55:

Such a cool system, but is the airflow arrow on the cooler in front the wrong way?

No it's not, I made sure of that! 😀 (The airflow is all front to rear)

I plan to fit it with better coolers when I fit the 3GHz chips though!

This is the type of cooler that I'll look at fitting:

For now I've fitted and tested a mechanical 7200 RPM SATA drive on the SAS/SATA controller, just to see if it works and it does! 😀

Here's the ATTO test result comparing it to the IDE drive: (I should get far better performance out of it once the SSD's fitted, but at least this proves that it works! 😀 )

The anomaly in the SATA drive's write performance is interesting! I carried the test out more than once with the same result! (The IDE drive's more consistent!)

note on that case, if you're going to push any air through the back and want a fan that will last and fit the position (looks like 92mm to me?) a Nidec Ultraflo PWM fan might be what the doctor ordered. they were a stock fan from some Dell servers in the mid-00s and do very well with static pressure loads, which you may need for this case given the intake is going to be blocked up by the drive cages. would certainly take a small toll off the PSU.
I have one in my sleeper'd HP NetServer E60 case and it does the business just fine despite being nearly 20 years old. give it some anti-vibration bungs and it should be perfectly adequate for the heat this thing is gonna pump out.

At the same time, have you considered a low-profile 750Ti and a PCI-X to PCIe X16 adapter at all? This may net you better performance than the GT430 can dish out, I think. Might also net better performance than the HD3850, but that's yet to be seen.

This project is making me itch in a good way to get that cap-plague-special Precision 470 from my friend's warehouse in Cali and get to work on it.