Modder creates 90TB plywood server

An enterprising modder in Russia has built a home media server with a unique distinction: it's constructed from plywood and holds around 90TB of data.

The home-brew construction, spotted by the guys over on English Russia, uses 48 Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB drives in a RAID 5 configuration to store a massive amount of data for its creator, known as CrazyHandMader.

The system is built around a pair of motherboards that provide connectivity to the SATA-connected hard drives while allowing client systems to connect over the network in order to access the prodigious amount of storage on offer. The system runs Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise and includes a wide array of RocketRAID hardware SATA controllers to connect the drives.

The custom-built plywood casing features a lid constructed almost entirely from 120mm fans and another selecting in the base, both of which the designer reports run at 9V to keep noise levels to a minimum while providing adequate airflow to prevent the closely-packed drives from overheating.

The heat problem certainly seems to have been solved by the interesting design: of the 48 drives that form the heart of the system, its creator reports that only three have failed and been replaced under Western Digital's warranty in over a year. The use of RAID 5 also means that no data was lost at any time.

As well as its plywood construction, CrazyHandMader used plexiglass for the hinged door, allowing easy access to the internals while keeping airflow passing through the drives as efficiently as possible.