NewSaint

Over the last month or so, my poor co-workers have been my captive audience for many hours of discussion and rambling about my desire to upgrade / rebuild / replace my NAS (Network Attached Storage) solution at my house. Currently, I have three NASs: a Synology DS216j, a Synology DS418, and a homemade AMD Ryzen based system in my Fractal Design Define 7 case.

The DS216j was my first NAS purchased in the mid-late 2010s. Before this I primarily used an array of external hard drives, flash drives, and whatever else I could scrounge up to keep my stuff relatively straight and findable. With the DS216, I purchased two 4 TB Seagate IronWolf NAS hard drives for around $130 a pop. The 4 TB of usable space the RAID 1 setup provided was incredible and I quickly made use of this newly available digital real estate.

About two years after that, I got my first IT job and began to make some real money ($7.80 an hour), allowing me to buy NAS No. 2. Around 2019, my DS418 made its way into my home and into my heart. I backed up the DS216j, removed the RAID 1 array, formatted both drives, and slapped them into my new four bay enclosure. I picked up two more Seagate 4 TB drives (for around $115 each) and completed my first RAID 5 array. Now with 12 TB of usable space.

Four years later and the time has come for me to upgrade once more. I actually purchased a new set of four 8 TB IronWolf drives ($160 a piece this time) around six months ago, even going so far as to build my own NAS out of spare parts and some Unbuffered ECC DDR4 that I picked up on eBay. This system seemed to work well, but in the Define 7 case, it was just too unwieldly and cumbersome to implement in my small house.

I almost took the lazy route of cutting my losses and buying a QNAP TS-462 enclosure and calling it a day. But this unit is (at the time of writing, $470). This is too much for my tight budget so I decided to stick to the DIY path and build one on my own. This venture will require a bit of planning and some thrifty shopping, spanning a few different online retailers and continents.

Firstly, I need a motherboard. Something with an SOC and at least four SATA ports, a NIC, and preferably in an ITX form factor. I decided to go with an off-brand Intel Pentium SOC board similar to the unit pictures and that NASCompares brought to my attention in this video. The unit I went with was about $130 on AliExpress.

This MOBO has six SATA ports, four 2.5G NICs, two DDR4 SO-DIMM slots, and two M.2 NVMe slots. This should be way more I/O and connections than I need for my setup, but I’ll take it and consider it room to grow into.

Secondly, I need an enclosure. My Define 7 is a great case, sturdy, and with more 3.5” bays than I can afford to fill, but it’s very heavy and unwieldly for the small amount of components I planned to stuff into it. The perfect case for my needs would be rather small and closer to the form factor of a standard 4-Bay NAS, preferably with four or more 3.5” hot-swap bays, support for a standard Mini ITX board, and cost less than $100 (I’m not made of money).

I found the above no-name case that really fit the bill and for around $80 new on Amazon. Along with that case, I grabbed a Noctua 80mm case fan to replace the stock exhaust and four left-angle (?) SATA cables to better suit this chassis.

Thirdly, I need a Flex ATX / 1U power supply. This is turning out to be the most difficult component to obtain, at least for a reasonable price. Silverstone has a reputable unit, but I can’t justify spending another hundred dollars on yet another PSU to add to my collection. With a reputable brand out of the question, I’ll resort to a less-reputable source to obtain a PSU. With slim options, I’m leaning away from the cheap Apevia unit that is usually at the top of search results and toward some even less well-known brand named T.F. Skywindintl that I found on AliExpress, Amazon, and eBay.

The unit pictured seems to cover all my bases and (assuming it doesn’t blow up) should serve this build well. I’ll probably go with this unit on eBay for around $50, the 60-day return window offered by the seller is a plus too.

Once all these components come in, I may make a follow-up post that details any weird aspects of the build that may materialize.

Update 1: I sold both of the Synology NAS enclosures to a coworker, bought and assembled all of the parts I specified above for a custom NAS, and even purchased another NAS enclosure, the latest one being a Topton NAS N1 (shown above). This Topton NAS is fairly cheap and often sold as a white label enclosure through various different brands on sites like AliExpress (where I got mine). It has an AMD APU, 2x DDR3 SO-DIMM slots, 2x NVMe M.2 slots, and 2x 3.5” HDD bays. I replaced the generic fan with a Noctua branded one, but I had to zip-tie it on as the fan screws weren’t compatible with it.

The custom NAS has been working well, it’s pretty quiet, and was fairly easy to build. I started off the project with four 8TB Seagate Iron Wolf drives, one of which died right away and I sent it off in July to be RMA’d (six months later and I have still not received this drive back). I set this NAS aside until around October, then I spent a good chunk of change on four 16TB WD UltraStar drives. These drives in a RAIDZ2 gave me about three-dozen Terabytes of storage which should last me quite a while.

Currently, I’m using just these latest two NASs for storage; The Topton NAS N1 for media and a Jellyfin server and the custom NAS as general storage and backups.

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2022-06-08 - original article written
2023-06-08 - revised and updated
2024-01-05 - updated

JFP1 (Jumper Front Panel 1) is the name for the header that connects a motherboard to the power switch, reset switch, Power LED, and HDD LED of the chassis. The cables can be quite annoying to connect in small cases and the motherboard doesn’t always label them, so I find myself referring to a pinout diagram often, such as the example below.

I dislike the implementation of this connector and I think PC case manufacturers should start using a single connector instead of four or five separate cables.

These cables use “DuPont connectors” to interface with the chassis and motherboard and they seem to be used in a lot of electronics and hobby applications. As an experiment, I ordered a set of 2x5 DuPont connectors to see if I could accomplish this unification myself. Referencing a JFP pinout diagram, I removed the wires from the case’s connectors, attached them all to the new DuPont connector, plugged it into a motherboard, and pressed the power switch.

It worked as expected and I now plan to outfit all of my desktop cases for the next century with this single connector. No more orientation guesswork, no more looking up “PC front panel pinout” or checking manuals. Some motherboard companies have tried to mitigate this problem by using labeled riser cards to make cabling easier, but my solution will permanently fix whatever case I apply it to.

Note: Since writing this section, I have applied these new DuPont connectors to half-a-dozen cases with great success. I will do it to all future cases I own.

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2023-05-25 - original article written
2023-06-08 - revised and updated

I grew up in a rural part of the US in the early 2000s. I didn’t have much in the way of technology for most of my younger years. At the age of eight or so, my family got a Dell Inspiron 530S for my siblings and I to play on. We still didn’t have much in the way of internet however, most of the time on the computer was spent playing old PC games ( Tycoon was the family favorite). My Dad’s blackberry was used as a tethered hotspot for the family desktop for quite a while. Eventually, we upgraded to a 3G hotspot from Verizon with a 5 GB data limit each month. This was great as we could start to use the internet in a more stable and regular manner.

After using this desktop for a number of years and getting well acquainted with Windows Vista, my Dad noticed my growing computer proficiency. One day, around the age of eleven, he sat me down and said something like this.

“Son, you are more gifted with using a computer than I will ever be. I’ve worked with my hands all my life, but computers, they are the future. I want you to build your own computer, I’ll help you buy the parts, but you’ve got to do the rest. I know you don’t know much about how they work, but I want you to learn.”

So I did. I spent many months reading, asking questions, and watching videos about how computers work, what they’re made of, and why anyone would build their own computer when they could just buy one. Level1Techs, Linus Tech Tips, Bitwit, and The Tom’s Hardware forum (just to name a few) were all tremendously helpful for someone who knew next to nothing about computers at ten but was able to build their very own desktop by age twelve.

That desktop did not last forever, as no computer will, and after a number of years of service, there had been an issue with the power supply that led to the death of the machine. Looking back, it was probably easily fixable, but no matter. The desktop was given to me to take care of and I disassembled it for what parts I could take. The 120 GB hard drive (iirc), the few gigs of DDR2, CPU, and Motherboard all made their way out of the device and into my possession.

I held on to the chassis as well, but as I learned more about computers, I realized that this chassis didn’t have a removable I/O shield. In its stead was a fixed plate, for only the original motherboard. This wouldn’t do, so I cut out the plate with some tools and I was eventually able to fit an aftermarket motherboard in that case. Later, I realized what a terrible cut job I had made, so I trashed the whole thing and moved on.

After doing months of research and a lot of reading on the matter, I was confident that I could pick the correct parts to build a functional computer. My Dad and I sat down, we navigated Amazon and eBay and Newegg, eventually settling on a selection of parts. Most notably, an MSI GeForce GTS 450 graphics card. This card was terrible, even for the time. But it was inexpensive and was compatible with the parts I had. Some of the needed parts (a chassis, power supply, and disk drive) I had on hand from an old PC that my Dad’s boss donated to my project.

A few weeks later (before the time of 2-Day shipping) my parts had arrived and I got to work. With the new GPU installed, my desktop idled on my Windows Vista desktop in crisp 1680×1050. As a bit of incentive when I was planning my computer, a friend of mine gave me his old copy of Fallout 3 to play once my new PC was assembled. I quickly installed it and fired it up to test my new digs. The green haze of the Capitol Wasteland glowed brightly on my shining face.

I wholly enjoyed the experience of building, installing, and playing a game on my new-ish PC, but the machine was slow, loud, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t make sure my PSU had a high enough wattage rating to support playing a game. I knew I needed to upgrade parts eventually, but my Dad wasn’t an ATM, so every computer I’ve built or bought since has been funded solely by myself. I also knew I needed to build something better, with new and current parts, and build I did.

By high school, I had built several computers, I became the go-to “IT Guy” in my class, and I assisted a lot of teachers and students with their computer questions and problems. I even built a few desktops for my teachers, taking a small profit of course.

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2021-12-08 - original article written
2023-06-15 - revised and updated

There are generally eight different computer parts that one needs to keep in mind for solid compatibility when building a desktop from scratch. As illustrated, the chassis or case has a compatibility relationship with five of the eight components. I found this graphic in a Bitwit YouTube video » How to Choose Parts for a PC! The Ultimate Compatibility Guide!

Note: Although there are usually eight general categories of components, specialized systems may have a larger number of interacting components, requiring more detailed consideration to avoid conflicts.

In most cases and in most cases (pun intended), there will be some level of tolerances marked to ensure the builder is aware of a particular case’s limits on what can and can’t be installed into it safely. These are usually provided in the product’s description, in a user manual, or stamped into the frame of the case. This information can help determine what motherboard standoffs go where, what size fan(s) can be installed, and maximum CPU cooler height.

There are also various standardized sizes for computer cases. These range from gigantic E-ATX cases all the way down to the rarely seen, super-small Pico-ITX cases. Most PC enthusiasts seem to flock toward Full ATX, Mid ATX, or Micro ATX. These are mostly standard sizes that make up the vast majority of aftermarket computer cases.

My personal preferences are between Micro ATX and Mini ITX. As I never use more than one graphics card at a given time and store >90% of my data on my 16 TB Synology NAS, I rarely need a very roomy chassis. My current build is housed in a Fractal Design Define Mini C. This is a steel-bodied, Micro ATX case, with noise dampening foam, fan filters from all sides, and zero RGB. It’s a silent black box that sits in the corner and that’s just the way I like it.

Note: In the two years that have passed since I wrote the majority of this essay, I have changed cases a number of times: usually switching between the above Define Mini C; a Cooler Master Elite 120 Advanced; and a Thermaltake “The Tower” 100.

I don’t always use the “black box in the corner” style of case. As I noted above, I own a variety of cases that stray slightly from this format and into a slightly more stylish territory (depending on your definition). I’ll also often switch between some of these cases for my

• Cooler Master Elite 120 Advanced (black)
• Fractal Design Define 7 (solid panel)
• Fractal Design Define Mini C (solid panel)
• Thermaltake The Tower 100 (black)
• Thermaltake Core V21 (plexiglass window)
• Some large E-ATX custom made aluminum case I was gifted
• Some unbranded, steel test bench

The Elite 120 fits in my backpack; the Define 7 is enormous and can fit over a dozen 3.5” HDDs; the Define Mini C is a manageable size and solid as a rock; the Tower 100 has a vertical design and is good for showing off; the Core V21 is cube shaped and I have my guest gaming PC in it currently; and the last two are mostly used for testing purposes.

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2021-12-08 - original article written
2023-06-15 - revised and updated

I use a gamepad when I play PC games, at least in the majority of 1st Person games. Between annoying keyboard layouts, a decade of console gaming before I ever built a PC, and sheer laziness, I find it to be the easiest and most comfortable way to play most games.

My first few years of playing games were spent primarily on the PS2 and PS3. They were okay consoles with a good library of games, but a ton of technical problems that I won’t get into here. However, one thing I absolutely hated about both consoles were the controllers.

The DualShock 3 was uncomfortable, cheap feeling, and basically unusable on a PC. The layout of the controller was awful, it was too small, and the shape wasn’t ergonomic, but the DS3 had one redeeming feature that I’ll mention below.

Later, I would buy a used Xbox 360 from a pawn shop. The controller was quite different from a DS3, but light years better. It felt alright in the hand, buttons made more sense, had a good feeling of weight and solidity to it, an all around 6/10. AA batteries, a weird proprietary data cable, and shit windows support kept it from going into regular use in my setup.

When November 2013 rolled around, I ended up buying a PS4 a few weeks before Christmas, which entered a new contender in the ring: Sony’s DualShock 4. This controller was much, much better than the DS3. It was solid, felt great, had a fun light bar, a rechargeable internal battery, and wasn’t using a proprietary connector. BUT, four major flaws put this controller in the garbage where it rightfully belongs;

1. A stupid button / stick layout
2. That retarded touch bar that ate up 20% of the controller face
3. Almost nonexistent Windows support
4. God-damned Micro-USB

Last-generation’s DS3 controller had a sharp advantage over the DS4 however: Mini-USB. This connector is older, but far better than Micro-USB for one reason, it (almost) never wore out. Mini-USB cables are just as useful in 2006 as they are in 2022, they just keep going.

I can’t even begin to express my utter and unquenchable hatred of Micro-USB. It’s insane how much disdain and loathing I have for such a small, shitty USB interface. Micro-USB male connectors use a small, mechanical clip mechanism to hold the connector in place. This serves to secure the cable when inserted into a controller, cellphone, etc. This is good in theory (think DisplayPort, which I also hate), but in practice this “feature” introduces an artificial lifespan to any given cable. These clips wore out so fast your head would spin, especially with repeated connect / disconnect cycles (i.e. with a phone or some sort of peripheral device).

DS4 controllers also suffered from a few design flaws beyond the ones mentioned above. For instance, the left thumbstick and accompanying button (L3) would wear out fairly quickly with the stick easily losing the ability to track forward movement, especially within the Call of Duty game franchise. I’ve had L-Stick problems on every DS4 controller that I’ve played CoD on and I’m not heavy handed or hard on my controllers.

Alongside the PS4, came the Xbox One as well. With it came a new controller and Microsoft actually did some good work this time. The controller was solid, comfy, had a halfway-decent button layout, a standardized connector, and good Windows support. Only a few problems still remained;

1. AA batteries (again)
2. Offset thumbsticks (again)
3. Micro-USB (again)

I settled on an Xbox One controller and went about my life for a number of years. MS eventually replaced the original, chunky controller with a sleeker and all-around better model a few years later with the release of the Xbox One S. Later still, the Xbox Core controllers entered the market, this time packing the much more acceptable USB Type-C connector. Finally, some good features. I grabbed a Blue core controller for $65 (yikes) and a rechargeable battery pack and lived happily ever after.

Until about a year into the controller’s lifespan when my thumbsticks started drifting. Both DS and Xbox controllers suffer from pervasive thumbstick problems. They’re easily the largest weak point on a game controller. They’re incredibly prone to wear, misalignment, dead-zones, sticking, ghosting, drifting, and a million other verbs that I can’t remember. The design of thumbsticks for both brands are largely the same; a left / right potentiometer and a button, simple. Problem is, they’re finicky and fragile.

This wouldn’t be an issue if the thumbsticks were user replaceable though: pop open the controller, fish out both sticks, put in some new ones, and you’re off to the races or battle or whatever (kinda like how some Cherry MX switches are swappable). This isn’t the case however. There are fourteen (!) solder points for each of these thumbsticks and for someone like myself who isn’t the best solderer, this proves troublesome to remedy myself. Furthermore, replacement potentiometers need to be live-aligned, which is a tedious and frustrating task in itself. That mechanism I mentioned was also designed so poorly as to never really read as centered. Apparently, the controllers just sort of tare the factory alignment so you never notice a difference. That is, until the original thumbsticks wear and you go to replace them yourself.

With all of that out of the way, here is the core position I hold in this discussion. Controllers need to be fixed, and luckily there are really only a few fixes that need to be made.

Firstly, the layout. Gamepads have sort-of landed on a set layout (except for Sony), this layout consists of two thumbsticks (+ L3 / R3), four face buttons (A, B, X, Y), L / R bumpers and triggers, a D-Pad, Start, Select, and a Home button. I excluded Sony because they seem to be straying from this standard with the DS4 and DS5 controllers’ notable lack of Start, Select, (trading them for Options and Share for some dumb reason) and the inclusion of that useless touchpad.

This layout is typically accomplished with the face buttons, D-Pad, and thumbsticks sharing real estate on the front of a controller, with the bumpers and triggers on the back or top (depending on your perspective). PlayStation accomplishes this with both thumbsticks on the lower plane, while the D-Pad and face buttons share the upper plane. Sony almost has it right with this layout, but not quite. Microsoft has the left thumbstick and face buttons on the top plane, with the D-Pad and right thumbstick on the lower. Again, this is close, but not optimal. There is actually only one controller that I know of with their thumbsticks and buttons in a sane and ergonomic position: The Nintendo Wii U Pro controller.

This unlikely candidate does the incredible, it actually has the D-Pad, face buttons, and thumbsticks in the correct orientation. At rest, the human thumb is in line with the bones of the forearm. This means, at rest, the thumb wants to sit over the top plane of a gamepad. Sony controllers have both thumbsticks on the lower plain, meaning you have to strain your thumbs down to interface with those sticks. While Microsoft has it half-right with just the left thumbstick in this position, the right thumb still needs to be bent to utilize the right thumbstick.

Update 1: Since writing the above section, Gulikit, a 3rd Party, Chinese controller manufacturer has become popular among those of us who share the above gripes about carbon potentiometers in game controllers. Their new design retains much of the old thumbstick design, but with electromagnetic potentiometers that should last significantly longer and retain their calibration to a much tighter tolerance. I just purchased one of their Zen Pro controllers ($50 on eBay) and one of their wireless controller adapters. I’ll probably also 3D print some trigger stops for it as I have become accustomed to using them on my Xbox Elite Series 2 controller that I bought broken – which I then repaired – a few months ago. That controller is starting to have other problems and I think a replacement is in order.

To further illustrate how possible it would be to create such a perfect controller, I created a mockup Xbox controller in Photoshop that displays this ergonomic layout as I have envisioned. Put both thumbsticks are on the same upper plane, replace the plastic thumbstick caps with aluminum ones (as I do on my controllers), pair this layout with Gulikit’s electromagnetic potentiometers, and some adjustable trigger-stops like the Elite Series 2 and you have a perfect controller that should last a very long time. If only such a controller existed…

Update 2: I have received the controller and swapped the plastic thumbstick caps for silver aluminum ones. I think it looks pretty slick and it feels butter-smooth. The build quality is about 75% of the way there compared to a standard Xbox Core controller, but it still feels fairly solid and seems to be easy enough to repair. The unit is only held together by four phillips screws and some clips. I’ll play some Vermintide 2 tonight and see how it performs. In the meantime, here are some pics of my controller.

Update 3: After about seven months of use, the left thumbstick has started giving me trouble when sprinting in CoD (pressing forward on the thumbstick and clicking the L3 button at the same time). This failure is very common among OEM Xbox One Series X/S controllers, as well as original Xbone and DualShock controllers. I’ll see about trying to repair it myself and if not, perhaps I’ll invest in the next generation of Gulikit controller.

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2022-06-08 - original article written
2023-06-08 - revised and updated
2024-01-04 - updated