A smart little storage server — designed for 24/7-operation in your living room.
Background
When I came across the
Backblaze storage pod,
I was immediately intrigued by its clever, no-frills design.
But who really needs 67 terabytes
(or even 135)
at home?
I decided to scale their excellent design down for home use, and after some experimentation,
the Evercube was born.
The design is open source hardware, available under a Creative Commons Attribution license. You can view or modify the models with Google Sketchup.
For your convenience, I also offer all components needed to build the Evercube as an easy to assemble Do-It-Yourself kit.
Facts
| dimensions | 150 x 150 x 150 mm |
|---|---|
| material | stainless steel, 2 mm, brushed |
| processor | Marvell "Kirkwood", single core, 1.2 Ghz |
| memory | 512 MB DDR2 |
| disk slots | 5 x SATA2, 2.5" |
| max. capacity | 5 TB |
| network | 1 x Gbit Ethernet |
| power | 30 W — 5 VDC, 6 A |
| cooling | ultra-silent fan, 140 mm |
Questions & Answers
I have tried to answer the most common questions. If you have any other questions, please contact me.
General
- Why another NAS box? Aren't there enough already?
- Yeah, there are quite a few — but do they really look good next to your MacBook Pro? Are they specifically designed for 2.5" disks? And are they as compact and energy-efficient as the Evercube?
- What is it suited for?
- The Evercube is primarily intended as an "always-on" home server. 5 terabytes of raw storage capacity make it a superb file server with plenty of room for pictures, music, movies or backups. Of course it can also be used as your personal web server, bittorrent server, freedom box, diaspora node ...
- So you live in Belgium?
- Nope, I am german and live in Berlin — I just couldn't resist the cool domain hack. All custom components (like the stainless steel enclosure) are manufactured in Germany.
Assembly
- What is included in the kit?
- The kit contains everything — except harddisks — that is needed to build the Evercube: enclosure, motherboard (with onboard CPU and memory), 5-port SATA multiplexer backplane, internal disk scaffold, ultra-silent fan, power supply, wires, clamps, wedges, screws, nuts, washers ... everything.
- How difficult is it to put together?
-
Pretty easy, actually. Please have a look at the detailed build instructions —
if you know how to operate a screwdriver, you should be fine ;)
I have taken special care to make assembly as simple as possible — all electrical connections are done with clamps, for example, so no soldering is necessary. - What tools do I need?
- Only screwdrivers, pliers and a lighter.
Technical
- What disks can be used?
- Any 2.5" SATA (= laptop) disk, including "thick" (12.5mm) 1 TB models. You can even use the Evercube without any disks at all, as it boots from internal flash (512 MB).
- Seriously — laptop disks in a server?
- It might sound strange, but laptop disks actually have a lot of advantages for an always-on home server: they use less energy, run very quiet, and take up little space. Although you pay roughly double the price per gigabyte compared to 3.5" disks, you pay less for electricity, and thus save money in the long run.
- What operating system does the Evercube run on?
- The SheevaPlug (which we use as motherboard) comes with Ubuntu 9.04 pre-installed on flash. You can find instructions on plugcomputer.org how to install a different operating system (including Debian, Fedora, Gentoo and FreeBSD).
- What other software is installed?
- Nothing — just a stock Ubuntu installation, so you can customize the system however you want. I'll publish detailed instructions on how to set it up as a samba file server soon.
- How about ZFS?
- Sure, ZFS would be awesome — but it is currently not available on Ubuntu. FreeBSD is an option, although the available memory (512 MB) might turn out to be too little for good ZFS performance. Please tell me if you got it working.
Ordering
- When is the kit available?
- The first batch (ten kits) will be ready for delivery in mid-November 2011. The second batch will probably be ready a few weeks later. So order now if you want to be sure to receive your kit before Christmas!
- How do I order?
- Use the PayPal buttons below. You will receive an order confirmation by email. I will send out the kit (plus printed invoice) as soon as possible.
- What about shipping costs?
- As a special introductory offer, shipping costs (world-wide) are included for the first ten kits sold. After that, I'll publish more details.
- What about customs duties?
- Depending on where you live, customs duties for commercial goods (electronics) shipped from Germany may apply — those are not included in the kit price.
- What about value-added tax (VAT)?
-
You do not have to pay any VAT if you either
- live outside the European Union, or
- are a business outside Germany (= have a European VAT number).
