iNAS, a.k.a Network Attached Storage Bin

[originally submitted to the MacMod contest in 2006]

This mod guide is intended to be a very basic tutorial with a practical purpose... to save the iMacs. The number of iMacs making their way to the dumpsters is growing rapidly as flyback transformers are hitting the end of their lifespans. The sad part of this is that the most important part of the machines is still in working order.

Many people who pitch these iMacs may know that these could still be useful, but lack one or more of the three most important resources to do a recasing: time, parts, and creativity.

I have decided to forego my chances at the top prize with a fancy and cool recasing, and instead make a tutorial with a low difficulty level so that people lacking in one of the above mentioned resources can still save their iMac from the dumpster.

With that in mind, I tried to think of the absolute best use for an old iMac. Network attached storage devices are now making their way onto consumer store shelves to the tune of $150 and above. I know a number of people who have recently asked me which of these work best with Macs. Although they will all work with Macs by virtue of OS X's Samba support, I have only found one that supports AFP file sharing. Backing up a Mac to a Samba share can be problematic due to the filename limitations of the FAT32 filesystem, so AFP is much preferred if one will be using the share for backing up and not merely additional storage for multimedia.

Getting Started - Disclaimers
So, with a void to fill, I set out to design the easiest case mod ever... one which even my Dad could do with a few tools and some extras from a Do-It-Yourself store. There are two disclaimers before we begin. First, this guide only applies to an iMac with a tray loading CD drive as I have not had the opportunity to attempt a recasing on a slot load model. Second, I take no responsibility for your safety as you will be removing some parts which could cause you to be shocked by a fairly powerful charge (some people warn that it could kill you). I am not even including instructions here on the steps to dismantle the iMac so as not to be held responsible if you decide to do this project yourself. I am not recommending that you do this project, even though I have stated that this project is easy enough for nearly anyone to do. I will say, however, that you can find instructions online by doing a search. I will also tell you what I did. Not that I recommend that you do what I did, but if you feel confident in your ability to not be clumsy, my pointers could help you make some correct decisions to protect yourself. Now that I've cleared myself of responsibility for your actions, let's begin.

Dismantling the iMac
The simple description of how I stripped down the iMac was to just start removing screws from the casing until I got down to the power board. The first screw I removed was the one holding the access panel on. After removing the panel using the handle, I removed the two screws holding in the motherboard tray. I unplugged the cables and pulled the tray out. This is the important part, so set this aside if you are following at home. At this point, if you feel comfortable soldering, you'd be advised to search for directions online for using an ATX power supply with an iMac. If you aren't capable, keep reading this paragraph to see what I did so you will have some ideas as to what is safe. I kept removing screws and case parts until I was able to remove the half of the power supply that has the jack on it where the external power cord plugs in.

This part is dangerous, so I was always careful to handle it by the edges of the board and the little aluminum railing around the side. I also was careful not to touch any of the parts on the board with bare wiring or the pins sticking out of the bottom of the board where everything is soldered in. I never wore protective gloves or grounding straps and I have handled this board literally hundreds of times in all my playing around with ideas for a total of three case mods with these guts. I have yet to be shocked, but I also took these additional precautions along the way:

  1. I was extra careful removing the board from the case and made sure not to touch any of the tube parts in the process.
  2. I always pulled the power plug while the thing was on before handling the board so that the charge would drain completely.
  3. I would press the power button as if trying to turn it on with no power connected to it just for good measure.
Again, I am not saying these are steps others should follow, I'm just reporting my successful process to avoid a shock.

Parts
Now that I've bored you with legal disclaimers while covering how I got the important components out of the case, let's move on. The bill of materials is pretty slim here:

At this point, we are now ready to reconnect the parts and fire up the iMac again since the offending part of the machine is no longer going to be tripping the power supply. Before we do, though, we need to make sure the power supply is safe from shorting connections. The way I did this was to use the bolts, risers, and "L" bracket to make feet for the power board.

This propped the board up off of the surface it was sitting on.

Now find a good surface to set this stuff on and connect the motherboard to the power supply with the appropriate cable. Connect the display adapter and a VGA monitor (or old Apple monitor if you are going that route) to the RGB connector on the backside of the hard drive bay in the motherboard tray. Connect the power button board to its connector near the RGB. Connect one of the speakers from the case to one of the two speaker connections. Plug the power cable into the power supply, then the wall and press the little grey power button trigger on the board. You should hear the good old startup chime and then see the boot process on your monitor.

This is the best time to actually prepare the OS and software that we will need on this machine. If you will be using OS 8 or 9, you will need to translate these steps accordingly, as I will be using OS 10.3 since I have a Family Pack of licenses for that. The most essential piece of this is the VNC server, since the file sharing is built in. Redstone Software has the best VNC server for the Mac, and they provide versions for both OS 9 and OS X:
Download VNC Server here
If you have Apple Remote Desktop, it would be better to use that instead.

Assuming you already have an OS on here, the first thing to do is go through the System Preferences and set up the Dock and Window settings the way you like them. Then adjust the Energy Settings to make sure it is set to never go to sleep.

Go ahead and enter Sharing, and rename your machine to something better than the default. I chose iNAS. Now turn on File Sharing. If you will access this by a Windows machine, go ahead and turn on Windows Sharing as well. If you are familiar with SSH, Remote Login can be a real time saver and life saver.

Now turn the volume all the way up in Sound Preferences, and make sure Alerts Volume is set to max as well. Then go into Speech and turn on the Speak Alerts features and set them up the way you want them. If you aren't sure what to do, just copy the way I set it up in the picture below. This may seem pointless, but remember that this machine will run all the time unattended with no monitor attached. By turning on the Speak Alerts, we insure that there is at least a chance we might know when something goes wrong. If you hear your iNAS talking, then it is time to VNC in and figure out what is wrong.

Now is the time to go into Accounts and choose Login Options. Add OSXVNC as a Login Item so that it will start up every time you turn the machine on, allowing you a way in to control it. The default settings will do fine, but it is a good idea to set a Password in case an uninvited guest ends up on your network.

Finishing the Case
With all this set, it is time to shut down and finish the physical work. This is quite easy due to the materials we are using. The only hard part is removing the excess part of the motherboard tray. We will not need a CD drive for this project, so we can remove that from the mix. Also, I used the small flat blade of my Swiss Army knife (a flathead screwdriver should work as well if it is thin enough) to remove the entire bracket piece from the main motherboard tray by prying around the contact "rivets" to pop them loose. Without that front tray, the main tray is more manageable and it is easier to find a spot for it. In my final product, I end up using 2 drives and require a different bracket anyway. After modifying the motherboard tray to my liking, all I did was to position the pieces within the storage bin, then take a water based marker and mark from the outside where I would need to run my tie straps to secure the components.

I used a razor knife to cut holes where needed. I have to warn you to be careful with that razor knife. When cutting anything that requires a little effort with a razor knife, the probability of slipping and cutting yourself is a lot higher than you may realize. Anyway, in the process of cutting, I discovered that they don't make them like they use to, and ended up wih some cracks in the plastic around where I was cutting. Since this isn't meant to be a beautiful mod, this was no big deal. Just be aware that perfectionists need not apply.

Lastly, I simply inserted the tie straps in the holes I had cut, got them all started, then tightened them one by one. These pictures show my placement:


Once everything was decided, I picked a spot for the case fan, marked the spot with the marker, and went to work with the razor knife. I used four rubber washers between the fan and the case to prevent rattling noises. For the fan, I actually used the provided screws to avoid any slack that would cause noise. Notice the cracking plastic, further evidence of things not being made the way they used to be:

For my drives, I used a dual drive bracket from G4 tower and 2 80 GB drives, but your needs may vary. The good thing about this bracket is that it was easy to make 2 slots in the bottom of the case to insert the tabs. Then I only needed one bolt to hold the drive bracket in, just the way it works in the G4. Keep in mind that with a 2.5" to 3.5" IDE adapter, you could convert the CD drive connection on the motherboard to a standard connection for 2 more drives. I wouldn't advise trying to run 4 drives off the single connector with splitters, though. If you decide to go for more than 2 drives, I would strongly encourage you to go through the extra steps to convert an ATX power supply for this and simply discard (recycle if possible) the iMac's power supply.

On the backside of the speaker, there is a lot where the original screw held it in. I found that simply sliding this slot onto the bolt that was acting as a foot for the power supply. I had to press it hard enough that I felt comfortable it wouldn't come loose unless forced. This also put the speaker close enough to the outside plastic that it will definitely be heard through the plastic.

I decided to leave the power button board loose in the case. In order to make this accessible from the outside of the case, I'd have to make the headphone jacks visible and I really don't want to see those things. It is easy enough to pop the top off the storage bin anyway, so having the board loose makes it easy to reach in and grab to hit the switch.

With everything in place, I connected the network cable and power cable and fired it back up. I then VNCed in to it and set up the additional drive.

I then installed Smart Reporter, which can warn you if a drive failure is imminent. I set it to check every 720 minutes, since that is often enough. By default, the first time you run it, it sets itself up as a Login Item. The only other thing to do is set it to pop up an alert when there is a problem, which will cause our iNAS to start talking since we configured the Spoken Alerts. Setting up the email of alerts is optional, but worth the extra 2 minutes.

At this point, the iNAS is ready to rock, so I tested the file sharing from my laptop, then shut it down, put the lid in place, and set it up on top of my computer desk for pictures. It's no work of art, but it makes a great NAS device and a great way to get a few more years out of an otherwise useless iMac.


Final Thoughts
I will admit right up front that there are some cons to this approach for a NAS, but there are also some advantages. The first con is performance. File sharing speed on this set up is acceptable, but it actually clocked in at about 65% of the file copy speed that a QNAP NAS enclosure with a SATA drive clocked in at. I was most surprised by this statistic. For backups, though, this isn't a real problem assuming you let your backups run overnight. Due to the bottleneck on the iMac's end, it would put less of a performance hit on the machine you are backing up, which should translate to less noticeable slowdown of the machine if you continue to work while the backups are running in the background.

Another disadvantage of this approach is that any storage bin big enough to hold this stuff isn't going to be small enough to sit nicely on a shelf without sticking out some. I would recommend taking a different approach to the case if you have the skills. Again, though, if you have neither time nor inclination to do something fancy, this will do. You could always set your modem and router on top of it to regain some of the lost space.

One advantage of this setup is that it could host a total of 4 IDE drives. To get a NAS that can handle 4 drives internally is prohitively expensive for home use. Most of the NAS devices on the consumer market do support adding external USB 2.0 drives, but the SimpleTech SimpleShare at work seems to take a noticeable speed hit when you add an external drive (the mirroring could be the only factor to blame here, though, as I haven't tested enough to pin down the actual cause for the slowdown). If you have large storage needs, though, this advantage evaporates due to the fact that the iMac motherboard can only see the first 128GB of a large drive. So, if you put 4 120GB drives or 160GB drives, you only end up with around half a TB. Compare this to the ability of most NAS devices to handle a 500GB drive, in addition to the large drive support on the USB 2.0 port. If you already have a few drives laying around, though, this is a great way to put them in use. The other gotcha to this is that if you want to run more than 2 drives with this iMac motherboard, you need to add another power supply for the extra drives, or use an ATX supply for the whole thing in place of the iMac's power supply. It may even turn out that this can't run the 2 drives reliably for the long haul, but it seems to be fine at the moment.

Other advantages of this include the ability to run all kinds of applications and services on this thing. Set up a podcast client to download files, set up a BitTorrent client, run a web site, set up cron jobs or Applescripts to do things on your network or retrieve different kinds of info from the web, set up a security camera, or even us it as a backup machine in an emergency.

There is also the option of using different cases and going with a different approach. This iMac actually makes a pretty decent iTunes jukebox if you aren't planning on watching a lot of videos. I actually had this motherboard in the case of a Mac Classic previously and used it for just such a purpose in our entertainment center until I got a Mac mini. At work, we are going to set up some of the old tray load iMacs as news devices in the halls to simply display RSS feeds of campus news. Your creativity is the only limitation for finding intersting ways to keep this machine in service. So, have some fun and go save the iMacs!