ThinkBox V2 - A Custom 4-Bay SATA/SAS HDD NAS

The ThinkBox is an LSI HBA-based NAS heavily inspired by and a powerful alternative to the popular ThinkNAS. Utilizing an LSI HBA card and the powerful brains of a Lenovo m720q/m920q, it leverages many improvements over alternative custom NAS builds by providing stable, direct disk pass-through with proper error handling and reliable drive identification. The drive bay of the ThinkBox also supports both SATA and SAS drives on a 12Gbps backplane.

 

Lenovo's use of the Coffee Lake generation of CPU in their m720q/m920q line gives access to native hardware transcoding through supported Intel Quick Sync. Perfect for home media servers like Plex or Jellyfin!

 

The included build guide includes an intro, items needed, tools needed, links to items needed, and potential/suggested upgrades.

 

WARNING: The LSI HBA card for this build needs to be flashed into IT mode for it to work. You can purchase them pre-flashed or do it yourself. IT mode flashing is not part of the included build guide. 

 

V2 update: 

• V2 of the ThinkBox is here! V2 overhauls the case of the ThinkBox to accommodate a140mm fan and 7in rack-mount cable brush on the rear of the case to aid in cooling and cable access without removal of the case. This replaces the previously recommended drive bay-mounted 80mm fan and results in much better cooling and removal of dead air space in the case where heat got trapped and recycled from the PC to the drive bay. This version also utilizes a 7in rack-mount cable brush on the rear of the case to allow for better cable management and access, removing this e need to remove the case to access rear I/O for the PC. 

 

Please let me know if there are any errors, suggested changes, or improvements!

 

Version history:

• 1/24: V1.2 of the build guide updated to specify IT mode flashing requirement for LSI HBA card
• 1/24: V1.3 of the build guide released to include installation of 80mm cooling fan for the drive bay and nomenclature supporting the use of both SATA and SAS drives
• 2/01: V2.0 of the model + build guide released to revise and overhaul cooling and rear cable management for the ThinkBox

 

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