I am currently in the process of upgrading my servers(about time) for my file sharing org i run. I replaced one of the SAN clusters with a single system with sata 74 gig raptors. Anyways, i have a ton of 5 gig seagate scsi seagate ST32171 -st32173s, about 20 or so. Instead of throwing them away, i figured i could make a really cool wall decoration or base to put a computer on top of. i want to take the covers off of these drives to expose the internals of the drive. Then create a grid with all these screwed in through a metal plate (the bottom to the drive where the four screw holes are) and then cover the exposed internals of the entire set with a single plate of acrylic and have some mild lighting and if possible wire up the drives to spin slowly and have the arms possible move in a certain patern . I thought it would be cool to put my new system on top of it, if anyone know how i could wire this up that would be awesome, Because i have no knowledge of how the hard drive recieves commands on an electrical level.
Also assuming i could wire up the drive to control them, how could i possibley use them to interpret signals from the computer, such as cpu usage etc. basically any good tutorials anywhere on how to program output signals for ports (maybe usb? ) this a very ambitous for me and this will be me first entrance into hardware programing with circuit boards etc(considering a oopic chip if i fail though, those are easy to use)
ideas for input for the grid,
photo electric eyes to base grid movement on movement detected or light detected,
sound input to base grid arm movement
cpu temp to base...
cpu usage to base....
hard drive access to base...(coolest idea i think to give illusion of those drives being used)
final option for simplicity is to have randomize movements of arms (oopic chip)

what do you guys think?

also is there a company that sells hard drives that have translucent covers on them to see a drive working.. cause i would love to create a functional raid 1+0 array in that manner as well
thank you

Quote: Originally Posted by psyph3r I am currently in the process of upgrading my servers(about time) for my file sharing org i run. I replaced one of the SAN clusters with a single system with sata 74 gig raptors. Anyways, i have a ton of 5 gig seagate scsi seagate ST32171 -st32173s, about 20 or so. Instead of throwing them away, i figured i could make a really cool wall decoration or base to put a computer on top of. i want to take the covers off of these drives to expose the internals of the drive. Then create a grid with all these screwed in through a metal plate (the bottom to the drive where the four screw holes are) and then cover the exposed internals of the entire set with a single plate of acrylic and have some mild lighting and if possible wire up the drives to spin slowly and have the arms possible move in a certain patern . I thought it would be cool to put my new system on top of it, if anyone know how i could wire this up that would be awesome, Because i have no knowledge of how the hard drive recieves commands on an electrical level. Also assuming i could wire up the drive to control them, how could i possibley use them to interpret signals from the computer, such as cpu usage etc. basically any good tutorials anywhere on how to program output signals for ports (maybe usb? ) this a very ambitous for me and this will be me first entrance into hardware programing with circuit boards etc(considering a oopic chip if i fail though, those are easy to use) ideas for input for the grid, photo electric eyes to base grid movement on movement detected or light detected, sound input to base grid arm movement cpu temp to base... cpu usage to base.... hard drive access to base...(coolest idea i think to give illusion of those drives being used) final option for simplicity is to have randomize movements of arms (oopic chip) what do you guys think? also is there a company that sells hard drives that have translucent covers on them to see a drive working.. cause i would love to create a functional raid 1+0 array in that manner as well thank you

The following is cut from www.zapwizard.com - under the mods section on that page you will find a tutorial. I have read others but can find them at this time.


I wanted a Harddrive window on my PC, but with no way to show it off I came up with this mod.

The moving head effect is very cool to look at, and provides a unique aspect to any case.

So I decided that if I mounted a laptop harddrive to the front of my case, and wired it so that when the IDE activity LED was active the head would move.

So... I got a cheap laptop harddrive and went to work.

Hey is those SCSI hdd's are ultra wide care of selling about 7 of them?