I made a drive enclosure!
This morning my (unfortunately hyper-expensive) fiber-optic Thunderbolt cable seemed to have bit the dust. It simply started to randomly reset and disconnect the drives momentarily. Overnight it happened maybe a dozen times.This isn't a good way to ensure data integrity.I tested this hypothesis by putting the Drobo onto my desk and using a 6-foot wired cable that I had on hand instead of the fiber.It worked swimmingly.Except it was loud as hell.Five drives and the associated cooling fan make quite the racket.I had some leftover MDF from building the slide scanning housing so I decided to put an enclosure together for this. It's not perfect, but it's pretty decent.And yes, there is accommodation for airflow as well; I wasn't going to make a simple hot box to bake everything in.What you have is the front and back hinged lids have a gap at the bottom along with the base not going all the way to the front. This creates a nice big 6 in^2 vent for the air.As it stands, the Drobo has a pretty decent baffle in front of the drives with a far smaller opening than what I've left. I've also provided some blocking to prevent the hot exhaust air from recirculating to the front.I did get a 5m USB 3.0 extension cable if this isn't suitable... but I don't think it would be awesome to go from an efficient 20Gbps down to a less efficient 5Gbps that the USB would provide. But I have that option if I want.And it was a fun little build anyway! :-D