Catching Up: Rack Peripherals, Lab Upgrades, and a Mini PC Review

Hey everyone! It’s been a minute since my last update—life’s been a whirlwind lately with a few exciting projects keeping me busy. I’ve been heads-down working on some cool stuff, and I figured it’s time to bring you all up to speed. Today, I’ve got three updates to share: a rack-mounted disk shelf I’m actively developing, a completed lab upgrade that’s churning out neat data, and a sneak peek at an upcoming review of the AceMagic Warlock W1 mini PC. Let’s dive in!

1. The Disk Shelf Dream

If you’re like me, you’ve probably daydreamed about the perfect storage solution—something compact, powerful, and flexible enough to handle modern workloads. That’s where this new project comes in. I’m designing a 10-inch rack-mounted disk shelf that can host 20 2.5-inch SSDs. Yep, you read that right—20 drives packed into a space-efficient design that’s perfect for small racks or even home labs.

The goal is to blend high capacity with blazing-fast connectivity. The shelf will feature USB4/Thunderbolt connectivity to an HBA (Host Bus Adapter) and a SAS expander, giving it the bandwidth to keep up with those SSDs. USB4 and Thunderbolt bring up to 40 Gbps of speed, so this thing should scream for data transfers. Plus, it’s hot-swappable—assuming your setup supports it, of course.

Power-wise, I’m going with an external power brick to keep the shelf slim and cool, freeing up space for the drives and a little bonus: two in-shelf PCIe slots. These slots are built right into the shelf, letting you toss in custom cards like a HBA controller, an SAS expander, or whatever wild hardware you’re itching to try. It’s all about flexibility—I want this to be a platform you can tweak to fit your needs, whether it’s a home NAS, a render farm, or something totally out there.

Right now, I’m deep in development. The chassis prototype is coming along (with the usual CAD-induced swearing), and I’m testing the USB4-to-HBA connection. The SAS expander is next, and I’m still dialing in those PCIe slots. It’s a balancing act, but it’s taking shape—stay tuned for pics once I’ve got a working unit!

Here are a few sneak peaks of the design - it’s absolutely killing it!

2. Lab Upgrade: Power Monitoring with ESP32 and InfluxDB

On the completed-projects front, I’ve wrapped up a fun lab upgrade that’s already paying off: an ESP32-driven power meter hooked up to a PZEM-004T power monitoring device, with data piped straight into InfluxDB. This little setup has been a game-changer for tracking power consumption across my gear, and I’m excited to start benchmarking with the data I’ve collected.

The idea was simple: I wanted a lightweight, DIY way to monitor power draw in real time and store it for analysis, especially total power consumed over a period of time. The ESP32 handles the brains, pulling data from the PZEM-004T (a nifty little module that measures voltage, current, and wattage), and then shoots it over to InfluxDB for long-term storage and visualization. Setup was straightforward—some soldering (not even that, I used a breadboard), a bit of code, and a lot of coffee—and now it’s humming (not really) along nicely.

Early data is already interesting. For example, my miniPC NAS (rocking three 2.5-inch drives—mix of SSDs and HDDs with Intel N95) idles at about 19W when the HDDs are asleep. That’s a handy baseline, and I’m planning to push it harder with some stress tests to see how the numbers shift. I’ll share the full breakdown once I’ve got more benchmarks—could be useful for anyone tweaking their own low-power setups. Any guesses on how high it’ll spike under load? Drop ‘em in the comments!

3. AceMagic Warlock W1: A Mini PC Powerhouse (Review Coming Soon!)

Lastly, I’ve got my hands on the AceMagic Warlock W1 mini PC, and I’m prepping a full review—stay tuned for that! This thing is a beast, powered by the AMD Ryzen 7 8745HS CPU with Radeon 780M graphics. It’s a total powerhouse for its size. Compared to its sibling, the 8845HS, it skips the onboard NPU (Neural Processing Unit), but for most users—and especially server needs—that’s not a dealbreaker. The raw performance here is what counts, and it’s got plenty.

What’s got me really excited is the USB4 support. With 40 Gbps of bandwidth, this could pair beautifully with my 10-inch SSD shelf project. Imagine hooking up the Warlock W1 to that shelf via USB4—20 SSDs screaming along with a mini PC that can actually keep up. It’s a match made in storage heaven, and I’ll be testing that combo once the shelf’s ready. Beyond that, it’s got 2.5GbE networking and two NVMe slots, making it a dream for demanding users who need a step up in networking and storage performance. Whether you’re running a media server, a VM host, or just a beefy desktop, this thing’s got the chops.

I’m still putting it through its paces—benchmarks, thermals, real-world tasks—but early impressions are stellar. The full review’s coming soon, so keep an eye out for the nitty-gritty details!

What’s Next?

For the disk shelf, I’m focused on locking down power specs, getting those PCIe slots functional, and experimenting with the PCIe sub-assembly design - the 220mm x 220mm footprint is really hard to navigate with all these functionality I would like to put in. Once the prototype’s ready, expect pics and maybe a video walkthrough. I’m also mulling over open-sourcing the design or turning it into a kit—thoughts on that? The power meter’s already doing its job, so it’s just a matter of crunching the data and sharing the results. And for the Warlock W1, the review’s in the pipeline—can’t wait to show you what it can do.

Thanks for sticking with me through this busy stretch! I’ve got more projects simmering, so expect another update soon. In the meantime, let me know what you think of the disk shelf, the power monitoring setup, or the Warlock W1—any features you’d love to see? Any crazy use cases I should test? Drop a comment below, and I’ll catch you all in the next post.

If you have any ideas or suggestions, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment down below, or head over to my Reddit post where I am actively engaged in the discussions.