The project was inspired from watching videos suggesting the N100 processor as alternative to the Pi for Linux projects by Christopher Barnett (@ExplainingComputers), Jeff Geerling (@JeffGeerling) and Wolfgang (@WolfgangsChannel)

The Coal Box idea was to build something that didn't look like a computer and would fit into the room.

The goal was to not buy an off the shelf NAS case but to use something more unusual and low cost. The Victorian coal box seemed suitable. It's quite robust and cost about £30 (USD40) to buy locally. Similar boxes can be found on eBay priced £20 - £100, but check the condition and perhaps avoid fully restored items.

The motherboard is an Asrock N100 ITX unit. This was chosen after watching videos suggesting the N100 as alternative to the Pi for Linux projects by Christopher Barnett (@ExplainingComputers), Jeff Geerling (@JeffGeerling) and Wolfgang (@WolfgangsChannel)

There's some DIY building to construct a platform to mount the components on, and I found a real breadboard that after some finessing with a power saw fitted quite nicely. A pair of drawer slides allow it to move in and out for ease of access.

The N100 is setup with 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD and a PCI-e+SATA adapter card

I have a second hand ATX PSU rated for 220W and a PCB that allowed me to break out the power, particularly so that the disk drive power did not come via the motherboard so as to keep its load down.

At present the hard disks are a pair of 320GB picked up second hand just for testing. These will be replaced soon with 2TB (or greater) units. The box should have capacity for 2 or even 4 more drives as there is space right at the bottom of the box to mount there.

For software the system has Linux and openmediavault installed. This is setup to provide a two disk RAID as well as file system on the SSD. I have plugins for wireguard VPN and Docker enabled. The BIOS is setup witih wake on LAN as I did some tinkering of the autoshutdown settings.

Any questions just ask.