We've just established all the problems exposed by the v1 prototype that we want to address for v2. In addition to those issues, we also want v2 to cover a few things that are no fault of the v1 prototype.

First one is relatively obvious: actually build a complete and usable case. I knew I was trying new ideas in v1 and that something will go wrong, so it wasn't really complete. Even if everything went right (I knew it wouldn't) I would have had to build a v2. For one example, I didn't bother to design an access door.

We then have a few separate items that relate to improving space efficiency.

When I placed v1 on the shelf where I expected to keep my FreeNAS box, it wasted a few inches between the back and the wall due to the angle of the power cable. I want to rearrange things so that the back of the box can sit flat against the wall.

Cooling path in v1 started with air intakes on the bottom of the case. This was part of the tribute to the Apple PowerMac G4 cube, but functionally unnecessary while consuming vertical space.

Also contributing to the vertical space consumption was pointing all the ports downwards, like the PowerMac G4 cube. This made the ports difficult to access. It would be good to align the direction of all the plugs, so power and network cables can be in parallel.

Out of all the requirements listed here and in the previous post, the greatest impact was the "make sure all fans are visible for easy verification they are spinning" goal. It meant rearranging the components so both fans face forward. This made for an interesting design challenge as it is against common convention of computer case design. Once I got that set up, the configuration was then further refined in Fusion 360 to satisfy all the remaining requirements until we have this: my FreeNAS Box v2.

FreeNASv2