Circling back to this one to finalise the hardware discussion. The PXE booting and software side of the project has been split off into the Homelab PXE Booting thread.
I ended up taking the 1TB Orico SSD out, and using a spare 60GB Toshiba SSD I had instead. This was pulled from a server years ago, and has been in the parts bin ever since. It’s too small to do anything with, but will be perfect for a little box to serve basic TFTP and HTTP. I’ve also replaced the large plastic Orico 2.5" to 3.5" converter with a metal HP one I pulled from a workstation a while ago (Part No: 654540-001). There are no fans in this unit, so my logic was that the smaller metal unit might dissipate heat (if any) unlike the larger plastic one.
Speaking of heat, this morning I took the dried out and crumbling thermal pad off the Marvell 88F6707 CPU, tidied it up with a bit of isopropyl alcohol, and applied a new thermal pad. Here’s a [poorly photographed] closer shot of the CPU, if anyone is interested.
Everything went back together smoothly and the final unit without the case on it looks like this:
At a glance, the temps are about the same as what they were before I started, so I doubt the new thermal pad or the metal 2.5" to 3.5" converter made any difference. Still, it was worth doing while I had the unit apart.
Hope you found some of the build interesting, and it encourages you to repurpose some of those odds and ends at home into a new project too!