Raspberry Pi 5 as network storage, music server, and player - PART 2

 2. CHOICE OF HARDWARE

There are many choices of equipment case for a Raspberry Pi 5 plus NVME drive.  These are my two favourites -

The smaller one - Pimoroni - accommodates a conventional Raspberry Pi 5 plus M.2 drive, while the larger case - Geekworm - accommodates a Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5 plus 2x M.2 drives.  The Geekworm case is 96 x 90 x 44mm - that's still smaller than an Intel NUC.  The Pimoroni case is a tiny 95 x 60 x 37mm.
I chose the larger Geekworm case, since I was aiming to add an OLED display at a later stage, and the small case is simply too small to accommodate a display of any sensible size.
The larger case is designed for the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5, not the "normal" Raspberry Pi 5.  The difference is that the Compute Module consists only of the CPU, RAM and network modules. It's then plugged into a matching carrier board to provide physical connectivity - USB/ethernet/M.2/GPIO, etc.
Geekworm sells a matching passive heatsink (no fan assistance) which is generally fine - especially for our purposes, since audio playback is not very demanding for a modern CPU.  However I did eventually fit a fan, which I will detail later.
Assembly is simple - plug the CM5 module into the carrier board, put some thermal paste on the CPU/RAM/WIFI/PMIC modules, then attach the heatsink, plug in your NVME drive, then screw down the carrier board and fit the case lid.


Here are the various stages of assembly.  Note that I machined away part of the heatsink so that an OLED screen would fit into the case at a later stage.

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