Inside the Dream Machine Pro is a ton of wasted space. So it got me thinking, what more can we cram into this server to make it even better? This is the UniFi Switch Aggregation, which features eight 10 gigabit SFP plus cages. It's super thin and just like the Dream Machine Pro, there's a decent amount of wasted space inside. I mean, it almost seems like you could kind of sorta... Ah, there we go. All right. That's much better. Let's fire this bad boy up. Alive, it's alive, it's alive! Did you know that only about 25% of people who watch these videos are actually subscribers? The absolute best way that you can support Crosstalk Solutions is to like and subscribe. It'll make you feel all cozy, like you're sitting in front of a fireplace on a chilly winter evening. It really, really helps the channel tremendously and best of all, it's completely free. We're calling this monstrosity Dr. Frankenstein's Dream Machine and it's an almost perfect mashup of the Dream Machine Pro and the UniFi Switch Aggregation. As you can imagine, we almost certainly voided the warranty on this thing. Now full credit goes to my buddy Tal who was the mechanical engineering brains behind this whole project, which at its most basic is just to see if we can cram all the guts of the Switch Aggregation into a Dream Machine Pro. Now we knew that the front panel footprint of the eight SFP plus cages on the Switch Aggregation matched almost exactly the hard drive bay on the Dream Machine. But making this happen was not exactly all that simple. Let's take a look inside. We wanted to use a single power cord. So the first order of business was to install the Switch Aggregation's power supply and then splice off the main power so that it can power up both of these devices. The next order of business was to remove the UDM Pro's hard drive cage in order to make room for the eight SFP plus cages and the Switch Aggregation's PCB. Now you can't see it, but underneath the Switch Aggregation's PCB is a custom printed 3D bracket. We also had to drill some holes on the bottom of the chassis in order to secure it in. For a deeper dive into the custom components we created or if you want to attempt this build yourself, we've made all of the 3D printing STL files available in the description below. We also had to cut down this large metal heat sink on top in order to make it fit. Then we laser cut the front bezel of the Switch Aggregation into the shape of the hard drive cage hole. So basically where the hard drive cage used to be. This was a lot easier than trying to reuse the hard drive cage. And actually I think it came out looking pretty nice. Speaking of the hard drive, we wanted to ensure that we could still use UniFi Protect in this server. So we added another custom 3D printed bracket to hold the hard drive up over the Dream Machine Pro's PCB and we reuse some of the existing mounting holes. We then used a SATA extension cable to connect it back into the Dream Machine. The trade-off here of course, was that the hard drive is no longer serviceable without taking the server completely out of the rack and taking the case off. But we really felt this was acceptable given that you shouldn't really have to access the Protect hard drive all that often anyways. The other trade-off is that there's no longer any space inside the chassis for a three and a half inch hard drive. So you can see here that I've installed a one terabyte, two and a half inch SSD, but you could go as high as a five terabyte drive if you needed to. Even with a stock UDM Pro, if you needed more than five terabytes of space because of the camera history that you wanted to keep or because of the number of cameras you have connected to UniFi Protect, you should really upgrade to the UNVR if it's gonna be more than just a few cameras. Using the SATA cable with the hard drive also enables the hard drive fan in the back of the case. Now normally this pulls air across the hard drive to keep it cool, but now instead of cooling the hard drive in the front, we're actually cooling these eight SFP plus cages. The Dream Machine Pro and the Switch Aggregation both have the same 1.3 inch touchscreen display and it runs off the exact same smaller PCB in both of these devices. So we dremeled out a hole in the front plate of the UDM Pro for the Switch Aggregations display screen and then we mounted them side by side. In order to make space, we did have to shift the UDM Pro's PCB over just a little bit. So we created a custom 3D printed base plate that holds both of these display boards. Now during removal of the display screen from the Switch Aggregation, however, we did chip it a little bit, unfortunately. Now these screens are like super hard to remove even with a heat gun. So if you're gonna attempt to do something like this, be super, super careful with the 1.3 inch display screen. Adoption into UniFi of this Frankenstein Dream Machine was actually totally normal. I ran through the initial setup of the UDM Pro first and then it detected the Switch Aggregation just as if it were a normal switch that you're connecting separately. It connects together at a full 10 gigabit as you would expect. That being said, the AR functionality definitely does not work properly. I was able to use AR to latch onto the display screen of the Switch Aggregation, but of course it thought the ports were like way off the side of the device. And I couldn't get AR to latch onto the UDM Pro display screen at all. It is however pretty cool to see the synchronization of the display screens side by side. So with this build complete, we are now a little bit closer to what I think would be a real dream machine. But does this get you thinking, like what other equipment mashups would you like to see? As I mentioned in my dream wall video, I would still love to see a 2U form factor UniFi firewall with a 16 port PoE switch, 10 and 2.5 gigabit WAN options, dual hard drives for redundant protect storage and a true dual power supply. But I would love to hear about your own dream machines in the comments below. If you'd like to keep this party going, I have handpicked a couple of videos on the right here for you to watch next. The top video is my recent step-by-step tutorial for Cloudflare tunnels. And the bottom video is my full review of the UniFi dream wall.
