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This is one of the older Snap! 2000 units. This particular version was created when Meridian owned the product line. When the line was purchased by Quantum the color of the case was changed from brown to black. After Quantum acquired the line, some of the units were released under the Dell logo (Dell PowerVault 701N). The internal components are essentially the same.

Begin by looking at the back of the server. To the lower left of the fan is a single Philips screw. That is the only piece of hardware holding the entire unit together. Remove that screw.

Lay the server on its side as shown (power button to the right). While holding on to the lower half of the case slide the upper half of the case to the right. The total travel of the upper half should be about a 1/2 inch. Lift the upper half of the case from the lower half.

The hard drives are mounted on a single bracket. This bracket is secured to the main chassis by two Philips screws. One of these screws is located next to the upper left corner of the hard drive on the left and the other is near the lower right corner of the hard drive on the right. Unscrew both of these screws. After removing the screws, lift up on the hard drives enough to slide a hand under the bracket. Disconnect the power cables and data cables from the hard drives.

Each hard drive is held to the bracket using four Philips screws on the bottom. Remove these screws to detach the hard drives from the bracket.

The chassis of the server is secured to the plastic case using two Philips screws at the front (left) and three plastic flanges at the rear (right). Unscrew the two screws at the front of the chassis. Lift up slightly on the front end of the chassis and slide the chassis towards the front. When the rear of the chassis has cleared the three flanges at the rear lift the chassis out of the plastic case.

The chassis will not be able to go too far because the cable for the front LED panel is still attached. To remove the LED panel from the plastic case, gently bend the plastic catch and pull straight up on the LED panel.

The motherboard is attached to the main chassis by five screws. Unscrew the screws and carefully rotate the motherboard to the left of the chassis. Be careful not to bend the Faraday shielding or be very difficult to put the system back together. There is a power connection to the motherboard that must be disconnected in order to free it from the chassis (green arrow). Grasp the power connector (pressing in on the tab) and pull the connector straight out of the socket on the motherboard.

This is the motherboard of the Snap! 2000 server. There are different variants on this design. There is a type that uses the old 72-pin SIMMs. This model uses a 168-pin DIMM. As far as I know they all versions have two IDE interfaces and an ISP interface. I do not know the ISP interface's function. I am assuming that it is used for some low-level setup at the factory. If I had a protocol analyzer and some spare time I'd sit down with an old 2000 and see what information I could get out of it. The serial port is something that appears on some models of this motherboard and not on others. At least two of my 2000s have this serial port interface (the Meridian pictured and a 2000 with the Quantum label). I have been able to connect to the server using this port. It essentially acts like a console version of the debug console that is accessible from the web interface (http://servername/config/debug).

You might have noticed that the ribbon cable that runs to the LED panel is still attached in several photos. On two of the three Snap! 2000s that I own (I haven't needed to take the third one apart yet) the connector is hot glued in place.

On closer inspection of the motherboard you might notice that there are some places on the board that are labeled for SCSI components. I do have a motherboard that has a SCSI controller on it. It is out of an original Meridian server (not something that I duct taped together) that I also own. It is an advanced piece of equipment. I have posted disassembly instructions for that server as well. It has pictures of the motherboard so that you can compare the two. I have also compiled a list of the chips that are on that board so that you can compare them to what is on the Snap! 2000 motherboard. That list is in the Snap! Server Pro Overview article.