*Extremely painful serviceability, you need to take the MB out to get the PSU out unless your cooler is under 35mm, the ducted 120mm fan is the last to go in first to come out and is held in with the worlds firmest plastic clip
*Extremely painful serviceability, you need to take the MB out to get the PSU out unless your cooler is under 35mm, the ducted 120mm fan is the last to go in first to come out and is held in with the worlds firmest plastic clip
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| [[File:SAMA_IM01.jpg|center|250px]] || SAMA IM01/Inter-Tech IM-1 Pocket || max 5 || max 7 || mATX, ITX
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*Small form factor (22L) with room for mATX
*Lots of drive mounting points for it's size
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*Drive mounting points equal as fan mounting points (more drives, less fans)
*Max drives only possible with SFX PSU
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Revision as of 17:05, 28 May 2022
A short list of cases to stuff your drives in. If you have any good recommendations post them in the /hsg/ thread or create an account and add it to the list you lazy fuck. Rackmount cases are also welcome. If you own, or have owned one of these cases feel free to write a short review about what you like and dislike about the case. I will try to add as much detail to the pros and cons list as possible, especially anything that would help people avoid unfortunate surprises.
Very large compared to other options in this category
Chenbro SR30169T3
4
2
Mini ITX
Looks absolutely sick
Very high end construction, just a scaled down version of what you'd expect from a rack mount vendor
Hot swap bays are legit, no chinky plastics or "tooless"
Autistic airflow route favours keeping drives cool over everything else (average 30C idle temp of 4x 10TB non-helium drives)
Expensive AF (100+ USD)
As supplied, there are holes at the top and backplane of the drive bays which creates a infinite loop of hot air (fixed with sticky tape)
Not suitable for >100W TDP chips
Extremely painful serviceability, you need to take the MB out to get the PSU out unless your cooler is under 35mm, the ducted 120mm fan is the last to go in first to come out and is held in with the worlds firmest plastic clip
SAMA IM01/Inter-Tech IM-1 Pocket
max 5
max 7
mATX, ITX
Small form factor (22L) with room for mATX
Lots of drive mounting points for it's size
Drive mounting points equal as fan mounting points (more drives, less fans)
Lots of storage options. 2 2.5in mounts (inside front panel), and 2 mounts for drives of either size (attached directly to bottom of case)
Separated design allows for dedicated airflow over drives
Reasonably expandable, 5 Full Height Expansion slots
No tie downs making wire management a bit difficult
Drive caddies require an adapter for drives which lack the middle mount hole, you can get these from Fractal Design via their support portal, buy them when they are in stock, or you can 3D Print your own
Cube shape might not work for some narrower spaces
Cable clearance on the second cage is questionable Use angled sata cables if possible and be careful with SAS to sata cables if using SAS drives
Hot-swap SATA/SAS backplane with SATA/Molex power.
Additional 2.5" bay with 4 slots.
One 3.5" bay is blocked by HBA without modding plastic bracket.
Poor airflow/temps. Fan swap+airduct (cardboard/3D print) and flipping PSU to exhaust is highly recommended.
Zero cable management.
A bit expensive new at around $200
Requires SFX PSU (preferably modular).
More Than 10 drives⠀
A note on large storage arrays with 10+ drives. Most motherboards have less than 10 Sata ports. Once you start getting above 10 drives you will likely need to buy an HBA to support more drives than your motherboard is capable of handling. The recommended approach is to use a SAS HBA with SAS to Sata breakout cables. You can learn more about these on the Home server page.
Doesn’t come with all of the HDD mounting brackets so you have to buy more to get the full capacity. (Comes with 6x3.5 type B trays, packs of 2 are ~$15 or you can 3d print them from here )
Large
Somewhat pricey. (sometimes goes on sale for < 100USD)
Doesn’t come with all of the HDD mounting brackets so you have to buy more to get the full capacity. (Comes with 6x3.5 type B trays, packs of 2 are ~$15 or you can 3d print them from here)
Large
Pricy, especially when factoring in extra brackets
Tons of Expandability options. 9 Full-Height Expansion Slots
Front three optical drive bays can be converted with an adapter for even more storage
You need to buy more cages to do so as it only comes with two
You will probably run into heat issues if going the modded route
More drive cages restricts motherboard and GPU size
Large
Lots of drives use a lot of electricity
Cooler Master CM Stacker 810 (or any CM stacker case)
0 (up to 20 if modded, using 5.25 to 3.5 adapters)
0
XL ATX, E-ATX, ATX, mATX, ITX
Huge storage potential
Old as fuck so likely to be cheap
Crazy amount of 5.25 bays can be converted to 3.5in Hot Swap bays using adapters
Good adapters can be somewhat pricey
Harder to find
Lots of drives use a lot of electricity
Rack cases
While rack mount cases are designed to be used on a rack, some opt to use them without one. Consider Lack Rack for a cheap way to mount your server.
Disk shelves are for hard drives only. Only use them if you already have a main server that has an external SAS HBA.
Make sure you check the depth of your rack before buying anything, some rack mount servers are incredibly long and might not fit a small 17” deep rack.
