Full ATX, 8 x external bays, front door, quiet moddable?

halcyon · Post by **halcyon** » Wed Jul 28, 2004 2:51 am

Some of you may remember may earlier quest for a big full tower case with a closable/dampable front door and as many optical drive bays as possible.

I finally settled on Chieftec full tower which has 6x external 5,25" bays and has a nice front door for the bays, which can be damped (this SIGNIFICANTLY reduced optical drive noise when closed).

Unfortunately I'm now running out of space on that tower and many of the drives I cannot use in external optical 5,25" cases due to special software that does not work properly via firewire/USB.

So, I need a new case, that fulfill the following requirements:

- full atx tower with plenty of room inside
- must have a front door that can be damped
- plenty of external drive bays, 8 is minimum, 10+ preferable
- sturdy metal (can be heavy), no thin aluminium cases
- good or even decent options for silent modding:
- can be padded inside (with damping material)
- removable fan intake / exhaust grills hopefully 120 mm or dual 80/92mm
- placement for PSU up (not at the bottom)
- availability within EU (preferably)

I'm not very up-to-date on latest case models, but I did try to search the usual suspect sites and came up with nothing.

Does anybody have any suggestions to offer?

aspd · Post by **aspd** » Wed Jul 28, 2004 4:10 am

Perhaps a Noise Control 10x server tower is an option for you.

Available at Microplex in Norway, but I don't think they ship out of the country... But perhaps you can find it elsewhere, have a look at least.

Microplex:
http://www.microplex.no/rubweb/varer.asp?ARTNR=NC2081

Review (German):
http://www.ice-tec.net/modules/icontent ... hp?page=67

This case has 10 5.25" slots and comes with noise dampening material installed.

-aspd

sthayashi · Post by **sthayashi** » Wed Jul 28, 2004 6:18 am

Wow.... I can think of a couple cases that fit some of your qualifications, but not all of them. The Lian-li v2100 (previously PC-73SL) has 6 bays, and a door, but is made from thin aluminum.

Coolermaster's CM Stacker has potential for you as well, but it has no door and is still made from Alumnium (but it's much thicker supposedly).

The Chenbro's SR103xx server series has good potential, but the PSU is at the bottom rather than the top.

Yeong Yang's pedestal server Extended-ATX series has some neat looking options, but again, I think you'll have to compromise somewhere.

Let me know if you find something that meets all your needs, since I'd be curious to see what cases are out there

halcyon · Post by **halcyon** » Wed Jul 28, 2004 9:17 am

Thanks for the tips!

Aconto Big10x tower (same as Noise Control 10x) looks interesting. I wonder how the upper door mechanism works?

http://www.aconto.de/info/big10x/inf.htm

The other cases are also interesting, but I'm not perhaps willing to compromise that much - at least not yet. Thanks for the tips though!

Keep'em coming if you have more

flyingsherpa · Post by **flyingsherpa** » Wed Jul 28, 2004 1:35 pm

halcyon, if you don't mind sharing, i am curious as to what the heck you're gonna do with all that space

are you just copying tons of discs simultaneously or something?

mg1394 · Post by **mg1394** » Wed Jul 28, 2004 5:39 pm

halcyon,

if you are serious, there are a reasonable variety of cases like this that are used by professionals in a number of environments - and with the techniques from this site, they can be made very, very quiet.

http://www.amtrade.com/computer/network ... losure.htm

halcyon · Post by **halcyon** » Thu Jul 29, 2004 1:16 am

flyingsherpa,

nah, I don't pirate material, but I do optical storage research. I need a lot of drives for that and 6 slots + a few external ones are a bare minimum these days. But now I've already outgrown that and I need more internal 5,25" bays.

However, I also like silence when I don't spin the drives and as such the front door makes a big difference in noise levels based on my experience with doors and non-door cases.

mg1394,

Wow, that's a big case. I've tried to stay away from the huge cube cases as I'm not sure I can accomodate them in terms of space, but I'll keep those on my list if I can't find anything else.

Thanks for the tips again!

aspd · Post by **aspd** » Thu Jul 29, 2004 1:31 am

Another tip, Image & Shapetek EYE server series...

Worth a peek, might be an option for you.
http://www.imashape.com/eye-2000.htm

mg1394 · Post by **mg1394** » Thu Jul 29, 2004 6:54 am

halcyon,

From some perspectives, yes, cases like I pointed you to are large, but not too bad when you consider they are much shorter (generally <20") than the "full tower cases," and IMHO, for something with so much equipment inside, they have the great advantage of redundent PSU's, which is a big deal in some of the environments I deal with. Also, do to their more compact side-side arrangement, cable management is much better than full towers. So, in terms of space, they are approximately the same size of two mid-tower cases side-by-side. (I don't think my above comments relate to the specific company I referred to above, but a search reveals others with side-by-side cabinets that are more reasonable size.)

If you have a width constraint, then you will need to keep after suitable full-tower cases

Gholam · Post by **Gholam** » Fri Jul 30, 2004 2:01 am

Intel SC5200 Server Chassis should fit your needs (10 bays, door, E-ATX) but you'll have to mod the hell out of it to quiet it down - the 4 80x38mm fans that come with it aren't simply loud, they ROAR.

HammerSandwich · Post by **HammerSandwich** » Sat Jul 31, 2004 7:30 pm

sthayashi, where did you get the idea that the V2100 is the same as the 73SL? The 73SL is the standard LL design with right-side-up mobo, etc.

Also, the CM Stacker has an AL bezel but steel chassis.

Halcyon, check out the cases at Servercase. They have a few that might suit you.

wim · Post by **wim** » Sat Jul 31, 2004 9:43 pm

crikey

did you have something like this in mind

lenny · Post by **lenny** » Sun Aug 01, 2004 12:00 am

wim : great find!

Incidentally do you know what case that is?

wim · Post by **wim** » Sun Aug 01, 2004 1:33 am

hm not sure, you could PM the owner and find out. i saw it here. you'd have to be crazy to want a system like that

it must sound like a chorus of bird calls when you power it on (all those cd drives initialising)

halcyon · Post by **halcyon** » Sun Aug 01, 2004 9:42 am

That's OC-Freak's case, isn't it?

No, I'm ready to get by with 8 drives (+ a few external ones).

And it needs to be quiet in normal operation. Startup noise I'm willing to live with (I already have 6 x optical in my current case).

Gooserider · Post by **Gooserider** » Sun Aug 08, 2004 9:17 pm

I would also suggest Servercase.com, and would reccomend a server cube. The one I'm using I got from them, and it has 10 externally accessible 5.25" bays, 1x 3.5" floppy bay and 5 internal 3.5" HD bays. It is a really nice case that I think would do you very well if you can live with a cube. I personally like cubes because they are far more stable than a tall tower full of drives and a top mounted PSU.

Gooserider

Straker · Post by **Straker** » Mon Aug 09, 2004 12:51 pm

Yeong Yang also makes a decent cube case that's apparently different from the one of theirs I noticed on servercase.com: http://yycase.com/products/yy0420-0430.htm
Considering a cube myself for my next PC, with that much space inside it's trivial to fit internal water cooling with a seperate duct for the rad, tons of drives and hot components and still leave lots of space to make it all quiet.

Gilbo · Post by **Gilbo** » Mon Aug 09, 2004 2:27 pm

On the less expensive side of things I would look at this one, and this one --both available at NewEgg. They only offer 7 external 5.25" bays unfortunately, so I don't know if they're adquate for your needs. I find them to be tremendous deals so I figured I'd mention them for you. And they both have doors.

The former case, the APGB, has a 120mm rear exhaust which is nice, but, unfortunately (for your usage anyway) the door has inlets to facilitate cooling, which may reduce the silencing effect that you're so interested in. The Codegen one, at the latter link, has a solid door, but uses a pair of 80mm exhaust fans.

Both are great cases for the money IMO.

Gilbo · Post by **Gilbo** » Mon Aug 09, 2004 2:28 pm

Wow, I was sure I'd posted here before, but I guess not...

Hello everybody, from a longtime lurker. You guys are great, and this forum is one of the most useful resources on the 'net.

sthayashi · Post by **sthayashi** » Mon Aug 09, 2004 3:39 pm

Hello and WELCOME TO SPCR!!

Gilbo · Post by **Gilbo** » Tue Aug 10, 2004 8:10 am

Thank you sthayashi

.

HammerSandwich · Post by **HammerSandwich** » Tue Aug 10, 2004 9:11 am

Straker wrote:http://yycase.com/products/yy0420-0430.htm

Has anyone seen this for sale in the US? The YY-0221 is pretty easy to find, but the 420/430 sure ain't.

mathias · Post by **mathias** » Fri Aug 13, 2004 8:34 am

Those cube server cases make me wonder, how about taking two ordinairy cases and joining them side by side into one big case? Seems like the cheapest way to do this, and finding a pair of cases for this shouldn't be as hard as finding that one big case, though this must have a slew of it's own problems.

On the other hand, it would allow two(or more) power supplies, extra cool space for hard drives, and other benefits depending on whether the motherboard was in the middle or side.

Full ATX, 8 x external bays, front door, quiet moddable?

Full ATX, 8 x external bays, front door, quiet moddable?

Noise Control 10x big tower.