Quiet mid-tower with fully dust-filtered front door?

Nice Marmot · Post by **Nice Marmot** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 6:37 am

Anyone know of mid-sized towers that offer big fans, three to five 5.25" bays, no unnecessary size holes, and has a washable dust filter behind the entirety of a well ventilated front door. Looking to build a small backup server using trayless, hot-swappable SATA bays, and want to make sure dust doesn't get sucked in over the HDs. The various 3-in-2 or 4-in-3 SATA bays that have dust filters all include at least one noisy 30 or 40mm fan, so I'm thinking that a filtered door is the best solution.

Eagle156 · Post by **Eagle156** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 2:45 pm

Antec P182?

Nice Marmot · Post by **Nice Marmot** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 5:56 pm

Those ventilation holes around the side of the door are unfiltered, aren't they?

jhhoffma · Post by **jhhoffma** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 7:42 pm

The filters are in front of the HDD-cages inside the bezel. So yes, the side holes are unfiltered, but the intake air is still filtered.

thejamppa · Post by **thejamppa** » Wed Jul 30, 2008 2:08 am

jhhoffma wrote:The filters are in front of the HDD-cages inside the bezel. So yes, the side holes are unfiltered, but the intake air is still filtered.

Which would be only dust proof is build is done with positive pressure. If build is done with negative rpessure like over 3/4 are done, dust will accumulate from every little hole there is.

frenchie · Post by **frenchie** » Wed Jul 30, 2008 2:17 am

Antec Solo maybe ?

[EDIT : never mind, I misread your needs... that's what you get when you post before having coffee]

Nice Marmot · Post by **Nice Marmot** » Wed Jul 30, 2008 5:01 am

thejamppa wrote:Which would be only dust proof is build is done with positive pressure. If build is done with negative rpessure like over 3/4 are done, dust will accumulate from every little hole there is.

Exactly. If I was just using the 5.25" bays for their regular purpose, like DVD drives, it wouldn't be an issue, as those device bevels are pretty solid. But the trayless hotswap SATA bays have pretty substantial gaps for dust to get in, especially if the SATA bay has a fan behind it.

jhhoffma · Post by **jhhoffma** » Wed Jul 30, 2008 10:19 am

thejamppa wrote:Which would be only dust proof is build is done with positive pressure. If build is done with negative rpessure like over 3/4 are done, dust will accumulate from every little hole there is.

Which is true with ANY case. If you want to run a standard case in a way that is not standard, expect to make compromises or changes along the way. Positive pressure is one change.

I don't know of any case that has filtered 5.25" bays for hotswap use. So your options are to fashion your own case with a filtered hotswap bay or modify an existing case to fit your purpose; either with +pressure, extra filter material in the bezel area, or some other mod.