Case/Enclosures specifically for SSD's?

mikeg · Post by **mikeg** » Wed Sep 16, 2009 11:56 am

Hi, with SSD's becoming more popular I was wondering if anyone new of any manufacturers building cases/enclosures with these in mind. Thanks, Mike

Post by **MikeC** » Wed Sep 16, 2009 1:30 pm

They don't require any special handling or mounting. 99% are in 2.5" form factor, and they're so light and cool, they can be held with just two screws in virtually any location. I have one with two screws on one side in an CD drive bay -- the other side simply hangs in the air. Been there for 6 months.

ascl · Post by **ascl** » Wed Sep 16, 2009 5:34 pm

Mine is mounted behind the right hand panel of the case using an unused motherboard mounting hole! Completely out of the way, its brilliant.

I believe that some of the newer SilverStone cases (both Ravens for example) have proper mounting spots for SSDs behind the right panel.

Hammy · Post by **Hammy** » Wed Sep 16, 2009 9:12 pm

As already mentioned you don't need any enclosure. The drives have no moving parts and are not prone to heat issues. Keeping it on the bottom of the case will help dissipate what little heat there is, along with keeping it away from other hot components (ie. above/below a standard HD).

If you want to be extravagant you could even use some duct tape to keep it securely in place

Crucial do offer this: http://images.crucial.com/pdf/install_g ... nglish.pdf for my drive but it really isn't needed.

reddyuday · Post by **reddyuday** » Wed Sep 16, 2009 10:20 pm

Since the form factor is the same as that of 2.5" hard disk drives, the same enclosures should work for solid state drives as well.

mikeg · Post by **mikeg** » Wed Sep 16, 2009 11:09 pm

I thought this may be a good opportunity for manufacturers to have a total re-think of how cases are designed and come up with something totally new. If conventional hard drives are going to be history (in a few years maybe) then we really dont need as much space in a case and cooling/silencing could be approached in a new way perhaps. Currently we have to adapt cases for SSD installation rather than cases being designed for there installation.

nutball · Post by **nutball** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 1:33 am

mikeg wrote:I thought this may be a good opportunity for manufacturers to have a total re-think of how cases are designed and come up with something totally new. If conventional hard drives are going to be history (in a few years maybe) then we really dont need as much space in a case and cooling/silencing could be approached in a new way perhaps. Currently we have to adapt cases for SSD installation rather than cases being designed for there installation.

I tend to agree there's an opportunity. I'm not 100% convinced that HDDs are going to go away entirely, they may prove cheaper for bulk performance-irrelevant storage for many many years to come. 2.5" HDDs are now getting to interesting capacities (~1TB), so 3.5" drives may go away.

Strikes me though that you could probably fit an SSD, 2.5" HDD and slim-line optical drive into the space currently occupied by one full-height optical drive.

That said though it's often not the drive bays that dictate the overall size of a case. ATX PSUs and chuffing great heatsinks and graphics cards have much more of an influence for many peoples needs.

mikeg · Post by **mikeg** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 4:39 am

Perhaps the lead should come from the motherboard designers, slot in spaces for SSD's maybe? Rather than having flying SATA cables/leads. After a new build recently and plumping eventually for a SSD myself I was left with a whole lotta space where the HDD's went. With only one optical drive space taken up theres nearly a third of my case unused/open, my initial choice of case was perhaps the wrong one but my new found interest in making it as quiet as possible (after I had bought everything except the SSD!) got me thinking and looking for a new smaller case..and theres nothing it appears on the market to cater specifically for SSD's (I mean designed not adapted). Will post my troubles and traumas of the build soon hopefully.

reddyuday · Post by **reddyuday** » Fri Sep 18, 2009 3:28 am

I am building my new build in Antec NSK1380, partly because I realize that there is no need for humongous cases any more. This case comes with three 3.5" bays, two of them hanging from the ceiling, but I guess I am going to be using only one of them because I can pack two 2.5" drives into a single 3.5" bay (using Scythe Twin Mounter).

So, in a sense, NSK1380 is already made for SSD's. But there is room for more optimization in the light of SSD's.

JamieG · Post by **JamieG** » Fri Sep 18, 2009 2:44 pm

It's not really too hard for case manufacturers to make a minor change to help with mounting an SSD.

I've just picked up a Lian Li PC-Q07 and there are pre-drilled holes on the bottom of the case (where the HDD cage is) for a 2.5 inch form factor HDD or SSD to be screwed to the bottom of the case.

This is something every manufacturer could easily implement by just drilling 4 holes at the bottom of the HDD cage in every case that they make to accommodate SSDs.

zansiball · Post by **zansiball** » Sat Sep 19, 2009 2:59 pm

case manufacturers should develop some more cases without 3.5 & 5.25 bays.

or something like this http://lian-li.com/v2/tw/product/upload ... 500d06.jpg

just remove the 2 5.25 bays in the top and that would be the perfect case. short, 120 fans and nice air intake.

reddyuday · Post by **reddyuday** » Sun Sep 20, 2009 3:43 am

JamieG wrote:It's not really too hard for case manufacturers to make a minor change to help with mounting an SSD.

Of course. Adding a few screw holes without modifying the architecture of the case is easy enough to do. SSD's will no doubt move the case manufacturers to do this more. But I am more interested in the architectural changes that are made possible by the 2.5" drives.

I've just picked up a Lian Li PC-Q07 and there are pre-drilled holes on the bottom of the case (where the HDD cage is) for a 2.5 inch form factor HDD or SSD to be screwed to the bottom of the case.

PC-Q07 is a great example of the new architecture made possible by the miniaturization of components. I would be very interested to hear about your experiences with it.

JamieG · Post by **JamieG** » Sun Sep 20, 2009 3:14 pm

reddyuday wrote:
JamieG wrote:I've just picked up a Lian Li PC-Q07 and there are pre-drilled holes on the bottom of the case (where the HDD cage is) for a 2.5 inch form factor HDD or SSD to be screwed to the bottom of the case.
PC-Q07 is a great example of the new architecture made possible by the miniaturization of components. I would be very interested to hear about your experiences with it.

I'm trying to do a bit of modding to the case to fit an undersize mATX motherboard into this case, so my experience is a little different.

Based on my experiments with this case, the PC-Q07 with a miniITX mobo with a large heatsink and low rpm fan, an SSD and a picoPSU would make a great little quiet system. The DVD drive might cause some problems with fitting a large heatsink, however. (I'm not using one with my build).