How best to make a PC with lots of 5.25" bays

I'd like to set up a machine with a relatively high number of 5.25"
slots - maybe between eight and a dozen - but am struggling to find
suitable chassis hardware.

To illustrate what I have in mind, you could think of the front of the
finished machine as looking something like the following (monospaced)


+-----------+
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+-----------+
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+-----------+
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+-----------+
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+-----------+
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+-----------+
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+-----------+
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The slots would be occupied mainly with trayless HDD hot-swap caddies
like these:

https://www.startech.com/en-gb/hdd/hsb100satbk

but 5.25" bays are universal and there could be other things in some of
the slots such as a panel for USB and other ports, an optical drive or
two, etc. And one slot could be taken up with an array of up to six bays
for 2.5" drives such as

https://www.icydock.com/goods.php?id=231

That would make a sweet server - which is its purpose. Unfortunately,
pre-built cases with many 5.25" slots are in short supply and I have my
doubts about how well they cool the hard drives. (I have a machine like
that at the moment but I believe its poor cooling led to some drives
overheating; I want to avoid that in the next build.)

So I am thinking of making my own case. The problem is partly that
getting the mounting holes precisely located in order to match up with
the trayless caddies would be quite challenging even if the sides were
made of perspex.

I wondered if there was any premade metal chassis which would provide,
say, three or six such slots, such as one would find as the front part
of a normal tower PC, but I cannot find any. I found plenty of cages
which would adapt some existing 5.25" bays to 3.5" drives but I found no
metalwork which would provide the 5.25" bays in the first place.

So, that's the problem. Any ideas for a good way to do this?


--
James Harris

James Harris wrote:
I'd like to set up a machine with a relatively high number of 5.25"
slots - maybe between eight and a dozen - but am struggling to find
suitable chassis hardware.

To illustrate what I have in mind, you could think of the front of the
finished machine as looking something like the following (monospaced)


+-----------+
| |
+-----------+
| |
+-----------+
| |
+-----------+
| |
+-----------+
| |
+-----------+
| |
+-----------+
| |
+-----------+
| |
+-----------+
| |
+-----------+


The slots would be occupied mainly with trayless HDD hot-swap caddies
like these:

https://www.startech.com/en-gb/hdd/hsb100satbk

but 5.25" bays are universal and there could be other things in some of
the slots such as a panel for USB and other ports, an optical drive or
two, etc. And one slot could be taken up with an array of up to six bays
for 2.5" drives such as

https://www.icydock.com/goods.php?id=231

That would make a sweet server - which is its purpose. Unfortunately,
pre-built cases with many 5.25" slots are in short supply and I have my
doubts about how well they cool the hard drives. (I have a machine like
that at the moment but I believe its poor cooling led to some drives
overheating; I want to avoid that in the next build.)

So I am thinking of making my own case. The problem is partly that
getting the mounting holes precisely located in order to match up with
the trayless caddies would be quite challenging even if the sides were
made of perspex.

I wondered if there was any premade metal chassis which would provide,
say, three or six such slots, such as one would find as the front part
of a normal tower PC, but I cannot find any. I found plenty of cages
which would adapt some existing 5.25" bays to 3.5" drives but I found no
metalwork which would provide the 5.25" bays in the first place.

So, that's the problem. Any ideas for a good way to do this?

They used to make things like that, 20 years ago.

https://www.servercase.com/Merchant2...e1to11-300.gif

There was one brand famous for making stuff like that,
but I've forgotten the brand. Maybe "Inwin" ? This
example is a shadow of its former self.

https://www.in-win.com/fr/gaming-chassis/GRone/

( https://www.in-win.com/fr/gaming-chassis/list/71 )

*******

But one thing to remember, is modern drives have the
SATA connector, and the SATA power+data are designed
for "backplane" use. That means the connector is capable
of hot swap. What you ideally want, is for the power
to be switched off, and the spindle stopped moving, before
popping the latches and pulling the sled away from the
backplane.

This is why SATA docks work. They have a connector, where
the drive can be slid into place. But the dock has the
unfortunate orientation of "vertical", as in "toaster",
and docks aren't all that stable when standing up.

The backplane concept extends to rackmount servers. They
have a backplane, with cables coming off the back end, going
towards other equipment inside the server. The drives
slide in from the front.

To make a backplane concept work, the slots only need to be
4" wide for the 3.5" drives. The platters are 3.5", the
outside of the drive is a different size. And if the drive
is a bit constrained (connector always has same offset from
the bottom of the drive), then no matter whether a
3.5" drive is 0.8" high or 1" high, it will slide along
the surface and the connector will mate. The width dimension
is constant so all the 3.5" drives will fit on width.

Depending on your penchant for tipping over the assembly,
having a restraint to prevent tipping damage would help.
If the server tips over in an earthquake, the SATA connectors
could get snapped, because the 0.8" drive has "wiggle room"
vertically in its slot.

But having 5.25" slots, that might have been a
necessity when IDE ribbon cables existed, and ribbon
cables were not backplane compatible. By switching to
another connector standard, perhaps you could make
a hotswap carrier for the less-than-ideal IDE drives.
But now that SATA exists, the housing can be a bit
smaller, and it can take advantage of the backplane
compatible SATA connector design.

SATA was designed from the ground up for backplanes.

It's usage in desktops was an afterthought, which is
why the first generation kit had no "cable retainer"
and the cables used to fall off on desktops.

Paul

On Tue, 22 Dec 2020 16:00:15 +0000, James Harris
wrote:

I'd like to set up a machine with a relatively high number of 5.25"
slots - maybe between eight and a dozen - but am struggling to find
suitable chassis hardware.

Last and most I had in an 8-bay was probably 6 5.25s and 2 3.5". I
was running 4 DVDs in it, and though that would have been before SSDs,
5.25 hot-swap enclosures were in use, just not recognized yet as does
the modern OS (to require a restart). Cooling wouldn't have been
stellar, as I recall running extra fans from splitters I'd variously
arranged, for nonetheless a somewhat hot case, at that time, maybe
pre-1GHz processors, certainly below 2GHz prone to stability issues
where approaching 120F and over.

Skipping forward, eventually an Antec "Lanboy" case design showed up,
a popular item among cases at half off on a $50/US sale. All aluminum
case design with nylon carry-straps, promoted for carrying to
lan-location game gatherings or some such notion. The aluminum
actually is quite impressive, even for dated and still within its
modern 120-200mm fan provisions for a direct cross-flow, front and
lower intake to mid-tower backplane exit.

The upper 4 5.25 bay cage, though aluminum, along with an additional 4
5..25 bays behind the front intake, are half-&-half tradition and
cross-mounted HDDs (longer HDD length mounted side-to-side both case
sides, with two 3.5 drive enclosures old-style and connectors facing
the back-plane). Proprietary shock rail interfaces for the lower
section. Somewhat of a mess to look it up for better visualization.

I run with a caseside panel removed (opposite the MB, though I haven't
cooling issues to deal with them), which may be tricky for mechanical
drives.

As for an all aluminum tower, its probably smaller by 6" to slightly
more, than the first towers, and looks to be about 20" tall sitting
next to me.

I'd watch out for the aluminum design. It may seem as soft as a
beercan, but handle it well and its addictively light. Like I said,
read and weep for on occasions a $50 sale item then. God only knows
what (usually expensive) cases are at now in aluminum, hopefully not
$300. Making one might be interesting, although that's perhaps what I
might be thinking were I fabricating -- Home Depot or whoever else
carries sheet aluminum. (Probably easily enough to cannibalize if
results needn't look especially pretty, brushed and dressed.)