Adding 5.25" bays to a mATX case?

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[H]ard|Gawd
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I'm looking for a compact case that can fit a large number of hot-swap bays to replace my current home server case. Since it doesn't seem like there is much (or anything) off the shelf that will do what I want with built-in bays, I started looking for cases that would fit multiple hot swap cages (4-in-3 or 5-in-3). Apparently thats fairly uncommon as well, so now I'm looking at doing a little modification.

I was thinking about using the Fractal Design Core 1000 because a) its cheap if I screw it up b) compact c) has a mesh front that should be easy to cut into.

Does anyone have any experience doing something like this that could make any recommendations? My main concern is my ability to fabricate a bracket that will be capable of supporting hot swap cages. It looks like I may be able to re-purpose the 3.5" support structure, at least on the one side, since its just a removable steel plate.
 
Why not just get an Antec 900 and pull out all the fan modules? Thats got like 9 5 1/4 bays. Not the smallest thing in the world, but I don't think you can get much denser for that price.
 
because I'm constrained on space in the first place. If space was a non-issue I'd go ATX full tower with bays from top to bottom. I'm currently using a lian-li pc-v354b and like the footprint, but hate how difficult it is to swap drives. I really like the u-nas NSC-800, but don't like the fact that it uses a 1U PSU, plus I'd have to completely rebuild my system around a mini-itx setup. If there was a mATX equivalent to the antec 900 that had 5.25" bays from top to bottom, I'd be all over it, but they don't seem to exist. Modding an inexpensive case to do what I want seems like a reasonable crossroads between size, cost, and flexibility, the only downside is the amount of effort I'll have to put in to do it myself
 
shyboi said:
Can you use eSata or Usb3.0 external enclosures? Or if you are looking for a cheap and effective hot swap solution I would do 2 or 3 of these: 4 Bay eSATA USB 3.0 to SATA Hard Drive Docking Station for 2.5/3.5 HDD
Click to expand...
I'm really looking for a more elegant solution. The system already exists with 6x2TB drives in a PC-v354b. I don't really want a solution that is more cluttered and clunky (externally) than the one I already have. I know that I could compromise any one of my requirements and get to a solution that would "work", but since I already have what I'd consider a compromise (trading flexibility for size), I don't particularly feel like trading one compromise for another
 
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Picked up that Fractal Designs Core 1000. I'm thinking that it will work well for this purpose. There are no normal style 3.5" cages, and the bar that supports the HDD's runs directly down from the existing 5.25" bays, which means it should be very easy to re-purpose to support 5.25" mounting with some creative drilling.
 
That's a very slick and simple looking case. I like it. Are you going to do include any cooling systems (fans or liquid)?
 
The hot swap bays have fans built in. The CPU is an old re-purposed s775 intel (sorry sam ;) CPU that has been downclocked and is running a stock HSF IIRC (i don't open the box up much) I don't plan on doing anything fancy here either, just small, low power, simple, and lots of drives!
 
Update on this one. Pics here: http://imgur.com/a/4uSuB

Modification: Cutting out the front of both the case and the fascia to allow the case to retain a more "finished" look while still accommodating the hot-swap bays was very easy due to the design of the front fascia (mesh inside a frame). I was also pretty easily able to re-purpose the side HDD support to mount the hot-swap bays by drilling a couple holes. I'll need to "mill" out the bottom of the fascia a bit if I want to add another hot-swap bay. There should be enough room for a 3-in-2, but it will be tight.

Assembly: Internally the space was extremely tight, with about 2-3" of clearance between the PSU and the top hot-swap bay. Luckily my PSU was already a modular unit, since there is almost zero space for excess cables. More critically, my old motherboard didn't fit. It was about 0.5" too wide (8.6") to clear the bays. It actually could physically fit, but the ATX power connector was totally obstructed. In my search for a replacement motherboard I had to limit myself to mATX boards that generally follow the "narrow" mATX layout, like a hybrid of ITX/DTX width (~6.5") and mATX length. I wound up purchasing a gigabyte H81M-DS2V and celeron G1820. This was kind of a bummer since it negated the big advantage of rolling my own case, which was to upgrade the case without the cpu/mobo purchase required by existing cases (i.e. the U-NAS or Silverstone 8-bay ITX cases). Still, in terms of overall cost I'm still noticeably ahead of either of those two options, with the possibility of adding more bays (11 max vs 8). Obviously power and heat are noticeably lower as well for the haswell than the wolfdale that was in there previously.

I'd say the operation was generally a success, though it won't be complete until I attempt to put another drive cage in. Right now I haven't done a proper mod to re-locate the power and usb ports since I have open space in the front fascia (aka I just have the existing port cluster hanging out there) I will probably attempt to mod the power switch into the cage, as there is no other space for it on the fascia.
 
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