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Cheapest case for many Hard drives.

M

maxse

Gawd
Joined
Apr 21, 2004
Messages
516
Hi guys. I am looking to build a file server pc. I am looking at the CM STacker but it is too expensive although u can mod it with the 4in3 cage or something to have it hold 11 drives or something.

I was wondering. Does any1 know any cheaper case that I can get that can hold this many drives? Maybe one or two less is okay. I mean I really dont want to spend $180 on the stacker so if I can get just a cheap full-tower case and witht he help of u guys mod it to hold more dirves that would be awesome. Thanks in advance for your help.
 
If you're building just a giant drive array to join the Terrabyte club or something why not just build one. I imagine it's going to be external anyway. Just grab four pieces of wood/aluminum/steel/lucite/whatever, drill a mess of holes, glue it or bracket it, connect the drives, hook them all up and be done with it.
 
lol I dont have THAT much free time on my hands lol. Thats much more than I plan to do.
 
Then I think you may find yourself stuck. From my experience nterprise quality RAID towers tend to be about $2000 minumium Freddy's Deals, Enterprise quality server towers usually to run about $500 - $3000, full-sized, server cases for home/small office computers are usually between $200 - $2000, and "budget" full towers which could be used for a RAID server are usually $150 - $500.

...and we still haven't explored rack mount servers.

I'm not really a fan of the Stacker, but for what it offers it's a great monster for the price. A Lian-Li PC-75 has room for 6 internal drives, plus 3 3"ers, and an additional 6 5"ers that could be converted to HDD bays... you can pick up one of those for about $200. Also, the Yeong Yang YY-2201 Server Cube can hold 8 internal HDDs and has 6+1 front bays, sometimes you can pick that up on eBay for about $150. You may also want to check the Supermicro SC-750a which is another Leviathan of a case and you can sometimes pick up on eBay for about $150.

I think your best bet will be to watch the forums and hit eBay regularly for a used full sized tower if you're looking to hold that many HDDs but don't want to spend that much.
 
You're looking into building a file server and you're worried about the case costing too much? Do you have any idea how much it's gonna cost you for the hdd's, mobo, raid card or power supply to run all those hdds? Geez case price is the least of your worries.

Anyway, depending on how many drives you plan on using, the stacker is your only bet that is affordable.
 
Thanks everyone. Yeah I know the cost but I already have the hard drives, and just ordered the parts. I dont need raid or even SATA I am using regular EIDE hard drives ,and am going to buy a promise EIDE controller so I can add more drives if I need to. The case I decided to go with is the Stacker. It will give me a lot of room for expansion.
 
I'm curous, how many HDDs? What capacity? What are you planning on using the machine for?
 
I am getting ready to do the same thing. But I have a bunch of crappy cases laying about that are going to be shoved in a closet somewhere. If you need some hd racks look into one of these. http://www.newegg.com/OldVersion/app/viewproductdesc.asp?description=11-116-180&DEPA=0 little on the expensive side, but not having to tear the case apart to get a drive out is a huge advantage.... just think a stacker with 3 of these.... filled with 500gb hds.... man that is alot of storage. 7.5TB of storage unformatted.. Sure is alot of pr0n.
 
a friend of mine in college took an old AT case at filled it with SCSI cdroms and HDs. it worked really well. he ran a cable out the back and back in to the actual server.
 
its a media server for my HTPC. Stores movies and music... How would the guy connect all his hard drives in one case and connect them to the server computer. Thats an awesome idea for expantion but how would they get power and how would they get connected to one another without a controller in a mobo?

Right now I only have 3 drives. 1X250, 2X200. The next drive Iw ant to get is a Seage 300 or 400 gig drive but Im waiting for the price to fall belo $.50 per gig.
 
maxse said:
its a media server for my HTPC. Stores movies and music... How would the guy connect all his hard drives in one case and connect them to the server computer. Thats an awesome idea for expantion but how would they get power and how would they get connected to one another without a controller in a mobo?

Right now I only have 3 drives. 1X250, 2X200. The next drive Iw ant to get is a Seage 300 or 400 gig drive but Im waiting for the price to fall belo $.50 per gig.
Click to expand...

You could just run a second PSU in the second case, there being a spot for it and all. As for connections, just a few really long IDE/SCSI cables im guessing (SCSI ones can get fuckin long) connected to a PCI controller in the main computer through holes in back/side of the case. I was planning on doing that as opposed to buying a new case but couldnt be bothered so im just getting a CM stacker that can hold 12hdds :)
 
Thanks gys. Yea bu that case ahs no reviews. I tend not to buy things that don't gte any reviews. By the way how can the stacker hold 12 drives? It has 3 3.5" bays so 3 hard drives right there. That you can put 2 4in3s so thats 11. You are one hard drive too much! lol.
 
maxse said:
By the way how can the stacker hold 12 drives? It has 3 3.5" bays so 3 hard drives right there. That you can put 2 4in3s so thats 11. You are one hard drive too much! lol.
Click to expand...
The Stacker has 11 usable bays when shipped. Three 4-in-3 modules is 12 drives (plus 2 DVD burners up top, naturally).

If you relocate the power switch to the top and remove the stock usb hub, that opens up 12 bays, allowing 4 modules for 16 drives. (There are also 5-in-3 backplanes, allowing 15 or even 20 drives.)
 
wait the stackre has only 7 5.25 bays. that means I can put only 2 4in3 and have one left for cd-rom. Plus it has its stock 3 3.25 cages for the hard drives. Are you saying that it comes stock with a 4in3 cage?
 
maxse said:
wait the stackre has only 7 5.25 bays. that means I can put only 2 4in3 and have one left for cd-rom. Plus it has its stock 3 3.25 cages for the hard drives. Are you saying that it comes stock with a 4in3 cage?
Click to expand...

Where are you getting these figures? The Stacker (at least the original one; I know they're coming out with weird little ones) has NO 3.5" bays. It has 12 5.25" bays (one of which is used for the switch panel, but probably has room behind it to stick a hard drive).

It comes stock with one 4-in-3 adapter (why not 5-in-3 I'll never know).
 
I built my terabyte file server using an old cd duplicator case, sorta like these . The one I used is only 8 bay, like most of these, but (similar to the price you mentioned) there's a couple at the bottom of that page for ~$180, shipped.

Have you looked into older server cases? Or full towers?? Hope that helps! :D
 
There are, physically, 12 5.25" bays. They get the 3 internal/1 external 3.5" bays using a 4-in-3 cage (I believe). You can see the cage in one of the pics on newegg.
 
But their numbers are still off. With one cage, it's 8 optical bays, 3 internal, 1 floppy (or 7/4/1 with the floppy seperated). Ignore the description and use the pictures.
 
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