Tower Case with 2x 92mm fan mounts and 9 or 10 front, exposed 5.25" bays

L

ldoodle

Limp Gawd
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Jun 29, 2011
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Hy home server case is falling apart - the IO cables have all basically come apart from the panel. It's currently an Akasa Infinity case (which is probably a bit big anyway). What options are there out there now - all the decent ones I've seen are EOL (Zalman MS1000-HS2 for example).

I have 3X 5-in-3 hoy-swap drive cages.

Thanks
 
If external hotswap capability is a requirement, you are rather limited in terms of new cases. You might want to consider rackmount 4U or larger cases (and perhaps some quieter replacement fans if you aren't loading the system too heavily). The Norco RPC-4224 has 24 hot-swap bays built in. Rosewill RSV-4015L has 15 internal bays, and is cheaper (and louder) than a Corsair 750D plus all the extra drive caddies required.

What do you need to do with the 92mm fan mounts? Pretty uncommon for cases for a long time.

What's the budget here? That Norco is over $500, the Rosewill is $150. You could probably replace the cables on your current case pretty easily for a lot less money.

You can also search the used world for old cases back when lots of 5.25" was a real thing. If you're in WA, I'd make you a trade deal on my 2006 Thermaltake Armor with 11 bays :). Even has 2 92 mm fan mounts in weird places!
 
Going to be tough to find a new case to fit those needs. I would post something in the Buy Sell forum, maybe someone has a case laying around that would work and you'll get more eyeball's on your request.
 
Thanks. I'm actually in UK! The 92mm fan requirement is because I butchered an HP ML110 G7 unit because it was much cheaper than buying separately (the whole thing including PSU, board, RAM and CPU was less than £100). The only downside is the custom HP BIOS requires very specific fans (basically their own ones from this system) so I'd need to use them as I never found suitable fans or other ways around it.

It's for a home-build ESXi setup.

PS: I have found a local seller with the Zalman MS1000-HS1 which is my current option but it only has 1X 92mm fan mount. Can you get adapter plates to go down from 120/140mm to 92mm? I did look ages ago but no one seemed to have any in stock.
 
You could also design and 3D print a bracket, or just make a bracket out of almost anything. Doesn't have to mount pretty - even zip ties and cardboard would do the trick.
 
Yeah true! The ML110 G7 has slightly different mounting hole centers for CPU heatsink, with the standoffs fused to the case - used some spare meccano for that :)
 
pendragon1 said:
lol nice! pics?
Click to expand...

ha ha! Not to hand, but it was basically using some longish bolts to go right through the heatsink mounting holes, through the motherboard and then some anti-static washers between the board and nuts.

The most annoying thing about the HP BIOS is they refuse to POST without the case fans connected, and even with massively superior bigger fans (it must be expecting a certain voltage + certain RPM at boot). Plus my drive cages have fans sucking air in and right over the CPU area, plus the CPU fan itself results in temps of about 18 degrees C in current weather, going to about low 30's in the summer. For a Xeon server CPU that's nothing! The mandatory case fans contribute about 1% extra to cooling :)
 
You could always go with something like the Rosewill Thor. It has 6 external bays, but it has 6 internal spots for 3.5" drives behind a big fan. It would work unless you "need" hot swap.
 
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