case for 16 + hard drives

[Pandobear]

I need a case to rebuild my media server. I currently use a silverstone media case which has 7 hard drives squeezed in, but I really would like to be able to expand the storage capacity. I would even consider a external hdd case, but it needs to support sata drives. I would also prefer if it were to be a single case to be desktop or rack style. Any advice would be gratefully received.

 

[Pandobear]

I have 18 320Gb drives to use, 6 used in the current media machine, then four each in my other two machines plus a few unused, and I wanted to put them all in one machine and keep all the storage together. I have two adaptec sata raid 5 controllers one a four port one six. I have been looking to get a sixteen port so that I have some room to expand, but due to the expense I may just get another six port, as they are happy to work together. So changing the drives would be expensive. The only external cases that I have found are £1000+ for this amount of drives.

 

[Pandobear]

Im building something similar atm, im buying a 12 Bay Case Aluminium(5.25" Tower Cases ) for £89 and then im going to custom mount the HDD on there edge, fitting 4x3.5" drives in 3x 5.25" bays....

That looks like the best plan, if I can find the Supermicro hot swap bays then that would make it neat. I have one of the 4 hdd bays with a 120mm fan designed for the stacker cases, but the hot swap bays would look neater I think.

I had looked for the YY cube cases before, and just had another look now, but no one seems to sell them anymore.

I really appreciate everyones ideas, was beginning to get a bit frustrated because couldn't find anything to do the job, but now it is definately do able.

 

[Pandobear]

I also have over 1000 DVDs, with about 400 CDs. They do take up a lot of space which is another reason for storeing them digitally. I have done that with the CD's already, so the originals are now boxed in the attic, and of course it is a lot easier to find what you are looking for when they are stored digitally.

From my original question concering the case, I have decied to go with a rack mount solution. I have a rack mounted server coming, have got a 9u enclosure and will use the coolermaster 3 x 5.25 to 5 x 3.5 bay adapters mounted on a tray to secure all the drives. I have ordered 100cm long sata cables to attach them all, but not have to consider powering them all up. The controllers do performed staggered spin up, though I am not entirely happy with powering them all from the servers on board power supplies.

Does anyone know if an ATX power supply can be used without being attached to a motherboard? I just need a decent one that can run 16 sata drives. Intel seems to recommend having 20 watts available per drive. The server is speced at supporting five drives with the included two 430 watt PSU, but again do not want to push it to run all 16 drives.

Anyone got any ideas?

 

[Pandobear]

Hi Guys

Thanks for all the advice, finally got the machine built, after serval attempts. Finished article is a LianLi V2000, with one Thermaltake 3 x 5 1/4 to 4 3.5 adapters. Used three Adaptec 2610sa hardware raid 5 cards on a Asus P5WDG2-WS board and Intel core duo E6300. The power supply is a Hiper 730 watt. It is currently running 18 drives on the raid cards, plus one for the operating system, MCE 2005. All seems ok, the raid cards support array expansion which is useful, so I was able to add extra drives to each array. Used Windows to add the three arrays together, so it does give me a measure of security, should be able to lose three drives, on three seperate arrays without data loss. I really wanted to go the RAID 6 route but the cards are just too expensive right now, mind you I think all that I would have gained is a little extra storage, and two drive tolerance, all be it on the whole array.

Now I want to complete the setup with a UPS, can anyone suggest one that would be suitable. I was looking at the OcUK value ones, but they seem very inexpensive for their claimed output. Anyone any ideas?