PC Cases with Side or Top Mounted Drive Bays?

Coplan asks: "I'm a computer musician, and I have a couple of those drive-bay interfaces in my computer. While it is nice to have such cables and ports easily accessible, they can easily get in the way on the front of your case. Ideally, the ultimate case would be one where there were drivebays on the sides or the top of the case for this purpose (or even a special shaped case). I'm not into modifying my cases with dremel tools and the like, but I havn't exactly found a commercially available solution either. I believe that someone in the slashdot community might have similar needs, and might have found such a solution. Does anyone have any recommendations?"

Computer Musician

[Hank Reardon]

Being a keyboardist myself, I understand the problems with finding computer cases for my gig kit.

After searching in vain, I finally gave up and bought a rack mount case. Supermicro has a nice 2u case that has 6 (six!!!) spaces on the front for removable HD chassis.

There are pleanty of SCSI removable chassis for $25 or less, and a couple of solutions for ATA drives. I'm using a SCSI system myself, but the new ABIT board with the over abundance of ATA interfaces (something on the order of 14 devices IIRC) would probably be a good match.

The only drawback is the lack of ports on the front. I fixed this by making a 1u plate out of annodized aluminum with all of the jacks that I'd need on the front.

This all sits in a nice anvil-like case that I built out of MDF and carpeted. There's a trunk-like spot in the top that holds my 15" LCD, keyboard and trackball.

I don't use the computer too much for gigging, but when I'm recording with the band, it comes in handy.

Good luck!

Re:Computer Musician

[Hank Reardon]

Thanks.

I forgot to mention that little fact. I use a Yamaha SY77 as the main MIDI controller and a couple of rackmount tone modules for the rest of the rig.

Add in some rackmount effects and everything's complete.

Supermicro God Case

[gabec]

since you mentioned the supermicro case, i thought i'd go ahead and send a link. I'm not sure if the term "supermicro god case" was just a reverent term used by my compatriots or whether it's really called that somewhere else, but it's actual name is the SuperMicro SC-750A.

http://www.arstechnica.com/reviews/1298/sc750a.htm l

Re:Supermicro God Case

[Strog]

He was talking about the SC822 series rackmount [supermicro.com] cases.

I do love the Supermicro 750/76x cases. I've built dozens of systems over the years with these cases and they just get better. I loved when they dumped the drive rails and added redundant fans in the power supply. You can move a hot running system over to these cases and it will run much cooler. Great air flow and cooling without needing all the fans available

Rackmounts

[adamy]

One machine I've worked with that is very easy to access is the Dell 4U Rackmount. It is a top end machine, so I don't recommend people go out and pick one up for personal use, but it is almost completely toolless in it's approach, rich down to the rails. The only place you need a screw driver is if you want to go in to where the CPUs and Cards are. One screw, to make sure you really want to do it. The drivces are hot swappable, requireing only a push of a lever. The Power supplies are triply redunadant and again are hot swappable w/out tools.Even the fans.

I'd love to see some of that technology come down to the PC. 4 Hard drive bays, where you can add and mount a new disk system. MMMM

I assume your big complain is that the sound car your using has a port off the fron of the machine, where you are pluggin in MIDI/Mic/Speaker cables and you want to be able to have that separate from the Hard drives?Personally, I have a tower, and keep emn separte through sheer bulk, but it isn't really a scalable solution.

welding atx cases together

[dimitri_k]

There have been people who weld ATX cases together (or AT cases [rit.edu], as the case may be), in order to get more drive bays in front.

You could just as easily turn the top addition around to face the back. That way all the cables going into the drive bay interface will be in the back of the new conglomerate case. The back of the addition (where the other case's power supply would be) would now face the front of the Frankencase, and could be used for ventilation.

Re:welding atx cases together

[Papineau]

No need to weld anything. Check the Yeong Yang [yeongyang.com] cube case (02 serie), or the Chenbro [chenbro.com.tw] server line. Plenty of room in any of those (up to 12 5 1/4 bays in the SR101).

But I think the original poster asked for a case with bays not only facing in front, but also either up or on the side (so his cables would go in different directions and be less cluttered).

For that, one of the small P4 cases recently featured on Slashdot might be useful, as a secondary case, or any minitower for that matter.

Turn your case on its side

[redog]

Then you could use all that room on your Fulltower as a small shelf.

Need More info

[ScumBiker]

How many interfaces do you have in the front that it's causing such a mess? Anyway, I would go with the 1u rack mount option like the guy above. There's a ton of small rack boxes, I use one for my solid state guitar rig. I plan on buying a 1u rack mount case and building a custom PC for recording and for holding synth hardware. Otherwise, learn how to use that dremel you mentioned.

Re:Need More info

[Coplan]

A brief setup of my front rig:

CD Drive
CD-RW Drive
SB-Live Drive
DMX 6Fire Interface
Zip Drive
Floppy drive (ok...so I don't really use this)

Plugged into those two bays: Digital Audio Out cables two sets Midi In-Out cables Audio-In (4 plugs total) from MIDI Devices and other devices Sometimes, even a headset

The problem is that I have cables coming out the front of my case, which is functional, but messy. The interfaces have lots of knobs that I often play with...so I want access to them. I just don't want so many cables getting in the way of my other drives and my overall aesthetics of my room.

Hope that clears it up.

Spinserver

[addaon]

Consider looking at http://www.spinserver.com. These are rackmount cases that are designed to bring the expansion slots to where they're accessible; the front. However, they also make perfectly reasonable desktop-style (flat, not tower) cases; several of my friends use them that way (I recommend the 3U for this purpose). What you would want to do is use the whole thing backwards... have both drives and slots away from you. The only wire blocking your desk would be a power wire... I don't know of any case that comes closer to your demands, although admittedly this isn't perfect. Also, if you have other musical gear, the 19" rack formfactor may be a selling point. If not, take off the ears and just put it on the table.

side mounted connector ports?

[darkonc]

It seems to me, from reading the original article, that what the poster really wants is side-mounted access ports (sound, (tv) video, USB, etc) a side/top drive bay is just an easy way to get that. (there's not much reason to have a DISK bay side mounted, much less top mounted)

Is this correct?

Re:side mounted connector ports?

[Coplan]

The goal is to prevent the clutter that ultimately exists on the front of my computer. It gets in the way of my other drive bays, and generally makes my computer look cluttered. It is, but I don't really want to see all those cables all the time. Side mounted, top mounted...it doesn't really matter.