***CORRECTION*** The PSU shroud is in fact removable. I saw rivets but missed that there are also screws. I think that combined with the fact that there wasnt any instruction of how to do it within the documentation led me to falsely believe it wasnt removable.
That’s pretty much just as bad as it if wasn’t removeable. Undocumented and non-obvious features might as well not exist since its not reasonable to expect an end user to find them.
@@afaulconbridgeNot sure about the manual but on their website, which features A LOT of images and info about the case, it does show it removeable. Those same images are on Newegg, for example. I recommend looking at the site to see what I mean. But also, it's pretty reasonable that most people would default to assume it's not removable because cases for the last like 5-7 years with non-removable shrouds have become the norm.
@@afaulconbridge Just wanted to clear up, not sure about the manual but their website for the case has a lot of images and details about the case and show it is removable. (I think my previous lengthier comment was removed)
My reply with photo links keeps being deleted, anyway it took literally 5 minutes of visual inspection to find the 4 screws to remove to reduce the shroud and install a 5 disks bay, the online manual that i tried to link also shows how to do it. This is definitely the case to buy for a tower NAS, i just built one in it.
Closer to the 1200 in size. Both of those can still be found on Ebay occasionally. Of course, by the time you've filled up the front with hotswap bays you're likely approaching the HL15 in price.
@@woe2you2 I have an old Antec 1200 and have been wanting to get rid of the stock sleds and replace with a back plane type adapter for years but the cost has always been a factor. Same issue you can buy a new case with all the drive bays for less than buying the back plane adapters. The 3d printed ones are an option I may look into.
@@MajorOutage It's become a bit of a meme in a Discord server I'm part of that every time someone has to 3M tape something like a small screen to a random surface in their fish tank case I'll say "imagine if there was some sort of modular standard bay where all manner of devices could be mounted..."
I have an old Antec 1200 Case. I spent $600 on 4 5X3 backplane adapters so I could run 20 drives.. I painfully bent/ beat-down 32 of those support tabs.
4:22, I have 4 optical drives in one of my desktops. Funny enough there is a case use, ripping a lot of physical media at once. Several years ago I decided to wipe out the media on our media machine and start ripping everything from scratch. At first I ripped discs one by one. Faced with a large amount of physical media to rip, it quickly became apparent I needed a better way to back up discs quickly. I added more BD drives to the desktop and found that MakeMKV is perfectly capable of ripping from several different drives simultaneously. Having 4 disc drives makes ripping an entire season of show less tedious. 12 would be an interesting experiment, but I'm not sure how you would power all that.
You should invest in some handheld metal shears. They are really for cutting metal sheets by hand (the next size up is bench mounted) and are really sharp and strong. With practice you should be able to get accurate results as well. If you're going to explore the limits of DIY, these should be in your arsenal.
@@HardwareHaven Shears or snips would not work well here as you want them to get completely flush and they aren't great in this kind of situation. They would leave a slight protusion that would scratch things up bad. Better option in this case might be a right angle adapter for your dremel. Then you could cut off the tabs flush.
@@HardwareHaven Dremel has an inexpensive right angle attachment - when combined with a an EZ lock metal cutoff wheel, it should let you to get a nice clean cut close to the inside wall of the case. Then clean up the cut with the grinding wheel.
Lose (or downscale if it's structural) the PSU shroud, replace the "shelves" with either removable shelves or remove that part of the tooling entirely, and honestly skip the grommets-this is a server case. Make all dust filters magnetic for easy cleaning, and oh yeah, OPTION FOR CASTERS. You don't have to sell them, just include a place for standard stems to fit into. Boom, case improved like that.
I have two Rosewell cases that hold 15 - 3.5" drives and there is an internal cross rail that I mounted 4 SSD drives. Included 3 front and 3 midbay fans. About $260.
You mean the 4U rack mount cases? It's crazy because I was able to grab those cases with the midwall fans for $50-$60-ish bucks off Newegg deals years ago. Great case. But this is a great example of a tower case that used to be more prevalent 10+ years ago. It's rare to find. I actually want to go back to towers instead of rack mount myself because these tower cases would allow for even more growth per motherboard for what I have already, for example. Can maximize even more with fans & radiators for quiet cooling, has even more PCI slots for more devices and creative uses, and has more 5.25" bays. For DIY workstation/server builds, they can offer more room for growth with a great motherboard. I have 4 x 4U chassis builds myself, with 3 x 2 socket X99 ASUS boards (Xeon V4s). But I still feel like a tower has its place. Everyone's different though.
Once your budget goes beyond $500, it's time to ask whether you can take a little bit of noise and $20 a month of electricity and go with an old Dell poweredge. I got a like-new R730XD for $400. front panel can take 12 drives with addition 4 in the midplane
@@harrytsang1501 I did this I have a 730XD 26x SFF filled with 2x 500GB SSD for boot and 24x 2TB SSD"s with 2x Low wattage V4 Xeons and it sips power :D
My Cooler Master Stacker ATX/BTX case has 12 5.25inch bays and currently holds 17 2TB harddrives I had laying around. I only power it up once a month to sync it to my main NAS because it does draw around 170 watts idle.
For that application, a real angle grinder would have made very short work of those tabs. The Dremel probably could have been used to cut slightly above the bend in the tab to make it easier to bend / break off.
A proper cutting disk on the Dremel would cut through those like butter - may be try cutting from the outside if possible. I removed the rivets on one case I modded to remove tabs like that then riveted the panels back in.
The Thermaltake Core W100 doesn't have any of these issues, I run it with 3 5x bay cages. it's one flaw is that while it has 12 bays, the top one has a plate with the power button, reset, front panel io, etc. You can put 4 cages in if you remove that, but you'd have to figure out a different solution for those buttons. Also it's $400, and you'll have to buy more of the L brackets to fit the cages since it doesn't come with enough out of the box. Honestly I spent way too much building this thing, but I'm pretty happy with the result so it's fine.... probably........
I built a truenas server with an older Thermaltake Commander MS-I Snow Edition. Turned out quite nice and I did use one of those 4 bay icy dock adapters
For anyone watching this looking for fill their bays with a larger 4 or 5 HDD enclosured: You can *bend* those tabs down in most cases. It might not be easy, you won't get them flush, but you usually only need to bend them down about 45 degrees or so. Some small needle nose pliers worked fine for me.
The problem I ran into was that by the time I could start getting the tabs to bend, the entire panel they were connected to would start bending substantially more
My preferred metal bending technique for something like this would have probably been a hammer, with maybe a punch, chisel, screwdriver, or pry bar to avoid having to swing a hammer inside the case. The goal being to just smash them completely flat.
It's a shame some older Cases are no longer avaible as the trend changes, but something like a small Xigmatek Asgard II is a Killer NAS Case, they run for 15-20 USD on Ebay. 7x 3.5" Bay and 4x 5.25" Bay which is enough room to store 13x 3.5" drives with 2 2 to3 or one 4 to 6 Adapter or a 3x to 5x and a 1 to 1. This is a pretty common configuration for the 2005-2015 Cases which can be picked up pretty cheap on Ebay. My Backup NAS has 9x 3.5" and 3x 5.25" Case Configuration again 13x 3.5" HDD. If you buy hot Swappable bays you can have 8 fixed drives, 5 swappable in this old Cases for around 100 USD. If you go cheap there is an 5x3.5"Adapter out there without Backplane for 25-30 USD. 50-60 USD on a used 13x 3.5" Bay Case ! Now is the Question: Do you need realy the 15-20 Max Drives? 12-13 drives are Plenty. And you can invest the saved money in bigger Harddrives. Btw Small tipp: Two Hammers, a big and a Small. The Big is the backstop and the small is to hammer the nodge flat much better and easier then to cutt it. It was bend in so it can be easily bend straight again.
I did an antec 1200 with 4 of 5x3 adapters. I wasnt comfortable with server gear so i just built a gaming rig and threw hard drives in it. Holds 22 drives
6:06 MY NEMESIS, the dumb 5.25 tabs in cases that block the bigger cages from fitting in. I usually just put a wooden piece on it and then start hammering on it to bend them out of the way a little, then finish the job with wood clamps (the type that has a screw and lever like a vice to close it, not the quick-release ones that have a trigger)
What you're missing is a manufacturing line needs to be dedicated to building this low volume, niche case. In volume, yes probably a $90 case. For essentially one off runs, $300 isn't unexpected.
@@wojtek-33 their manufacturing costs are irrelevant for the end user. Yes most of the cost is due to small production runs, but the end user is still paying 300$ for something worth much less
@@marcogenovesi8570 Not irrelevant. If you have a need for this type of case then you should expect to overpay for a niche product. This applies to any niche product.
I've been using the Anidees AI Crystal XL PRO LITE for my Home Server for about 2 years now. It had everything I was looking for in a case. I,m running multiple vm's with dedicated graphics cards, 3 3060's, 1 Tesla 600, 2 16 port HBA's, 1 dual 10GB PCIE card, and 1 160gb SLC IO Accelerator card with a dual CPU socket motherboard. This case has the room without needing a huge rackmount system. Yes it's $300.00 but it's bigger than an 011 Dynamic XL. The Crystal XL Pro also has a removable PSU shroud but I didn't have to remove mine.
I did a similar thing on my old haf stacker 915 case, used a small hammer to whack them / bend them. Sadly I didn't buy the additional 3.5inch trays to maks the top mini itx case hold 6 more drives. Nor can you get more haf stacking units
I'm going to be the party popper here. If you are going to do the aliexpress route. You should try to get 2.5 drives adapters instead. They come with a backplane, and use a single bay for a 4 or 6 drives setup each. You can get up to 72 drives this way... even tho. You will need one heck of a HBA card to control that many drives.
The problem is manufacturers trying to "add value" and look sideways at the industry instead of looking at solving customer problems - like with those "handy tabs for supporting drives." 1. Make my problem with hosting motherboards go away - all the standard formats should be supported with varying little standoffs to cope with any proprietary boards. 2. Make my cooling problem go away. Plenty of airflow and airflow options. That's front-mounted fan mounting, additional strips for mid-plane fan mounting and rear exhaust mounting so those server cards expecting airflow. Bonus points for an external shroud to carry hot air away like a tumble-dryer pipe. 3. Make my drive-hosting problem go away. I don't believe how hard manufacturers make this. Maybe its a patent problem. Rails to hold the drive in place and vibration-insulation for the HDD's. 4. Cable management. Yes please. Any new space required for any reason, just make the case larger. It isn't going anywhere that I'm paying per rack-unit. 5. Quality of life: panels need to come off easily, captive screws, make sure the thing doesn't vibrate. 6. Flat-pack is fine to saving on shipping. I feel most of the adjustability issues can be handled by a metal strip with lots of holes in it and some markers like a ruler to help you line things up. Its just a box into which I need to place things, hold them firm and blow air across them.
Another great video. Fractal Design Meshify 2 (and XL) are just the best cases for custom NAS builds. I have a FD Meshify 2 with 5 Exos X18 drives and 6 x 140mm fans and the system is pretty silent and with great airflow. No need for the sound dumpening foam on Define 7. For small builds Jonsbo N5 is a great option too when available.
Sounds like the cost is at least partly amortizing such a large case's tooling and partly that they know that if you want a case like this they have you over a barrel for new options, so it doesn't have to be "good". This is looking to be my only real off-the-shelf workstation case option for the foreseeable future, so it's really disappointing that it sucks so much.
I wonder if you could take the $$ for the case convert it to filament spools and then just print a case..... (I know people have covered 3d printed pc cases) but one that's meant to fit on smaller printers that could slot together like legos or something would be cool.
For cutting a lot of metal in a very short time, think angle grinder. That's what people use for big jobs. You just have to be very careful when using them as they are the scariest most powerful tool you can get your hands on. They don't get into little corners but they have enough reach to remove things like tabs or cut large metal planes (as long as you have space to maneuver a 5 inch spinning disk).
2x5,25" hotswap bays have no problem with the metal tabs, fit 3 drives and you can put 6 of those in this case, for 18 drives total. That's only 2 drives less than using four 3x5,25" five drive bays :) IMO external hotswap bays are the only option for NAS unless you have specialized storage server case w/ easily removable top panel+backplane **and** rackmount it with rack rails so you can easily pull it out to access the interior. The usual workstation/office PC/gaming PC cases with less than four 5,25" bays where you have to remove the side panel(s) to access the internal HDD bays and fiddle with cables to remove the drives is an absolute no-go.
I was just looking for a case with tons of 5.25 bays and was considering this one, maybe you should look at others. i need lots for cd/dvd drives, hot swap 3'5 and 2'5 caddy's etc etc.
I had the thought on what it would look like to use a DVD/CD duplicator as a DAS of some kind (lower speeds probably, but seems like it would work). Maybe as like a local backup?
Aliexpres also sell 1 bay 6* 2,5" hdd adapters. You can get 1T or 2T hdd or even ssd:s quite cheap so that would have been route for me if i really have that kind of money... Imagine to pluging 72 sata cables to get 72 terabytes or more space 😂
Second hand Dell t630 - You can get the case, 2 CPU's somewhere between 64 and 256GB ECC Ram (the ECC bit is important if you are dealing with that much data), 16 SAS 3 bays (takes 3.5 inch SATA drives), a remote management/IPMI/remote KVM, bi-furcatable (thats a word - honest) PCIe slots etc etc. All the alerting and 'grown ups' server toys you could ever want want and so much more for about 500US. Its all 10 yr old hardware but like a Mercedes it was a long way ahead of consumer stuff all that time ago so is perfect for home-labbing truenas/unraid/vmware/proxmox/xp-ncg etc today. That does not however get you a 3D printer. Everyone should have a 3D printer. 🙂
The cheapest drive cages I’ve bought were the Rosewill RSV-SATA-Cage-34 at about ~$35 USD each on sale (I have 6 of them). There is or was a 3 bay model that was nearly identical with an articulated front mesh dust filter but that was sold by a different OEM. As for case, the old Antec 900 is a personal favorite of mine. It could probably be had off of eBay for about ~$100 USD. You could also just buy a new Rosewill RSV-L4500U 4U Server Chassis for under ~$300 USD.
i'd be curious about the value propisition of buying a server disk shelf with a dead procccessing/raid board and trying to jam a computer into it to turn it into a rackmount NAS. it seems like lots of them should have just enough room for the guts of a mini pc or even an ITX mobo, and i have seen ones where the backplane plugs into that processor board using SFF-8088 or other similar plugs internally.
HA! I literally have this case in my list for what will soon be my new main PC. Never thought I would see another person review this case. Coming from my Rosewill Thor V2, I am super excited for this case!
I like the idea of those mega 5.25" bay cases with 2.5" drives for density (12*6*8TB is 576TB raw storage, minus a whole bunch due to not getting 8TB and then for parity over the stripes) though $300 for the case is going to pale in comparison compared to the storage costs, though the same would be true for 20 high density hard disks (even refurbished 10/12/14TB disks, you're looking at $2000ish just on storage)
Hey, wouldn't a Supermicro CSE-847 chassis be a better option? They are available on that popular auction site for $500 and include redundant 1280 W Platinum PSU's and 36 Drive caddies/trays with SAS3 backplanes...
I think I'd go with the jonsbo n5 over this if anybody freaking knew when it would release. even jonsbo themselves are quiet on the release date. It sucks and seems like a major oversight by case manufacturers that there are so few ATX nas case options with hot-swappable drive bays. Ive looked and Jonbo's upcoming case, this one and another from silverstone are pretty much the only options. And the silverstone has a questionable lack of cooling and fewer drive slots.
Those tabs.... wasted a bunch of time and effort. Smack em with a hammer and use a flat blade to just bend them out the way. No need to cut them off. Now, on the cases with 10,12,15 drives.... These are made by people who in my opinion HAVE NO CLUE. Every SAS card made does 4 drives per SAS port, every card I've seen has multiples of 2 SAS ports. OS drives can run off the MOBO as are usually SSDs. So 2 2.5drives and multiples of 8 on HDDs is ideal. On the power supply shroud, is that not removable with screws? Even then, you took a dremel to the 5.25 bays, why stop there, cut that bitch up and make the bottom ones fit. In for a penny, in for a pound. it's already non-returnable.
before 2007 there was the cooler master stacker (STC-101) the original big case with all 5.2" drives in the front. a very sturdy case, with also 12 5.25" slots, of which one was used for the frontpanel with USB and the start button and such. so 11 usable 5.25 slots - side panels were strong/thrick and it came with both feet and wheels in the box to put under it, (you could swap to what you prefered. the best part: only 170 euro. how i know that ? i had it and used it along time for my fileserver with 3x 5-in-3 and 1x 3-in-2 (3.5" sata in 5.25 drives) for a total of 17 HDD's. still have the case taking up space somwhere, but withoutany pc-hardware in it for several years.
I have an antec 1200 in my shed collecting dust. Enormous case, has 12 3.5 bays I think. Got it in a bundle of old parts for $40 aud which had 2 z68 boards, 1 z77 board, b350 itx, another beat up antec 1200 and some older aerocool case. Such a steal. I'd send the monstrosity to you for a video if I wasn't in Australia.
Could one 3D print a stand for a 2U rackmount case, swap the fans for quieter ones (maybe replacing shrounds), and end up turning something like a Dell 730xd with 26x2.5” home NAS (with hot swap)?
if you're into that you can also just get some old disk chassis (scsi hvd etc) and replace the backplane and PSUs with put to date stuff. retro look guaranteed. The blue DEC storage ones were pretty, also the very old ones with the single disk 5.25" cages etc. best option would be the really sick old stuff like Hitachi DF-300. I would love to rebuild one like that just the hard disk fairy never came and sponsored me a two dozen Seagate EXOS 2X18 TB SAS drives.
I have two cases that I've used in the past that are bays top to bottom (CoolerMaster). The adapter bays I used had fans onboard, were hotswap, and turned the drives on their side to fit more drives in the space available. Wiring was a GIANT PITA! Worked great for a long time though until I moved to a NORCO and then later Supermicro 4U which are WAAAY better - 24+ drives. They also aren't cheap these days and can be loud as hell until you do some fan swapping and a PSU upgrade to an SQ class unit...
As someone whose home lab is built around performance per watt and compact form factors I am immensely frustrated that nearly all NAS cases are 3.5 inch bays with 2.5 inch drive adapters. I run all M.2 or 2.5 inch SSDs so the prospect of a tower with 5.25 inch bays that I can insert a couple of 6 x 2.5 inch SSDs (See Icydock) or even M2 drives is very appealing! Give me a power supply with USB - C and some trays to mount SBCs into those 5.25 inch bays so I can finally have a micro rack and it is EASILY worth that asking price.
I would just get a 3d printer and print my own case but it would come at the cost of time by cutting smaller paces of the model in the 3d software to fit on the print bed then gluing them together
I got a Rosewill nighthawk 117 in 2019 for $120. I have 12 HDD installed for my media server / guest gaming PC. Its a heavy, big case, but it got the job done.
Reminds me of the cooler master stacker I had in the mid 2000s. 11 5.25” drive bays and no power supply shroud stopping you from using all the bays. I had 12 drives in that thing using their 4 drives into 3 5.25” bay adapters, and it was a good thing it came with wheels because it was so heavy/hard to move otherwise.
Hey there, quick question as I'm planning to build my first NAS very soon.. What are the advantages of using a HBA card vs plugging straight to the mobo SATA ports? Thanks
You should have used a 90° angle attachment for your rotary tool. Furthermore things would have been far more easy if you cut em latches from the outside of the 5.25" rails. THX for all the nice vidz you make & greets from Austria. 👋🏻
Ahh - more than 10 years ago Sharkoon had the Rebel12 - basically the same idea with 12x 5.25 bay up front and a lot of room in the case. Might have also been on e the first cases that put the power supply at the bottom... God I'm old xD
i just bought a fantec 2563 src-2012x07 and im pretty happy with 12 12g sas hot swap bays for 240€ :) yes its rack mount, but its a small one i promise!
I still have an old case without a front panel lying around for when I can afford the parts to a server. It has 5 5.25" bays, 2 2.5" bays and 5 3.5" bays. With some extra parts, that can accommodate 37 drives.
It's expensive yes, but if you look at like a good looking woman you might get lucky enough to get one at a good price. Let me explain, The saying goes, "Show me a good looking woman, and I'll show you a guy that's tired of dealing with her, and can't wait to move on. " Hahaha That said, I'm sure there's someone who purchased this case and can't for someone to take it of their hands because they're tired of dealing with it 😅.
did that years ago with Cooler Master CM Stacker STC-T01-UW still using it for a file server with unraid - i used different 5 in 3 from icydocks and another brand i don't remember - as i was building the server i added more cages and drives - if you can find one used - they are much cheaper than most cases and have the option of having a top or bottom power supply
There's a case from the 2000s or 2010s that has very much the same vibe and very much pre-dates the PSU basement era. If you can find one of those, I'm sure it doesn't cost $300. I want to say it was a Thermaltake case.
i have this case with 4x5 hot swap bays for 20 drives running zfs. It was the only case i could find that replaced my old antec 1200 case that was falling apart after 10 years. I like it, but the bottom of the case was hard to deal with. especially with 2x 8 port lsi cards
I really don't get the point of this case, ok, is massive and allows a lot of hdd, but in some cases, is a better idea to get it a bit diy with old servers backplane, and a raid card, in it allows you to get sas drives, that is way cheaper in my country for example, than big data drives.
One minor nitpick about the case (and others too I guess) that would be used in a server-like configuration: they really should be putting things like the power button and USB ports on the front instead of the side. This would make it easier for anyone that had multiple of them packed together and would allow you to fit the case in much tighter spaces.
take a clue from red shirt jeff and purchase yourself a sawzall my friend - bent out he tabs a bit and then slice them all off on each side in3 minutes with a nice fine tooth metal cutting blade - no major effort and no hemming and hawing, just simple 15a milwaukee precision, then bent tabs back in after having cut them and maybe used the grinder on them. this was good content - heck who the hell does not want 20 drives plus 5 ssd and then 3-4 nvme on the mobo - practically nobody does not want this amount of storage at their beck and call - it is r/data hoarder heaven basically - then you only have to get 3-4 of them. alas the case is way too expensive - why not get thick aluminum and weld your own cases and have a free welder after the job is done for the same amount of money ? ok you may have to haunt some scrapyards to complete the mission but that in and of itself is an educational wonderland that beats brilliant without the recurring saas fees....maybe you can attempt something like i am talking about in the future - maybe go even bigger and more modular, computer cases are boxes - they are not that tough to fab - you can build boxes with a little ingenuity and the right tools.
I actually have this case for my daily driver system lol. The grommets are the same on mine too, think the problem is that the rubber isn't firm enough to hold it's shape and stay in place. It's definitely got it's quirks, but I like it overall. My main system isn't exactly typical so this thing was one of the few modern cases that could accommodate everything.
not your best video. you should have passed on this case. even for half the cost it's a huge POS! still a huge fan. just cause a random vendor send you a massive turd DON'T spend you time polishing it.
Why did you make this way harder than it needs to be? You criticize the case for not fitting your jank method but don't just buy mounts from aliexpress for no money at all...?
Its most likely because you are running into the limit for the HDD rail .....spinning up that many drives at once causes issues for a single PSU I think.
Easy answer regarding the missing drives, i have just had the same issue, and awaits a sata controller pcie card. - Your NVMe drive disables two sata plugs on your motherboard
It seems that buying used 12 front bay servers isstill the cheapest option. 430 got me a full used server like that including sas controller and all drive caddies
i went from a case with 9 x 5.25 bays that i put 3 5hdd hotswap bays into. so 15 drives. but the backplanes on the hotswap bays started to fail and they cost too much now as no one is really making them anymore
wow, i was really close to buying this case a couple of months back but videos for it are few and far between, i had no idea the PSU shroud was in the way of the lower bays which pretty much defeats their purpose. good review!
There comes a point where attempts to keep using all the cheap parts exceeds the cost of buying a dedicated case/machine. But you wouldn’t have as many vids
Sometimes it feels like stuff and things that want to be too clever will everything than smart and needs alteration to the point you ask if it would have been cheaper and faster to "just" build it yourself. This kind of expensive case certainly sounds like it wants to be too smart while not really fitting to the intended use case! 🙄
I would rather you bought some cheap second hand old school cases and did some demo builds in them, rather than slamming on something anyone could tell was unviable just from looking at the price tag.
