[resell4]

Best Home Server Case?

With the growing popularity of home servers on the rise, I'm rather surprised that there aren't any threads on these forums that solely address home server cases.

First of all, I already know that virtually any case (ATX/mATX) can be used for a home server. But we're all enthusiasts and don't want to use just "anything" do we?

Here are some things I take into account when looking for a home server case:

Optimal cooling - I believe that this is the most important of all because of the HDDs. With a large home server (Terabytes) you have little room for failure, so keeping HDDs as cool as possible is very important for ensuring long-term life expectancy of the drives.

Ability to house 4-5+ HDDs - When it comes to small cases, finding one with large enough drive bays can become a hassle. It would seem that a HTPC case with several drive bays would be ideal.

Small case dimensions - You won't be needing room for a monster graphics card. Small, sleek, and sexy is all you need, providing it can still sport enough HDDs.

So my question is, what are you using for your home file server? Please share your thoughts if you have something that might meet this criteria. I'm essentially looking for a case that provides excellent cooling, plenty of HDD bays, and comes in a small and sleek form factor. It doesn't even have to have a 5.25" drive bay.

What I'm considering so far:

Antec Mini P180 (mATX) - This gaming case is relatively small, provides 5 drive bays, provides outstanding cooling, and appears to be a pleasure to work with (not to mention sexy). Newegg has it for $79.99 + ship. The only way this case could appeal to me more is if it were smaller and wasn't designed to house large GPUs.

Does anybody have any suggestions? There are a lot of cases on the market and I would like some advice.

Thanks.

[no2pencil]

resell4, on 12 September 2011 - 03:26 PM, said:

With the growing popularity of home servers on the rise, I'm rather surprised that there aren't any threads on these forums that solely address home server cases.

All of my servers are in a rack. I prefer to not run that in my home.

[modi123_1]

So ThermalTake's Level 10 or Level 10 GT wont' fit the bill?

First of n02 is right.. haha. Keep that off site!
Second, why is the case being seen?
Third, problem solved: RM418 with it's 48 hot swapable bays.

http://www.e-itx.com/cfi-a7879.html
http://www.avadirect....asp?PRID=11614
http://www.superbuy3...59&currency=USD

[resell4]

no2pencil, on 12 September 2011 - 07:29 PM, said:

resell4, on 12 September 2011 - 03:26 PM, said:

With the growing popularity of home servers on the rise, I'm rather surprised that there aren't any threads on these forums that solely address home server cases.

All of my servers are in a rack. I prefer to not run that in my home.

For us that cant afford a rack unit, what case would you recommend?
Seeing as its a home file server a rack is a bit too much

modi123_1, on 12 September 2011 - 07:46 PM, said:

So ThermalTake's Level 10 or Level 10 GT wont' fit the bill?

First of n02 is right.. haha. Keep that off site!
Second, why is the case being seen?
Third, problem solved: RM418 with it's 48 hot swapable bays.

http://www.e-itx.com/cfi-a7879.html
http://www.avadirect....asp?PRID=11614
http://www.superbuy3...59&currency=USD

The Level 10 case is a bit too expensive for my taste

This post has been edited by resell4: 12 September 2011 - 12:52 PM

[modi123_1]

Okay - so what is your budget? Of your fuzzy information you desire:
1. something that holds a whole mess of drives
2. something that is small
3. something that is pretty
4. something that is not expensive


How much data do you need to store? That will dictate the number of drives which in turn dictates the size; both dictate a price.

[no2pencil]

resell4, on 12 September 2011 - 03:50 PM, said:

no2pencil, on 12 September 2011 - 07:29 PM, said:

resell4, on 12 September 2011 - 03:26 PM, said:

With the growing popularity of home servers on the rise, I'm rather surprised that there aren't any threads on these forums that solely address home server cases.

All of my servers are in a rack. I prefer to not run that in my home.

For us that cant afford a rack unit, what case would you recommend?
Seeing as its a home file server a rack is a bit too much

3 of my Sun Netra 1u units were $50 each.
5 72gb scsi drives were $150.
My web server was $100, & the newly aquired updated server was free, I just had to pay for the 2 power cords & step down transformer, about $200.

Even the rack was free.

I think I pay more in a years time for the electricity & bandwidth than I did for the equipment.

[resell4]

Price isn't really an issue. That can be from 10 dollars to 300$
There should be a minimum of 5 drive bays so i have the option of adding more drives in the future.

[modi123_1]

Now I am confused. Are you trying to crowd source people to find something you might like, asking for people to explain what they have, or looking for a price check? Focus!

[no2pencil]

Why anyone runs a server (at home) on a non-commercial account is beyond me.

[modi123_1]

To house all your data of course!

[calvinthedestroyer]

Quote

For us that cant afford a rack unit,

If you are building and maintaining a server then you should know and understand the coast that come with running a good server. Like No2 said, you will pay more for the connection / hosting / backup redundancy / replacement parts and electricity.

I have 3 maybe 4 servers that I could use. But I don't since I don't have the means to keep them up. Besides, I thought everyone was going to the cloud?

modi123_1, on 12 September 2011 - 02:11 PM, said:

To house all your data of course!

I'm not letting him touch my data!

[DimitriV]

Get something like an IcyBox or a WD MyBook - they're quite good for small file sharing.

Actually I'm not sure aboutt those - if they work then sure, use them, but I'm not sure.