I’ve been self hosting a few services on a raspberry pi-based NAS and decided I was ready to up my game. I got on eBay and found myself a decent deal on an old Supermicro dual-cpu board with an EATX form factor. Now I need a case for it.
I could rack mount it, but I’d rather have it be a standalone. I also have several HDDs in a RAID for storage, and would love something that has room for those internally. I was going to get a Darkrock Classico Max, but figured out it won’t fit an EATX board without removing the HDD cages.
Do I’m wondering: anyone out there have a recommendation for a good EATX case with ample HDD space? Anyone else got a setup like this you are happy with?
Supermicro boards go great in Supermicro 4U cases. I’m using an X10DRH-C in a case that holds 36 X 3.5" drives with a SAS backplane. You can grab a CSE-847 for 350 plus tax and shipping on ebay.
A set of cheap rack rails attached to some 2x4’s with a couple casters on the bottom and you have a rack you can stick in a closet and pull our when you need it.
The cheap rosewill cases are ok. But it you need to swap a drive (I have the 15 bay version that’s about 100 bucks I used for my server to begin with and now use it for a router with only two drives) it’s a pain to deal with. You have to pull the top, then remove screws to pull the cage for 5 drives, then pull the drive that you need to swap. It doesn’t sound like a big deal til a drive goes bad, or one of the 120mm fans that cool the drives dies.
The Supermicro is the bottom one, the Rosewill is above it.
They also make wall brackets you can hang the chassis on and it can sit on a desk as well.