Cheap case with lots of 3.5" slots - any ideas?

The customer I'm currently building a 2600k based powerhouse for has a pile of 2tb USB drives he currently uses to store his pretty huge media collection, and has basically latched onto a passing notion I sent his way about having a dedicated server instead of constantly swapping drives in and out. He's thinking about repurposing his current c2d system into a Windows Home Server and I have told him that there should be no reason I can't tear those USB drives apart and pull the drives and fit them inside a case with proper SATA connections instead of the USB2 ones he's using now.

Last time I checked, pretty much every USB hard disk on the market in the 2TB range is a stanadard SATA drive in an enclosure with a USB-SATA board and not much else so that part really shouldn't be a problem.

The problem, is having laid out a hefty chunk of case to get this new system built, he wants to keep the cost of this machine down. His current case is unlikely to be able to handle the number of drives he wants (he thinks 15 SHOULD be enough lol) so I'm throwing it open to you guys.

We're talking basic non-overclocked c2d with 2GB ram running WHS version 1 with around 15 SATA drives installed. Anyone know of a case which won't break the bank which will take as many of those drives as possible which I can then maybe mod to take all of them? I've been looking at 5 in 3 drive bays and cases like the original armor or stacker but with 3 of those adapters and the case, it's rapidly getting expensive....

Any suggestions for a cheaper solution - cooling is relatively important as there will be a fair amount of heat from the drives but he is NOT into bling and lights - something relatively plain and simple is the way to go.

I'm thinking it may be easiest to get a cheap plain case, cut out all of the internal drive bays and make a simple custom hard disk rack using a couple sheets of steel or plexi and literally just have a huge single stack of drives but maybe someone out there has a better idea.....

maybe an antec 300 and use plexi to mount the drives?

WOW... 15 HDDs on the cheap?

This case has 10 5.25" bays. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811517006

Use 3 of these and get 12 HDDs in it. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817993002

or get your plexi on.

I second the 300.

But the stock HDD is, IMO, a waste of space.
Yes, you need good ventilation around your HDDs. Not THAT much, Antec!

I'm thinking this case actually having had a dig around...

http://www.caseking.de/shop/catalog/...ack::7559.html

6 drives as standards, then 12 5.25's - I can just use basic converters to put the rest in and still leave a couple bays spare... http://www.caseking.de/shop/catalog/...ler::6322.html

6990 euros?????????? or am i reading that wrong..

69.90

Quote:

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Originally Posted by diluzio91

6990 euros?????????? or am i reading that wrong..

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They use a comma instead of a period in Europe. It comes out to just over 100 us dollars.

Ya Eruopeans are weird :P

lol.... i spaced there for a moment. It's a good thing i'm only mostly crazy i suppose.

How about one of these plus a 4-to-3 drive bay adapter and the included single 5.25 to 3.5 and you have a grand total of 15 3.5 drive bays for the cost of the case and one adapter!

Mainly because it's almost double the cost and he's blown his savings on the i7 system I'm building for him - speaking of which - those last two boxes of parts better arrive tomorrow!!!

The Sharkoon looks good. Though, do keep in mind that the additional nine 5.25/3.5 adapters will add another ~44 euros.

I can get those locally for a chunk less - in fact I think I have about 4 or 5 pairs lying around somewhere :)