OK, I am working on some projects and while talking with the owner of a computer case manufacturer (they do other non computer case and metal work as well), the subject of "custom cases" was put on the table.
On the way home, I had time to reflect on this meeting and I thought;
"What would _I_ want in a computer case and what would I call it?"
This brought up a whole line of thinking and some tangent ideas. I know I have several uses for computers, from my tablet (yes I am starting to really like this thing), a gaming rig, an HTPC, workstation and server (which can also be broken down into several items like a compute node and a storage server).
Here are a few requirements I would have:
General (applies to all systems I would design)
- Noise. I would want a design that is as quiet as possible, with the ability to ramp up those fans to cool during heavy use. For servers, this would limit the chassis size, due to fan size, or completely re-imagine the entire cooling system (more on this in another post).
- Visual appeal. No one wants a butt ugly case.
- Indicator LED's. The type and ammount would depend on the function of the chassis. If the system were an HTPC sitting under your TV, then that bright green power or red HDD LED might be a little annoying.
- Cost. Someone has to pay for the parts...
- Modular. In an ideal world, many parts would be interchangeable from model to model to reduce tooling and production costs.
- Finish. Different from visual appeal, only as far as protecting the chassis (it doesn't make sense to powdercoat the parts of a server or storage chassis that will never be seen when an industrial finish would look good and last a long time).
Desktop Chassis / Gaming Rig. This is one system that would showcase the design creativity and "features" that your name brand would be known for. This is the open ended project that is never done, never enough visual appeal, never enough hidden secrets. A single socket multiple GPU beast that shatters the limitations of gaming performance
- Bling!
- Water cooling.
- Targeted for SSD's, with room for legacy HDD's and DVD ROM's (floppies? this aint no windows XP box...).
- Expandability.
- Room to store and connect all your goodies! If I was a LAN Party kind of guy, this would also incvlude places to hide all my pheripherals and transport them with the chassis as a bundle.
HTPC
- Size
- Visuaol appeal (has to sit with the other high end audio/video gear).
- Completely silent. No one wants to hear the whine of a fan or BlueRay Player during that quiet moment in the movie.
- Controlability. IR or...?
Workstation
- Support for larger dual (or quad) socket motherboards.
- Room for lots of HDD's and SSD's, with a primary focus on SSD's.
- Modular drive bays for storage media.
- Hot swappable (this has been an issue with some workstations I have built).
- Option for water cooling. (goes back to my modular approach).
- Some Bling. Not as over the top as the gaming rig, but similar possibilities in a larger more refined approach that would appeal to engineering departments (I have provided a couple of blinged out workstations to VMWare, ILM and some other Hollywood based companies).
- Dal PSU option.
- Accomodations for a second, much smaller computer to be installed (think NUC sized), with seperate PSU, and IO connections.
Server (this is a tough one for me since I have different views on what this should be. I could envision a whole line from 1U to 4U systems, all sharing similar qualities.)
- Branding. (I want _everyone_ that sees my server in the data center to know about my system).
- Hot swap drive bays. Not a must for all servers, but no-one likes dismantling a server to replace a failed drive.
- Size. Space is money in a data center. 1U would be optimal, but it would depend on the guts of the system.
- Cooling and power useage. Again, this is all related to costs of running a data center.
- Dual PSU's. (for obvious reasons).
- (I will stop here as I have hundreds of ideas on this category)
Storage box (similar to servers, I could design a whole line from SFF to 4U behemoths)
- Bult around SSD technology (another model could be built around flash storage as well, but that would be a different design)
- Hot swappable SSD's. This would mean a complete redesgn of the current sled technology. Thinner sleds mean more drives. This would also involve a backplane design (something out of my realm).
- Maximum density for eah form factor.
- Redundant psu's.
- Branding (see above).
- Optional redundant computer. This is a tricky one since space will be used mostly for storage. I can envision the sotrage box being drives and possibly controllers only, with the compute resources in the server. This would solve the HA issue.
So that is my basic list (I could go on an on with features and was not specific on a few items).
The question I have is this:
If you could have your own chassis produced and sold on the market, what features would you demand and what would be the name of the chassis?
I know I listed several different types of chassis, but focus on one or two specific models and what would make them uniquely yours.