ah sorry, I skimmed over it... long day.  Those Coolermaster R4s look good on paper but I highly doubt they do 70CFM @ 2.94 mmH2O and only 19dba, there's just no way.  That would blow the Nocuta NF-F12 out of the water and a thrid of the price.  The newegg reviews seem to indicate they aren't quiet at all.  I'm getting 28-30 during parity check with the crappy stock fans that came in my Corsair 550D.  But I'd like to get something higher quality and quiet, like the noctua N12 or P12.

 

Also after fiddling around and feeling the air flow, I think i'm going to pass on the backplanes.  I was all gung-ho to get them but the fans are restricted enough as it is, adding the backplanes will will cut the flow into the case and that would work as well for my positive pressure exhaust design.  I might even take the drive bays out and cut the space out from in between the air holes with my jigsaw to increase flow, currently it's VERY restrictive.  Just not sure if I want to deal with the rivets or not.  Regardless I ordered some 18AWG wire and SATA connectors to make my own 5 drive modular cables which should look great, even without the backplanes.

I think there's plenty of airflow in the case without mods 

 

I do agree that backplanes add some restrictions ... but with the fans blowing across the drives from the side I don't think that's an issue either -- and the convenience of the backplanes is awfully nice !!

 

ARGH i'm torn again you <profanity removed>

:)    [i edited out your profanity]

 

Are the second power ports on the BP3 just for redundancy or do they recommend you use two ports?

 

There are actually 4 power connectors on the BP3 => two molex and two SATA.  You can use either -- the top two ports (one of each kind) power the top two drives; and the bottom two ports power the bottom drive.    So you have to have two power connections -- each of them can be EITHER molex or SATA.

 

Beauty, thanks!

 

Ordering the backplanes because why the heck not, might as well pimp this case out.