I've decided to build myself a new server and looking to put this one in my rack.  I was originally looking to buy something on ebay, but I realized that I was looking at machines with CPU's that were end of life in 2010.  The reason I'm rebuilding is because I want to stay ahead of the anticipated failure of my current 8 year old machine.  Getting something that is already older than that seems like asking for trouble...

 

I've got a wall mounted rack that has about 18" of depth.  I've found some racks that will fit, but they all tend to have a fatal flaw.  For example, I found one chassis that had room for an optical drive.  That meant that the HD in front of that didn't get much airflow...  I think that if I have 4 hot swap drive bays, that should be enough.  I currently have 3 3TB data disks at about 50% capacity.  I figure that upgrading to larger drives will give me all the space I need (as opposed to needing to add drives) as I go forward.

 

Anyway, I'd like to find a chassis that will fit in my 'short' rack.  I could do a 2U or 3U (but for some reason, a 4U chassis just feels like it would be egregious).  Again, I don't want to have to take the thing apart to work on the drives, so hot swap capability (even if I end up powering the whole thing down to swap out drives).

 

The machine is in a closet in the basement, so I don't care about noise.  I don't do anything with the machine, other than stream some media and backup some laptops and photos (no dockers or VM's or transcoding going on).  Anyone have a good recommendation?

I wouldn't worry about buying older hardware, especially if its enterprise quality. For example, I just got a great deal on a Dell R710, the machine was shipped in 2010 and went out of warranty in 2014, so its a sevenish year old server. I have no doubt I will be able to run it for the next five to six years without issue. These machines were built to last, and sure you may have to replace a few fans here and there, a power supply if it fails etc, but otherwise the stuff is solid. If you are wanting newer technology that consumes less power, puts out less heat and runs quieter, then that's another story, and you will pay a premium for it but there are some good deals to be had out there for dual quad/hex core servers with plenty of bays. Your rack depth issue is unique and it will limit what you can buy, but beyond that, don't be afraid of older tech, it works and lasts.

@ashman70 thanks for the reply.  Honestly, if I didn't have the three little ones who take up all my time, I would absolutely go for a used server.  But, at least for this iteration of the server, I realize that I need to go with a 'low touch' solution.  Heck, that is why I'm going for something with hot swap drives.  Having to pull out the chasis (even for a tower), take it apart, etc. etc. even to do some little maintenance on a hard drive is more than I'm willing to commit to right now.  I don't think I can sign up for knowing that the next few years will consist of failed fans, power supplies, indicators, etc.